As illegal immigration arrests continued across the country by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the liberal media was determined to find a way to spin the motivations. MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber featured president CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Maya Wiley, who spoke about the recent detained Democrat leaders by ICE. Wiley hyperbolically claimed that the results of the restrained leaders fell back on "getting black people treatment by law enforcement.”
Over the last few days, there have been outbursts from Democrat leaders such as California Senator Alex Padilla, New Jersey Representative LaMonica McIver, and New York City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander over how the Trump administration has operated illegal immigration arrests.
Melber discussed with Wiley the situation with Lander specifically, but both of them got the facts grossly wrong. Melber claimed Lander “wasn’t” assaulting law enforcement. Wiley took it a step further by injecting race into it:
Well, that's called getting black people treatment by law enforcement. When and I say Brad Lander is a friend. It was appalling what happened to him. And he did the right thing as an elected official, using his job to try to provide some protection to people. When Brad Lander was saying was, do you have a warrant? That's what he was asking when he started getting rough treatment. And I think we have to understand what role is this rough treatment and it's violent behavior. What happened to Senator Padilla was – what happened to Representative McIver, what we saw happen to Brad Lander is when law enforcement decides they can be rough, despite whether or not it is necessary. And that itself should be seen as a red line.
If Wiley looked back at the video of Lander being arrested, the officers did have a warrant that was folded up and being presented, while other officers are restraining Lander when he asks for “the judicial warrant.” Wiley blamed these outbursts on “lawmakers actually doing their job” when that was not appropriate behavior to overthrow an “administration that’s not cooperating.”
For Melber being an attorney, he must have forgotten what a press conference was. To justify the reasoning behind Padilla’s frenzy, he stated: “I would say on paper that if you have a DHS press conference and you’re not allowing questions form the opposition party without it escalating that way, there are people being removed.”
A press conference presents information to the public, Melber, not an open microphone opportunity from the crowd. That was why Padilla’s flare-up was out of place.
Of course, it would not be liberal media without defending these actions from the Democrat leaders. Wiley advocated:
They're actually saying we are elected in these offices in order to ensure that others in government, public servants are actually serving the public. That's our job. So, when you see a Senator Padilla go to a press conference and ask a question and then get manhandled, that's actually appropriate oversight behavior.
This may be a shock to Democrats, but “appropriate oversight behavior” was not shouting or assaulting law enforcement at a press conference. The liberal media again has twisted stories to fit their narrative of race and monitoring rather than the facts.
Click here for the transcript.
MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber
6/18/25
6:15 p.m. EasternARI MELBER: People are stepping up in many ways. Barack Obama says if you're rich, you should at least be able to risk some money. I want to bring in our special guest for this conversation. Maya Wiley is president CEO of the leadership conference on civil and human rights and a former New York City mayor candidate, and Molly Jong-Fast, Vanity Fair correspondent, author of How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter's Memoir.
I'm curious what you think, Maya, at something that is partly planned. As I mentioned, we had protests over the weekend. We've had different ways that in LA people want to speak back and protest ICE, but something that also seems over the last, I would say, five to 10 days organically being more accepted than even elite Democrats. You know, they used to say, “Oh, Senators don't march or you leave that to the base.” A lot more direct action.
MAYA WILEY: Well, you know, if you think about the Civil Rights movement, part of that was because black people weren't in a lot of positions of power where they would have been marching. One of the things that's happened in this country is we have had more people run for office and win office who understand the value of using civil disobedience to advocate for change, to petition government. And that's a peaceful protest is.
And not all peaceful protests by the way, is civil disobedience. You know, we should distinguish those two things. You can get a permit for a march or a rally that is not civil disobedience.
MELBER: Right.
WILEY: That is just speaking out. And that is lawful.
When we talk about civil disobedience, we're talking about the intentions of crossing a boundary on the law. And you had the clip rightly using Rosa Parks as an example, unjust law or unjust behavior in some instances, like what we're seeing with ICE in Los Angeles and in other cities. And that that is appropriate use, in my view, and the civil rights tradition of civil disobedience to say, sometimes the laws need to be challenged and there's a way to challenge them peacefully.
What we're seeing with elected officials, though, is not civil disobedience. They're actually doing oversight.
MELBER: Right
WILEY: They're actually saying we are elected in these offices in order to ensure that others in government, public servants are actually serving the public. That's our job.
So, when you see a Senator Padilla go to a press conference and ask a question and then get manhandled, that's actually appropriate oversight behavior. If you see a Representative McIver in Newark, New Jersey, go and say, “I want to inspect this facility because I have constituents in it,” there's a law that says she can.
So, what we've seen break out is not about civil disobedience. It's about lawmakers actually doing their job and trying to find a way to do it in an administration that's not cooperating.
MELBER: And some of it on paper, can be more dissected than this environment. You have an environment where you have the President openly admitting to revenge, to targeting, to crackdowns. So, then that seems to fuel how the agents respond. In fairness, I would say on paper that if you have a DHS press conference and you're not allowing questions from the opposition party without cuffing, without it escalating that way, there are people who are removed. And we’ve all been around.
I've covered things in DC. The Democrats might have the gavel at the hearing, and they might remove someone who's not called upon for a question. I think the big difference here is there isn't really a good faith baseline for how people are being treated.
And that brings us to a cartoon I wanted to show you. I don't know if you've seen this yet, but when you talk about whether somebody interfered with law enforcement, you have lady justice's due process there. Maya. That's one point. But there's a second point. The claim she's assaulting an officer when she's blindfolded and seems peaceful has also come up because Lander the Democrat yesterday, we have the video and among the other claims from the – from the local readout from the federal agents was, oh, he was assaulting. No, he wasn't.
WILEY: Well, that's called getting black people treatment by law enforcement. When and I say Brad Lander is a friend. It was appalling what happened to him. And he did the right thing as an elected official, using his job to try to provide some protection to people. When Brad Lander was saying was, do you have a warrant? That's what he was asking when he started getting rough treatment. And I think we have to understand what role is this rough treatment and it's violent behavior. What happened to Senator Padilla was – what happened to Representative McIver, what we saw happen to Brad Lander is when law enforcement decides they can be rough, despite whether or not it is necessary. And that itself should be seen as a red line.
MOLLY JONG-FAST: I think there's a real question if they're acting this way towards senators, towards members of Congress, towards the controller. What are they doing to people when no one is watching?
(…)
