Jefferson

WASHINGTON — As Americans mark the Fourth of July holiday this weekend, the Trump administration is planning ahead for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence next year, a moment of reflection for a nation beset by record-low patriotism and divided by heated culture wars over the country’s identity.

‘A grand celebration’

Fireworks burst over Washington, D.C., landmarks on July 4, 1976, at the nation’s bicentennial celebration.

(Charles Tasnadi / Associated Press)

White House officials are actively involved in state and local planning for the semiquincentennial after the president, in one of his first acts in office, established “Task Force 250” to organize “a grand celebration worthy of the momentous occasion.”

The administration has launched a website offering its telling of the nation’s founding, and Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” — which he had hoped to pass by this Independence Day — includes a provision allocating $40 million to commission 250 statues for a “National Garden of American Heroes,” to be built at an undetermined location.

Trump has been thinking about the 250th anniversary for years. He invoked the occasion in his first joint session to Congress in 2017, stating it would be “one of the great milestones in the history of the world.” And in 2023, campaigning for a second term, he proposed a “Great American State Fair” to take place around the country throughout the year.

But that milestone year comes amid fierce debate over Trump’s attempts to exert government control over the teaching of American history.

In March, Trump signed an executive order aimed at “restoring truth and sanity to American history,” directing public institutions to limit their presentation of the nation’s history without nuance or criticism. “This is not a return to sanity,” the Organization of American Historians responded at the time. “Rather, it sanitizes to destroy truth.”

On the “America 250” website created by the White House, the account of the nation’s founding is outsourced to Hillsdale College, a far-right institution that was a member of the advisory board for Project 2025.

“A question over this coming year is whether the celebrations around the 250th will be used as yet another cudgel in the culture wars where the goal is to divide rather than unite,” said David Ekbladh, a history professor at Tufts University.

“The view Trump’s ‘Task Force 250’ seems to be laying out is comfortable, but doesn’t give us a full view of that historical moment,” Ekbladh said. “And a full view doesn’t reduce things to a story of tragedy or oppression — although there was plenty of both — but can show us the full set of experiences that were the foundations of a dynamic country.”

Dueling celebrations in a divided nation

In 1976, when the United States marked its 200th birthday, the festivities were prolific. Federal government letterhead was decorated for over a year to mark the anniversary. State-sponsored celebrations were designed to revive a national sense of patriotism that had been challenged by a stagflating economy, lingering trauma from the political convulsions of the late 1960s and the Vietnam War.

A full schedule of events has yet to be made public. But scholars expect echoes of 1976, when government efforts to instill pride in a weary nation met with mixed success.

“In 1976, there were dueling celebrations: official, government-sponsored ones, and ‘people’s’ observances organized by progressive groups,” said Michael Kazin, a history professor at Georgetown University. “I expect something of that kind will occur next year too.”

There are significant differences. This time, the nation will celebrate a constitutional system of checks and balances under historic pressure from a president testing the bounds of executive power.

“Two hundred and fifty years of constitutional democracy is well worth honoring,” said Andrew Rudalevige, a history professor at Bowdoin College, “but this particular anniversary is symbolic in ways that resonate exactly opposite to Trump’s vision of governance and history.”

Most of the Declaration of Independence, Rudalevige noted, is dedicated to laying out “how centralized executive authority leads to tyranny, and must be opposed.” And the document’s promise of inalienable rights and the pursuit of happiness have been a beacon of hope and inspiration to immigrants since the founding.

“So the next year will mark a hugely important tension between the version of American history that Mr. Trump and his allies want taught — and actual American history,” Rudalevige said. “We will have a sort of polarized patriotism.”

Patriotism hits new lows

That polarization has already become evident in recent polling.

A survey published by Gallup this week found that a historically low number of Americans feel patriotic, with 58% of U.S. adults identifying as “extremely” or “very” proud to be an American. That is nine points lower than last year, and the lowest figure registered by Gallup since they began polling on the matter in 2001.

Pride among Republicans has stayed relatively consistent, with 92% registering as patriotic. But it has plummeted among Democrats and independents. And pride decreased across parties by age group, with more Democrats in Gen Z — those born between the mid-1990s and mid-2010s — telling Gallup they have “little” or “no” pride in being an American than saying they are extremely or very proud.

If nothing else, historians said, the anniversary is an opportunity for everyday Americans to reflect on the country they want to live in.

“To be sure, for many people the day is just a day off and maybe a chance to go to a parade and see some fireworks,” said Ekbladh, of Tufts. “But the day can and should be a moment to think about what the country is.”

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Even some Orange County Republicans question Trump sweeps targeting immigrant workers
The deep dive: How Trump’s big budget bill would jump-start his immigration agenda
The L.A. Times Special: Trump was winning with Latinos. Now, his cruelty is derailing him

More to come,
Michael Wilner
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THE HAGUE — President Trump’s gamble in bombing Iran offers significant rewards if it succeeded in destroying Tehran’s nuclear program — and historic risks if it did not. He will get credit for success only if he acknowledges the consequences of failure.

‘You were a man of strength’

Rep. Greg Casar, a Democrat from Texas, and other lawmakers hold a news conference outside the Capitol on Wednesday.

(Bloomberg)

There are critics of Trump’s decision to order strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend. A segment of the president’s base is worried about another military entanglement in the Middle East, and a contingent of Democrats are concerned that he operated outside his constitutional authorities to wage war. But majority support exists on a bipartisan basis across Washington and among U.S. allies in Europe and the Middle East for the president’s military actions, which was on display at the NATO summit in The Hague this week.

“You were a man of strength, but you were also a man of peace,” NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, told the president as they met in the Netherlands, “and the fact that you are now also successful in getting the ceasefire done between Israel and Iran, I really want to commend you for it — I think this is important for the whole world.”

At a cocktail reception in the center of the old city, where haunting Ukrainian music played in the nearby town square, Democratic senators emphasized their hope that Trump’s military strikes prove to be an operational success.

“If we have in fact either taken out Iran’s nuclear program,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, sitting alongside Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, “or badly set it back, in ways that mean that they’re not going to get a nuclear weapon anytime soon, I think that is a good thing.”

And former President Biden’s secretary of State, Antony J. Blinken, also expressed hope that the strikes succeeded, despite criticizing the resort to military action in the first place. “Now that the military die has been cast,” he wrote in the New York Times, “I can only hope that we inflicted maximum damage.”

For two decades, Republican and Democratic presidents alike have warned of peril to the region and the world if Iran were to obtain nuclear weapons — but also of Tehran’s ability to rest comfortably at the threshold of that weapons capability, in a Goldilocks position that allows them to enjoy the strategic benefits of nuclear statehood without incurring the costs.

For more than a decade, a consensus of national security and intelligence experts in Washington has assessed that Iran made a strategic decision to park itself there, holding that capability like a sword of Damocles over the international community as it fueled militant organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, undermining U.S. interests and regional stability.

Whether or not Tehran was preparing to “break out” toward a warhead, Trump’s military action was an effort to remove that years-old threat and change the strategic paradigm — a move that has won praise from European leaders and Democrats who have grown weary of decades of diplomacy with Iran that barely moved the needle.

A 2015 nuclear agreement between six world powers and Tehran was designed to oversee Iran’s nuclear capabilities. But the deal allowed Iran to maintain its domestic enrichment program, and had provisions under which caps on its enrichment capacity would expire starting this year.

“There is no reason to criticize what America did at the weekend,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said this week. “Yes, it is not without risk. But leaving things as they were was not an option either.”

‘That hit ended the war’

Yet the risks of failure are significant.

Trump’s predecessors feared that strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, regardless of their tactical success, could give Tehran the political justification to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and openly pursue nuclear arms, driving its program further underground and out of sight. In the worst-case scenario, enough of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure could remain intact for Tehran to race to a bomb within days or weeks.

“In war-gaming the military option during my time in the Biden administration, we were also concerned that Iran had or would spread its stockpile of uranium already enriched to just short of weapons grade to various secure sites and preserve enough centrifuges to further enrich that stockpile in short order,” Blinken wrote. “In that scenario, the Iranian regime could hide its near weapons-grade material, greenlight weaponization and sprint toward a bomb.”

A preliminary report on the U.S. raid, called Operation Midnight Hammer, from the Defense Intelligence Agency lends credence to those concerns. The low-confidence assessment, largely based on satellite imagery of Iran’s bombed sites at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan, indicates that its core nuclear capabilities remain intact after the strikes despite the U.S. deployment of exceptionally powerful “bunker-buster” weapons, according to one official familiar with its findings. The Trump administration has acknowledged the authenticity of the assessment, first reported by CNN.

Satellite imagery captured days before the U.S. strike at Fordo also showed a line of trucks at the site, raising concerns that some of its enriched uranium had been removed at the last minute — a fear that Israeli officials have acknowledged to The Times.

The Defense Intelligence Agency is only one of 18 such federal agencies that will examine the operation’s success, and the Israelis will conduct their own review. But the reaction from Trump and his team to the leaked report suggests they view anything but success as a political liability that must be publicly denied.

“That hit ended the war,” Trump told reporters in The Hague, blasting the reporters who broke the story as “idiots” seeking to “demean” the pilots who conducted the mission. “We had a tremendous victory, a tremendous hit.”

“What they’ve done is they’re trying to make this unbelievable victory into something less,” he said.

The president’s resistance to the possibility of failure, or of only partial success, in the military operation could hamper the response to come. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, on Wednesday described the strikes as a moment that reinforced his government’s determination to pursue “nuclear technologies.”

“The aggression of Israel and the United States will have a positive impact on Iran’s desire to continue developing its nuclear program,” Araghchi said. “It strengthens our will, makes us more determined and persistent.”

Pressed by another reporter on whether the preliminary assessment was correct, Trump replied, “Well, the intelligence was very inconclusive,” indicating he had concluded the operation was a success before the intelligence community had completed its work.

“The intelligence says we don’t know it could have been very severe, that’s what the intelligence says,” he added. “So I guess that’s correct, but I think we can take that we don’t know — it was very significant. It was obliteration.”

‘It was a flawless mission’

It would not be the first time the Trump administration has politicized a U.S. intelligence assessment. But the Israeli government, which sees existential stakes in Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons, may be less likely to exaggerate the impacts of the operation, acutely aware of the consequences of a grave intelligence failure for its security.

An initial Israeli assessment tracks with the president’s view that the nuclear program has been in effect destroyed.

“The devastating U.S. strike on Fordo destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable,” the Israel Atomic Energy Commission said in a statement, pushed by the White House on Wednesday. “We assess that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear program, has set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.”

“This achievement can continue indefinitely,” the statement continued, “if Iran does not get access to nuclear material.”

On Wednesday, an Israeli official told The Times that its initial assessment of the damage would be supplemented by additional intelligence work. “I can’t say it’s a final assessment, because we’re less than a week after,” the official said, “but that’s the indication we have now.”

Still, just like in the United States, multiple organizations within Israel’s national security apparatus are expected to weigh in with assessments. The Mossad, Israel’s main intelligence agency, has yet to complete its review of the operation, an Israeli official said.

A spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry also said Wednesday that its nuclear installations were “badly damaged” by the U.S. strikes. But it remains unclear whether Iran was able to move fissile material and enrichment equipment to another facility before the strikes occurred — or whether it had previously hidden material in reserve, anticipating the possibility of an attack.

All of those pressing questions, to Trump and his aides, are the chatter of critics.

“It was a flawless mission,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in The Hague. “Flawless,” Trump replied, nodding in approval.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: ‘Scared to be brown’: California residents fearful amid immigration raids
The deep dive: Most nabbed in L.A. raids were men with no criminal conviction, picked up off the street
The Times Special: Trump’s attack on Iran pushed diplomacy with Kim Jong Un further out of reach

More to come,
Michael Wilner

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SACRAMENTO — California really does still have a Legislature, even if you haven’t been reading or hearing much about it. In fact, it’s currently making a ton of weighty decisions.

They’ll affect many millions of Californians — with a gamut of new laws and hefty spending.

But the lawmakers’ moves have been slipping under the news radar because of our focus on more compelling non-Sacramento events — including protests against overzealous federal immigration raids in Los Angeles, President Trump’s power trip of calling up the California National Guard over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s objections and Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla’s being shoved to the floor and handcuffed for simply trying to ask Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a question.

Plus congressional wrangling over Trump’s “Big Beautiful” ugly, debt-hiking bill — and the eruption of a Middle East war.

Meanwhile, it’s one of the busiest and most important periods of the year in the state Capitol. This is budget time, when the Legislature and governor decide how to spend our tax dollars.

The Legislature passed a $325-billion so-called budget June 13, beating its constitutional deadline by two days. If it hadn’t, the lawmakers would have forfeited their pay. But although that measure counted legally as a budget, it lacked lots of details that still are being negotiated between legislative leaders and Newsom.

The final agreements will be tucked into a supplementary measure amending the main budget bill. That will be followed by a long line of “trailer bills” containing even more policy specifics — all currently being hammered out, mostly in back rooms.

The target date for conclusion of this Byzantine process is Friday. The annual budget will take effect July 1.

Some budget-related issues are of special interest to me and I’ve written about them previously. So, the rest of this column is what we call in the news trade a “follow” — a report on where those matters stand.

Prop. 36

For starters, there’s Proposition 36 funding.

Californians cast more votes for Proposition 36 last year than anything else on the ballot. The measure passed with 68% of the vote, carrying all 58 counties.

Inspired by escalating retail theft, the initiative toughened penalties for certain property and hard-drug crimes, such as peddling deadly fentanyl. But it offered a carrot to drug-addicted serial criminals. Many could be offered treatment rather than jail time.

Proposition 36 needs state money for the treatment, more probation officers to supervise the addicts’ progress and additional law enforcement costs. The measure’s backers estimate a $250-million annual tab.

Newsom, however, was an outspoken opponent of the proposition. He didn’t provide any funding for it in his original budget proposal and stiffed it again last month when revising the spending plan.

But legislative leaders insisted on some funding and agreed on a one-time appropriation of $110 million.

Woefully inadequate, the measure’s backers contend. They’re pushing for more. But some fear Newsom might even veto the $110 million, although this seems doubtful, given the public anger that could generate.

Greg Totten, chief executive of the California District Attorneys Assn., which sponsored the initiative, says more money is especially needed to hire additional probation officers. Treatment without probation won’t work, he insists.

Sen. Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas) is trying to change the $110-million allocation mix. There’s nothing earmarked for county sheriffs who now are handling lots more arrests, she says.

“I want to make sure we uphold the voters’ wishes and are getting people into drug treatment,” Blakespear says. “This passed by such a high percentage, it should be a priority for elected officials.”

Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana) predicts the Legislature will still be fiddling with the budget until it adjourns in September and vows: “I’ll continue to advocate for adequate funding for 36.” He asserts the budget now being negotiated won’t hold up because of chaos under Trump, who’s constantly threatening to withhold federal money due California.

Healthcare for immigrants

Another sticky issue is state-provided healthcare for immigrants living here illegally.

Newsom and the Democratic-controlled Legislature decided a few years ago to generously offer all low-income undocumented immigrants access to Medi-Cal, California’s version of federal Medicaid for the poor.

But unlike Medi-Cal for legal residents, the federal government doesn’t kick in money for undocumented people. The state foots the entire bill. And it didn’t set aside enough. Predictably, state costs ran several billion dollars over budget.

The Newsom administration claims that more adults enrolled in the program than expected. But, come on! When free healthcare is offered to poor people, you should expect a race to enroll.

To help balance the books, Newsom proposed $100 monthly premiums. The Legislature reduced that to $30. They both agreed to freeze enrollments for adults starting Jan. 1.

The Legislature also wants to freeze Medi-Cal enrollment for even more people who are non-citizens: those with what it considers “unsatisfactory immigration status.” What does that mean? Hopefully it’s being negotiated.

Delta tunnel

And there’s the matter of the governor’s proposed water tunnel in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Newsom tried to squeeze the controversial issue into the budget process, although it had nothing to do with the budget. But as a budget trailer bill, it could avoid substantive public hearings in the Legislature.

The governor wants to “fast-track” construction of the $20-billion, 45-mile tunnel that would transmit more Northern California water to Southern California. Delta farmers, local residents and coastal salmon interests are adamantly opposed. Fast-track means making it simpler to obtain permits and seize property.

Legislative leaders told the governor absolutely “No”: come back later and run his proposal through the ordinary committee process. Don’t try to fast-track the Legislature.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: ‘A good day’: Detained U.S. citizen said agents bragged after arresting dozens at Home Depot
The visit: Vice President JD Vance rips Newsom, Bass and mocks Padilla during visit to Los Angeles
The L.A. Times Special: Welcome to the deportation resistance, Dodgers. What’s next?

Until next week,
George Skelton

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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is pushing for Congress to pass its signature legislation within the next two weeks, before Independence Day, when lawmakers return home for much of the summer. But their deadline appears to be in jeopardy after a Senate version of the bill released this week prompted blowback from influential Republicans in both chambers.

Widespread public opposition

Senate Majority Leader John Thune speaks along with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) on Tuesday in the Capitol.

(Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

The proposal, titled the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is meant to be the legislative vehicle to pass President Trump’s core campaign promises into law. But the overall price tag of the legislation, its cuts to Medicaid and green energy tax credits, and its tax provisions are dividing the Republican caucus.

The GOP infighting comes as new polling shows a sizable majority of Americans disapprove of the bill. A Washington Post/Ipsos poll found that Americans oppose the legislation by 2 to 1, while 64% said they opposed it in a recent KFF Health Tracking Poll.

The House passed its version of the bill last month with a razor-thin majority. But within days, several House Republicans said they regretted their votes over a host of tangential provisions, such as a line that would prohibit states from regulating artificial intelligence over the next decade.

Now, the Senate bill would hike the federal debt limit by $5 trillion — $1 trillion more than the House language — making Trump’s 2017 business tax credits permanent, expanding tax cuts for seniors and slowing the end of green energy tax breaks that had phased out more quickly in the House version.

The Senate language also introduces its own controversial, niche provisions, such as the removal of suppressors — also known as silencers for guns — from regulation under the National Firearms Act.

Gutting Medicaid, raising deficits

The Senate language, drafted by the Senate Finance Committee, also would make even more drastic cuts to Medicaid, capping provider taxes at 3.5% from 6% by 2031 and imposing even more restrictive work requirements. Those provisions risk key votes in the chamber from GOP members who have expressed concern with funding reductions to the program, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Shelly Moore Capito of West Virginia and Josh Hawley of Missouri, among others.

After the Finance Committee draft was released, Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rand Paul of Kentucky, who have advocated for a bill that would reduce annual deficits, said they would not vote for it in its current form. Republicans can only afford to lose three votes in the chamber to pass the bill.

“We’ve got a ways to go on this one,” Johnson said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, of South Dakota, said he would refer the text to the Appropriations Committee, headed by Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, yet another skeptic of the bill.

“Republicans’ ’One Big Beautiful Bill’ is one huge ugly mess that will come at the cost of working families’ health care,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). “This bill proposes the biggest cut to Medicaid in history, kicking almost 14 million Americans off their insurance.”

Pushback from both GOP wings

Even if it passes the Senate, reconciliation with House Republicans will be a tall order.

“This bill, as the Senate has produced it, is definitely dead if it were to come over to the House in anything resembling its current form,” said Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, which advocates for decreased government spending, in a call with reporters.

But the other end of the House GOP caucus, composed of Republican lawmakers from majority Democratic states, also oppose the Senate bill as is.

Those Republicans successfully advocated to raise the cap in state and local tax deductions, to $40,000 for those making $500,000 or less a year. But the Senate version keeps the SALT provisions as is, extending them at a $10,000 cap.

“That is the deal, and I will not accept a penny less,” said Rep. Mike Lawler of New York. “If the Senate reduces the SALT number, I will vote no, and the bill will fail in the House.”

The White House has intensified its push for passage of the bill next month, warning that failure will have dire consequences. “More than 1.1 million jobs in the manufacturing sector and nearly six million jobs overall will be lost” if Trump’s 2017 tax cuts expire, the administration warned in a statement.

The bill also would provide funding for thousands of more agents at the Department of Homeland Security to perform border enforcement, a top priority for the administration that is currently reaching for unconventional resources — from refugee officers to the armed forces — for assistance in its mass deportation efforts.

“It needs to be passed,” Thune told Fox News this week. “We believe that the president and the House, the Senate, are all going to be on the same page when it’s all said and done, and we’ll get a bill that we could put on his desk that he’ll be happy with, and that the American people will benefit from.”

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Confusion reigns as Trump threatens to intensify L.A. sweeps even as ICE vows shift
The deep dive: The Minnesota Suspect’s Radical Spiritual World
The Times Special: As the Senate loses luster, more members run for governor. Is there a takeaway for Kamala Harris?

More to come,
Michael Wilner

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SACRAMENTO — Sen. Alex Padilla had heard all he could stand from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. For good reason. She was sounding like a military dictator and brushing off California voters.

So the California senator interrupted her. He tried to ask a question — and wound up being shoved out of the room by federal bodyguards, strong-armed to the floor and handcuffed.

This is how the Trump administration intends to “Make America Great Again”?

The unprecedented act of disrespecting and roughing up a U.S. senator occurred at the Westwood federal building during a Noem news conference Thursday. Padilla, a Democrat, was standing behind reporters when the secretary said federal agents would continue to conduct immigration raids in Los Angeles indefinitely.

“[We’ll] continue to sustain and increase our operations in this city,” Noem said.

“We are not going away,” she emphasized. “We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and this mayor have placed on this country.”

Definitely fighting words.

“Liberate” the city? That’s the sort of language used by dictators — fascist, Communist or any Third World despot.

“Socialist” leadership? A pejorative straight out of the right-wing playbook of political talking points.

Was Noem saying the Trump administration’s real goal is to overthrow Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass because of their “burdensome” regimes?

Perhaps the secretary has forgotten what she presumably was taught in civics class.

Noem talks without thinking

But Noem, 53, was governor of South Dakota. And before that she was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and a state legislator. So she knows about the election process. And we can only conclude that, at her news conference, she was talking without thinking.

Because in America, the “liberators” are the voters. Not immigration agents, Cabinet secretaries or even the president.

California citizens reelected Newsom by a 59% landslide vote in 2022. The Democrat will be termed out of office next year — a policy set by voters, not by some federal administration.

Bass also was elected in 2022 by a margin of nearly 10 percentage points. If Angelenos want to liberate themselves from her, they’ll have the opportunity when she’s up for reelection next year.

Socialist is such a tired characterization of practically any policy the political right doesn’t like. You could tag lots of government spending with socialism — including Social Security and Medicare.

Anyway, Padilla listened to Noem’s dumb comments about liberating citizens from the governor and mayor, and, he said later in TV interviews, “it was just too much.”

He broke in with a shouted question.

OK, he shouldn’t have done that. There’s a protocol at formal news conferences. Only reporters ask questions. Certainly not visiting politicians. And questioners really shouldn’t interrupt the person at the lectern, although it happens.

This wasn’t a Senate committee hearing in which Padilla could ask anything he wanted — when it was his turn. He wasn’t “doing his job” at Noem’s event, as his Democratic colleagues later asserted. He was there as an observer. If he wanted to ask the secretary a question, this wasn’t the time or place.

Wrong but understandable

But his emotional reaction to Noem’s comments was totally understandable.

Padilla ordinarily is a very polite guy, extraordinary civil — calm, soft-spoken, the opposite of an aggressive loudmouth.

But he is passionate about the cause of immigrant rights and comprehensive reform that would offer a path to citizenship for undocumented people. It’s what inspired him to enter politics.

He was motivated by Latino activists’ losing fight in 1994 against Proposition 187, which would have denied most public services to immigrants living here illegally if it wasn’t tossed out by a judge.

Padilla, 52, is a proud L.A. native, the son of Mexican immigrants. His dad was a short-order cook, and his mom cleaned affluent people’s houses. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a mechanical engineering degree. But he caught the political bug and was elected to the L.A. City Council at age 26.

Later he was elected to the state Senate and as secretary of state. He ultimately became California’s first Latino U.S. senator.

On Thursday, the lawmaker was at the federal building to meet a general. He heard Noem was holding a news conference, asked to attend and was escorted in.

After he was forced to the ground by federal agents who considered him a security threat, Padilla declared repeatedly: “If that’s what they do to a United States senator with a question, imagine what they do to farmworkers, day laborers, cooks and the other nonviolent immigrants they are targeting in California and across the country.”

White House Communications Director Steven Cheung claimed Padilla acted like “a complete lunatic … by rushing toward Secretary Noem.” Noem said he “lunged” at her.

Wrong. A video recording disproved that.

Federal bodyguards contended Padilla didn’t identify himself. More bull. They just didn’t listen.

“Hands off! I am Sen. Alex Padilla,” he’s heard saying and repeating several times on the recording.

A federal agent turned to a Padilla staffer recording the sorry incident and said: “There’s no recording allowed out here, per FBI rights.”

Sorry. If it’s a right not to be recorded piling on a senator trying to exercise his rights, then it should be repealed.

The Trump administration did another stupid thing. Padilla came out a hero.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: ‘Protest is patriotic.’ ‘No Kings’ demonstrations across L.A. against ICE sweeps, Trump presidency
The TK: Will mom get detained? Is dad going to work? Answering kids’ big questions amid ICE raids
The L.A. Times Special: Voices from the raids: How families are coping with the sudden apprehension of loved ones

Until next week,
George Skelton

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