Vance blames California Democrats for violent immigration protests and calls Sen Alex Padilla 'Jose'
Vice President JD Vance speaks during a visit to the Wilshire Federal Building Friday, June 20, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
By MICHAEL R BLOOD
Vice President JD Vance on Friday accused California Gov Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass of encouraging violent immigration protests as he used his appearance in Los Angeles to rebut criticism from state and local officials that the Trump administration fueled the unrest by sending in federal officers.
Vance also referred to U.S. Sen Alex Padilla, the state's first Latino senator, as 'Jose Padilla,' a week after the Democrat was forcibly taken to the ground by officers and handcuffed after speaking out during a Los Angeles news conference by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on immigration raids.
'I was hoping Jose Padilla would be here to ask a question,' Vance said, in an apparent reference to the altercation at Noem's event. 'I guess he decided not to show up because there wasn't a theater. And that's all it is.'
'They want to be able to go back to their far-left groups and to say, 'Look, me, I stood up against border enforcement. I stood up against Donald Trump,'' Vance added.
A spokesperson for Padilla, Tess Oswald, noted in a social media post that Padilla and Vance were formerly colleagues in the Senate and said that Vance should know better. 'He should be more focused on demilitarizing our city than taking cheap shots,' Oswald said.
Vance's visit to Los Angeles to tour a multiagency Federal Joint Operations Center and a mobile command center came as demonstrations calmed down in the city and a curfew was lifted this week. That followed over a week of sometimes-violent clashes between protesters and police and outbreaks of vandalism and looting that followed immigration raids across Southern California.
Trump's dispatching of his top emissary to Los Angeles at a time of turmoil surrounding the Israel-Iran war and the U.S.'s future role in it signals the political importance Trump places on his hard-line immigration policies. Vance echoed the president's harsh rhetoric toward California Democrats as he sought to blame them for the protests in the city.
'Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass, by treating the city as a sanctuary city, have basically said that this is open season on federal law enforcement,' Vance said after he toured federal immigration enforcement offices.
'What happened here was a tragedy,' Vance added. 'You had people who were doing the simple job of enforcing the law and they had rioters egged on by the governor and the mayor, making it harder for them to do their job. That is disgraceful. And it is why the president has responded so forcefully.'
Newsom's spokesperson Izzy Gardon said in a statement, 'The Vice President's claim is categorically false. The governor has consistently condemned violence and has made his stance clear.'
Speaking at City Hall, Bass said Vance was 'spewing lies and utter nonsense.' She said hundreds of millions of dollars were wasted by the federal government on a 'stunt.'
'How dare you say that city officials encourage violence? We kept the peace,' Bass said.
In a statement on X, Newsom responded to Vance's reference to 'Jose Padilla,' saying the comment was no accident.
Jose Padilla also is the name of a convicted al-Qaida terrorism plotter during President George W. Bush's administration, who was sentenced to two decades in prison. Padilla was arrested in 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport during the tense months after the 9/11 attacks and accused of the 'dirty bomb' mission. It later emerged through U.S. interrogation of other al-Qaida suspects that the 'mission' was only a sketchy idea, and those claims never surfaced in the South Florida terrorism case.
Responding to the outrage, Taylor Van Kirk, a spokesperson for Vance, said of the vice president: 'He must have mixed up two people who have broken the law.'
Federal immigration authorities have been ramping up arrests across the country to fulfill Trump's promise of mass deportations. Todd Lyons, the head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has defended his tactics against criticism that authorities are being too heavy-handed.
The friction in Los Angeles began June 6, when federal agents conducted a series of immigration sweeps in the region that have continued since. Amid the protests and over the objections of state and local officials, Trump ordered the deployment of roughly 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to the second-largest U.S. city, home to 3.8 million people.
Trump has said that without the military's involvement, Los Angeles 'would be a crime scene like we haven't seen in years.'
Newsom has depicted the military intervention as the onset of a much broader effort by Trump to overturn political and cultural norms at the heart of the nation's democracy.
Earlier Friday, Newsom urged Vance to visit victims of the deadly January wildfires while in Southern California and talk with Trump, who earlier this week suggested his feud with the governor might influence his consideration of $40 billion in federal wildfire aid for California. 'I hope we get that back on track,' Newsom wrote on X. 'We are counting on you, Mr. Vice President.'
Vance did not mention either request during his appearance on Friday.
Associated Press writers Julie Watson and Jaimie Ding in Los Angeles and Tran Nguyen in Sacramento contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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Trump's allies have reveled in the spate of Democrats being detained, arrested or charged with crimes, noting the change in fortunes after Trump's legal troubles during the 2024 presidential campaign. But just as Trump used his prosecutions to raise loads of money and rally support from his party, many Democrats are seeing political benefits as they cast themselves as political prisoners standing up to a dictatorial president. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who saw a trespassing charge against him dropped, surged to finish second in the state's gubernatorial primary last week and has been floated as a top contender for lieutenant governor. He has sued the interim U.S. attorney in New Jersey and the head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Newark field office for false arrest. Padilla and Lander each catapulted onto the national stage after being placed in handcuffs, with their allies using the moments to drive fundraising and support. During a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday, Padilla referred to Trump as a 'tyrant.' Beyond the Trump administration, other Republicans have decried Democrats' actions as self-promotional gimmicks. 'To all of my colleagues in government – just because you have a title, does not give license to touch, assault, resist, or interfere with law enforcement,' Rep. Michael Lawler (R-New York) wrote on X after Lander's arrest. 'Furthermore, stop using this as a means of self promotion in an effort to make yourself relevant in advance of an election.' Lander was ultimately released without charges. While Democrats have largely rallied around their arrested colleagues, some have suggested that the party may be mishandling the politics of immigration or misreading the optics of the moment. 'I don't think politics as theater is what our job is here,' Golden said in his interview with Axios last week, referring to the incidents involving McIver and Padilla. McIver, who called Golden's comments 'unfortunate,' said she has watched the recent string of Democratic arrests with a mix of disbelief and resolve. She is accused of assaulting two officers as they attempted to arrest Baraka outside an immigration detention center. McIver and two other members of Congress had been attempting to conduct oversight at the facility last month when a scuffle erupted between the lawmakers and masked law enforcement agents. Prosecutors say she slammed her forearms into the bodies of the officers while trying to protect Baraka. McIver, who was pushed from the back during the scrum, plans to plead not guilty. She has said her indictment is an attempt to intimidate Democrats from speaking out against Trump. 'I wake up every day, and I'm like, 'What the hell, with this administration?'' she said. 'It's just truly, truly a sad time for me and a sad time for many Americans.' Members of Congress have the right to make unannounced visits at ICE facilities, but DHS recently issued a new policy limiting lawmakers' access to certain detention centers. McIver is charged with two felony and one misdemeanor count of assaulting, resisting, impeding and interfering with a federal officer, according to the indictment, which was unveiled by Alina Habba, the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey. Habba is a close ally of Trump and his former personal defense attorney. McIver faces up to eight years in prison on each of the two felony charges should she be convicted and up to a year if found guilty of the misdemeanor. Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan is also set to face trial next month after Justice Department lawyers accused her of interfering with an immigration arrest. She has pleaded not guilty. DHS agents entered the Manhattan office of Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-New York) last month, briefly handcuffing one of his aides. In a video of the incident published by the news outlet Gothamist, the aide can be seen crying while an agent detains her. She was later released without charges.
