Senator Padilla’s Statement on Donald Trump’s Reckless Comments
SACRAMENTO – Today, Senator Steve Padilla (D San Diego) issued the following statement after President Trump called for Iran to “take out” San Diego and Los Angeles:
“San Diego is the very best of this country. It is where I was born and it is my life's greatest privilege to represent it. Be it our innovative spirit, our unparalleled natural beauty, or our celebrated multicultural heritage, San Diego earns every piece of the moniker "America's Finest City."
Life-saving technologies are developed here at our world class academic institutions, changing health outcomes for countless people across the globe. Millions travel yearly to this city and metropolitan region to share in its vibrant culture and history, marvel at its stunning beauty and renowned museums and destinations.
San Diego is the headquarters of the U.S. Third Fleet and where we train our Navy SEALS, brave heroes who take unimaginable risks in far away places - often in secret - to protect our freedoms, and the men and women who just spent an unprecedented time at sea on the USS Abraham Lincoln, not to mention two other carriers: the Theodore Roosevelt and Carl Vinson. Each facet of this jeweled city is more beautiful than the last, contributing massively to science, technology, education and this nation’s security, more than one small man ever will.
Donald Trump's reckless and deranged comments put a target on the back of every Southern Californian. An American President calling for foreign adversaries to annihilate millions of the very people he took an oath to protect is beyond disgusting, if not treasonous.
His poison and vitriol have, for more than a decade, been disguised and excused as political rhetoric, jest and even comedy and has infected and twisted every piece of American life and rhetoric to the point that these calls for violence almost seem commonplace and have too often been treated as acceptable. We cannot afford to continue to accept his unprecedented, twisted, and cynical words and deeds glossed over in the name of any small perceived or asserted gains, many of which remain debatable today. He has made an art form of tearing at the fabric of American society gleefully setting us against one another for his personal and political advantage.
San Diego is the best of America. But San Diegans deserve better. Americans deserve better. A madman willing to even joke about the destruction by our enemies of American cities is not fit to lead."
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Steve Padilla represents the 18th Senate District, which includes the communities of Chula Vista, the Coachella Valley, Imperial Beach, the Imperial Valley, National City, and San Diego. Prior to his election to the Senate in 2022, Senator Padilla was the first person of color ever elected to city office in Chula Vista, the first Latino Mayor, and the first openly LGBT person to serve or be elected to city office. Website of Senator Steve Padilla: https://sd18.senate.ca.gov/