Sen. Alex Padilla blasted the Trump administration Saturday, calling it “petty and unserious” after Vice President JD Vance referred to him as “Jose” during a news conference in Los Angeles the previous day.
“He knows my name,” Padilla said in an appearance on MSNBC on Saturday morning.
Vance visited Los Angeles on Friday for less than five hours after several weeks of federal immigration raids in the city and surrounding areas, sparking protests and backlash from state and local officials.
Padilla was thrown into the heated nationwide immigration debate when he 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 month.
Vance characterized the move by California’s first Latino senator as “political theater” in his remarks.
“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.
Vance served alongside Padilla in the Senate and is now the president of the upper chamber of Congress. Vance’s press secretary, Taylor Van Kirk, told Politico that the vice president misspoke and “must have mixed up two people who have broken the law.”
Padilla, in his TV interview, said he broke no laws.
He suggested the misnaming was intentional — and a reflection of the administration’s skewed priorities.
“He’s the vice president of the United States.” Padilla said. “You think he’d take the the situation in Los Angeles more seriously.”
Padilla said Vance might instead have taken the opportunity to talk to families or employers affected by raids carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Other California Democrats rallied behind Padilla after the misnaming incident.
“Calling him ‘Jose Padilla’ is not an accident,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a Friday post on the social media platform X.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass highlighted racial undertones in Vance’s comments.
“I guess he just looked like anybody to you, but he’s not just anybody to us,” she said during a press conference on Friday. “He is our senator.”
