WATCH: In Senate Floor Speech, Kelly Condemns Use of Force Against Senator Padilla

“What happened to Senator Padilla was outrageous.”

Today, Arizona Senator and Navy combat veteran Mark Kelly took to the Senate floor to condemn the forcible and violent removal of Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) by federal agents during a Department of Homeland Security press conference in Los Angeles. Kelly tied the incident to a broader pattern of overreach by the Trump administration—including the illegal deployment of troops into U.S. cities, arrests of elected officials, and the politicization of military personnel—and urged bipartisan concern over the treatment of a sitting senator exercising his constitutional oversight duties. 

 Read key excerpts from the speech below: 

“What happened today to Senator Padilla was outrageous. It was violent. It’s a scary thing to see happen in the United States of America.” 

“He is just trying to serve his constituents in the best way he knows how, by doing the thing that is in our Constitution—freedom of speech. And exercising his rights as a United States Senator to ask some questions of government officials, he was doing his job. His job is oversight—oversight of the Department of Homeland Security. This is in a federal building.” 

“The President of the United States going to a U.S. military base and using soldiers as political props—that is not who we are as a country. What I saw today is leading us down a dangerous path. And we cannot retreat to partisan corners.” 

“This is wrong. This is not putting our country first. I hope we can turn things around here.” 

Click here to view and download Kelly’s remarks.