WASHINGTON (OSV News) — Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., on June 12, was forcefully removed from a press conference for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in Los Angeles and was handcuffed by officers after the senator said he had questions about immigration raids being conducted in the state.
The same week in Washington, Elon Musk appeared to walk back some of his comments about President Donald Trump after phone calls with administration officials, and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, replacing them with some individuals seen as vaccine skeptics.
Padilla removed from Noem presser
Padilla was forcibly removed from a news conference in Los Angeles on June 12 after he tried to question Noem on Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in the state.
“I am Sen. Alex Padilla, I have questions for the secretary,” Padilla said to Noem, after which plainclothes law enforcement officials removed him from the room.
Video of the incident showed Padilla being forced to the floor and handcuffed.
“If that’s what they do to a United States Senator with a question, imagine what they can do to any American that dares to speak up. We will hold this administration accountable,” Padilla later wrote in a post on X.
The Department of Homeland Security claimed in a post on X that Padilla did not identify himself and was not wearing his Senate pin, and that “he lunged toward Secretary Noem.”
“Mr. Padilla was told repeatedly to back away and did not comply with officers’ repeated commands,” their post said. “(The Secret Service) thought he was an attacker and officers acted appropriately.”
The post added, “Secretary Noem met with Senator Padilla after and held a 15 minute meeting.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called for an investigation in remarks on the Senate floor the same day.
Catholic social teaching on immigration balances three interrelated principles — the right of persons to migrate, the right of a country to regulate its borders and control immigration, and a nation’s duty to do so with justice and mercy.
Musk walks back Trump criticism
Musk and Trump reportedly spoke by phone after the relationship between the pair appeared to deteriorate after a social media feud.
“I regret some of my posts about (Trump) last week,” Musk wrote in a June 11 post on X. “They went too far.”
Musk’s posts about Trump the previous week included a sharp rebuke of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which would enact key provisions of Trump’s legislative agenda on tax and immigration policy, arguing it would raise the deficit.
Some of Musk’s critiques were of a more personal nature. He also argued Trump’s name “is in the Epstein files,” and “That is the real reason they have not been made public,” in reference to documents in the sex-trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, a multimillionaire who hanged himself in prison in 2019. Although Trump’s association with Epstein was previously known, he had reportedly cut ties prior to Epstein’s arrest.
Trump, in his own post, said Musk’s tenure was not renewed because he was “wearing thin.”
Musk also suggested Trump should be impeached and Vice President JD Vance should replace him.
Vance and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles pushed Musk to repair his relationship with Trump, The Wall Street Journal reported. In comments to New York Post columnist Miranda Devine on her podcast “Pod Force One,” Trump signaled openness to doing so.
“Look, I have no hard feelings,” Trump said. “I was really surprised that that happened. He went after a bill that’s phenomenal. … He just — I think he feels very badly that he said that, actually.”
RFK Jr. fires all members of vaccine advisory panel
Kennedy said June 9 that he removed all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent vaccine advisory committee from their posts.
The panel, Kennedy argued in a piece published in The Wall Street Journal, “has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine.”
Kennedy’s action appeared to break a pledge he made to Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., the chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, known as HELP, during his confirmation process. Cassidy publicly wavered over whether he would support Kennedy’s confirmation, criticizing his views on vaccines before eventually voting for him.
Part of Cassidy’s support was contingent on what he said was a pledge from Kennedy to maintain that panel without changes. The independent advisory committee has long been viewed as nonpartisan, and its members’ removal is a departure from norms.
The new members of the panel include some who are seen as skeptics of either the COVID-19 vaccines or vaccination more broadly.
Questions remain about PEPFAR’s implementation amid foreign aid cuts
The future of PEPFAR, the U.S. government’s global effort to combat HIV/AIDS, remains in question amid broader cuts to foreign assistance, with Senate Democrats alleging the State Department has not spent the funds appropriated for the program.
PEPFAR, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, authorized by Congress and President George W. Bush in 2003, is the largest global health program devoted to a single disease. It is credited with saving 25 million lives and with scaling back the epidemic’s spread.
PEPFAR funds are legally prohibited from being used to lobby for or against abortion, or for abortion procedures. As such, several Catholic organizations, including Catholic Relief Services, have in the course of the program’s history backed its lifesaving efforts.
Politico reported that White House budget director Russ Vought told appropriators that the Trump administration wants to scale back the program.
SCOTUS reporters ask high court to stream audio of opinions read from bench
Members of the Supreme Court press corps published a letter they sent last year to Chief Justice John Roberts privately, asking him to make audio of the court’s opinions and oral dissents available for streaming online.
Currently, only people who have access to the courtroom — whether lawyers, members of the public or press — can hear the justices directly read their opinions from the bench.
The high court began making audio of oral arguments available for streaming during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Just as the Court’s live-streaming of oral arguments has made your work accessible to a much wider audience, taking the next step to allow the Court’s opinion announcements to be heard in real time will lead to greater understanding and appreciation of the court’s final decisions,” the journalists argued in the letter to Roberts.
Funeral Mass is celebrated for Former Rep. Charles Rangel
Former Rep. Charles Rangel was laid to rest on June 13 after a funeral Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan on June 13. The longtime New York Democratic congressman died in May at 94.
Rangel, a Catholic and a Korean War veteran, represented his Harlem-area district in the House for nearly 50 years. He was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee (2007-2010), one of the chamber’s most powerful committees. Near the end of his career, he was convicted of a series of ethics violations by the House Ethics Committee, and he was censured by Congress as a result. But he was elected to two more terms after that before his retirement in 2017.
Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington. Follow her on X @kgscanlon.
