During remarks in Los Angeles on Friday, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance called California Sen. Alex Padilla “José,” and now the senator is responding by calling the incident “a petty slight.”
The vice president had been responding to a question from a member of the media requesting a comment on Trump’s immigration crackdown when he referred to Sen. Alex Padilla by the wrong name.
“Well, I was hoping José Padilla would be here to ask a question, but unfortunately, I guess he decided not to show up because there wasn’t the theater, and that’s all it is,” Vance said.
Vance was alluding to Sen. Padilla being handcuffed and forcibly removed from a June 12 press conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem; the Democrat was dragged out of the room after he tried to question the DHS secretary.
Sen. Padilla posted a short message on X saying that “the Vice President knows [his] name. But that’s not the point.”
“[Vice President Vance] should be focused on removing the thousands of unnecessary troops from the streets of Los Angeles,” the post reads. “Not petty slights.”
Padilla’s post, which includes a clip from a recent MSNBC interview, doubles down on what he referred to as pettiness being shown by the Trump administration.
“Sadly, it’s just an indicator of how petty and unserious this administration is,” Sen. Padilla said in the MSNBC interview. “He’s the Vice President of the United States…you’d think he’d take the situation in Los Angeles more seriously.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called Vance’s message “an attempt to provoke division and conflict” while saying that the VP spent his time at the podium on Friday “spewing lies and utter nonsense.”
“We were able to handle the violence and the vandalism that occurred,” Bass said, acknowledging the crowd control efforts by the L.A. Police Department, L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and other local law enforcement. “Our streets have been peaceful, and even when there was vandalism at its height, you are talking about a couple hundred people who were not necessarily associated with any of the peaceful protests.”
She also expressed immense disappointment in Vance calling Sen. Padilla, California’s first Latino senator, by the wrong name.
“How dare you disrespect our senator?” asked Bass during a press conference of her own. “The last time I checked, the vice president of the United States is the president of the U.S. Senate. You serve with him today, and how dare you disrespect him and call him José? But I guess he just looked like anybody to you. Well, he’s not just anybody to us. He is our senator.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom was also quick call Vance out.
“J.D. Vance served with Alex Padilla in the United States Senate,” Newsom said on X. “Calling him ‘Jose Padilla’ is not an accident.”
While he almost certainly was not referring to him, the name Vice President Vance used, “José Padilla,” is the name of a man who was arrested in 2002 for plotting a “dirty bomb” attack on the U.S. in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
This Jose Padilla was eventually convicted in 2007 to 17-and-a-half years in federal prison for conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim individuals in a foreign country, conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and providing material support to terrorists. Seven years later, he was re-sentenced to 21 years in prison after federal lawmakers concluded his first sentence was “too lenient.”
He is being held at ADX Florence Supermax – America’s most secure prison facility – where, according to inmate search records, he is due to be released on Nov. 12, 2026.