California Sen. Alex Padilla was chucked out of a Los Angeles news briefing as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem discussed the ongoing anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement riots that have engulfed the city — before being thrown to the ground and handcuffed.

The 52-year-old Democrat was hauled out of Noem’s briefing Thursday afternoon as she called California and LA leaders “socialists” who are working against the Trump administration.

“Secretary, I want to know why you insist on exaggerating and embellishing,” Padilla said from the crowd, trying to cut Noem off mid-sentence.

“Hands off!” he called as Noem kept speaking, and security began shoving him toward the doors.

“I’m Sen. Alex Padilla, I have questions for the secretary,” he called as he wrestled with security. “Because the fact of the matter is that a half a dozen criminals that you’re rotating on your … on your …”

Padilla was then cut off and yelled, “Hands off!” several times, before being finally pushed out of the room as the briefing continued.

The senator appeared to be referencing a rogue’s gallery of illegal immigrants with alarming criminal histories — ranging from rape to murder — arrested in the ICE raids that sparked LA’s riots nearly a week ago, which the DHS has been publicizing as protests continue.

Several of their photos — including an illegal immigrant convicted of shooting up a high school graduation party in the 1990s — were being shown at the front of the room when Padilla interrupted.

Padilla was forced to his knees outside of the room, and then pushed face-forward into the ground as officers held his hands behind his back and cuffed him, footage from the incident showed.

“If this is how the DHS responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they are doing to farmworkers, cooks, day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country,” Padilla said afterward.

But Noem told a much different version of events — insisting Padilla was detained because her Secret Service detachment was trying to protect her.

“This man burst into the room, started lunging toward the podium, interrupting me and elevating his voice, and was stopped — did not identify himself — and was removed from the room,” she told Fox News’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum.”

“The way that he acted was completely inappropriate. It wasn’t becoming a US senator or a public official. Perhaps he wanted the scene, and that’s what he wanted,” she added. “But I think the American people are sick of this kind of action. I think the American people are tired of this, they just want the truth.”

Padilla and Noem met one-on-one for about 15 minutes once the press conference ended, and he was released and agreed to discuss the situation in LA further, the secretary said.

“We probably disagree on 90% of the topics, but we agreed to exchange phone numbers, we’ll continue to talk and share information, and I think that’s the way it should be in this country. I wish he would have acted that way in the beginning instead of creating a scene like this,” Noem said.

Democratic leaders quickly began sounding off about the incident.

“If they can handcuff a U.S. Senator for asking a question, imagine what they will do to you,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted.

“I just saw something that sickened my stomach — the manhandling of a United States senator,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said from the Senate floor afterward, Reuters reported.

LA Mayor Karen Bass called Padilla’s detainment “absolutely abhorrent and outrageous.”

“He is a sitting United States Senator,” she wrote on X. “This administration’s violent attacks on our city must end.”

Noem had been saying the federal government — which has dispatched hundreds of Marines and thousands of National Guard troops to LA — would remain undeterred in its efforts to “liberate this city” when Padilla cut in.

“We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and this mayor have placed on this country,” she said, referring to Newsom and Bass, both Democrats.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) suggested that Padilla should be censured — or formally rebuked by Congress for his actions, which he said were “wildly inappropriate.”

“It’s beneath a US senator; they are supposed to lead by example. That is not a good example,” Johnson told reporters during a gaggle celebrating passage of the rescissions package.

“We have to turn the temperature down in this country, not escalate it. The Democratic Party is on the wrong side. They’re defending lawbreakers and now they’re acting like lawbreakers themselves,” he added.

“That’s oversight? Charging a cabinet secretary in a press conference, I beg to differ,” he said when asked about Padilla’s characterizations of the confrontation.

Johnson, who founded the honor and civility caucus in Congress in 2017, noted that the House is unlikely to probe the matter and will likely defer to the Senate to investigate the situation.

During his interaction with the press to take a victory lap on rescissions, Democrats strolled by and jeered him, with one yelling, “You’re full of it, Mike,” while another shouted, “That’s a lie.”

After he wrapped up, Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) walked up and had a stern conversation with him in front of the press, pleading with the speaker to urge the president to turn down the temperature.

Padilla, a Los Angeles native with Mexican immigrant parents, was appointed US senator for California by Gov. Newsom to fill Kamala Harris’ seat when she was sworn in as vice president in 2021. He won the seat in the 2022 election.

He has been openly critical of the Trump administration’s response to the LA riots since they were sparked by mass ICE arrests of illegal immigrants on Friday.

“This is not a rebellion,” he insisted to NBC Los Angeles on Monday, apparently in response to President Trump and his officials describing the protests as “insurrection.”