Watch: Noem explains why California senator was removed from DHS briefing

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Fox News that California Sen. Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from her press briefing Thursday after he “burst into the room, started lunging toward the podium, interrupting me and elevating his voice.”

“Nobody knew who he was,” Noem said of the Democrat senator from America’s largest state. “He didn’t say who he was, that until he was already had been lunging forward, and people were trying to detain him for quite a period of time.”

The two spoke afterward about efforts to restore order amidst the riots in Los Angeles, and Noem says she told him:

“We’re leaders. We’re public servants, and if he had requested a meeting, I would have loved to have sat down and had a conversation with him. Coming into a press conference like this is political theater. It’s wrong, and it does a disservice to this country and the people who live here.”

Watch the video here: