'Prepping their base': Conservative says Trump wants to normalize 'brutality' against Dems

12 June 2025

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace and conservative journalist Charlie Sykes on MSNBC on June 12, 2025 (Image: Screengrab via MSNBC / YouTube)

According to one conservative journalist, the sudden tackling and cuffing of Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) at a Thursday press conference hosted by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem marks a new escalation of tensions in President Donald Trump's second presidency.

In a segment on MSNBC's "Deadline: White House," Never Trump conservative columnist Charlie Sykes said that he was "shocked" that "such a clear red line" had been crossed in the violent arrest of the senior U.S. senator of the nation's largest state, calling it "fundamentally un-American." He also expressed dismay at Republicans in Congress who had largely either kept silent about Padilla's arrest or criticized the California Democrat for his behavior at Noem's press conference.

"The Congress, at some point, you would hope you would expect it would stand up for itself," he said. "The minimal level of dignity that we do not handcuff members of Congress for asking questions, for speaking out. We do not defend that."

Sykes also criticized Republican leaders in Congress, like House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), for calling for Padilla to be censured. But he posited that the Republican response so far may in fact be deliberate.

"If cruelty is the point, then so is the brutality and so is this conflict," Sykes said. "... Keep in mind that for this administration, chaos is a ladder. They embrace the chaos and this feeds into it. And if that chaos includes arresting and humiliating and handcuffing Democratic elected officials, they're going to do it. They are okay with that. They are prepping their base to accept it, to ask for it and to cheer it on."

"We should have no illusions that, in fact, this ratchet has moved today and is moving in real time right now with every reaction and non-reaction from members of Congress, who refuse to stand up for one of their colleagues who was doing a job for his constituents, the job that he was elected to do in his home state," he continued. "So every moment that passes, that line is moving."

Watch the segment below, or by clicking this link.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

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