Vance Slimes LA
Salvador Hernandez, Seema Mehta, and Christopher Buchanan at LAT: “What happened here was a tragedy,” Vance told reporters. “You had people who were doing the simple job of enforcing the law, and you had rioters, egged on by the governor and the mayor, making it harder for them to do their job.”
Although Newsom and Bass have criticized the immigration raids, which led to protests and sporadic violent attacks against law enforcement officials, both have repeatedly urged demonstrators to remain peaceful.
Bass, who was not invited to meet with Vance, dismissed his description of what has unfolded in Los Angeles over the last two weeks.
“Unfortunately, the vice president did not take time to learn about our city and understand that our city is a city of immigrants from every country and continent on the planet,” Bass said at a news conference Friday evening. “But then again, he did need to justify the hundreds of millions of wasted taxpayer dollars that were wasted in the performance of a stunt.
“How dare you say that city officials encourage violence,” Bass said. “We kept the peace.”
Newsom weighed in repeatedly on the social media platform X, notably about Vance calling Sen. Alex Padilla “Jose” during his remarks.
Padilla was dragged to the ground by federal law enforcement officers and briefly detained when he attempted to ask U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a question during a news conference earlier this week.
“I was hoping Jose Padilla would be here to ask a question, but unfortunately I guess he decided not to show up because there wasn’t a theater, and that’s all it is,” Vance said.
A spokesperson for Padilla responded that Vance, as a former colleague of Padilla in the U.S. Senate, “knows better.”
“He should be more focused on demilitarizing our city than taking cheap shots,” spokesperson Tess Oswald posted on X. “Another unserious comment from an unserious administration.”
