CNN brings in security expert to criticize Padilla incident, but he stuns them with his assessment

A security expert appeared to stun the CNN anchor who asked him to assess the incident where a Democrat politician was aggressively shoved out of DHS Sec. Kristi Noem's press conference.

Democrats are outraged over the video footage of U.S. Senator Alex Padilla of California being dragged out of a briefing Thursday, but instead of justifying the outrage, Josh Campbell said the agents acted appropriately to the threat.

'You can't interrupt something like that, that's already in progress, without having those consequences.'

"How should we, in your view, be analyzing how we're seeing these agents respond?" asked Kasie Hunt.

"Well, it's easy to think about this as one incident, but actually from a law enforcement perspective, we're really looking at three separate incidents that happened," said Campbell.

He said the first incident was the interruption of the DHS secretary that was not a part of a question and answer period.

"You can't interrupt something like that, that's already in progress, without having those consequences," he explained.

RELATED: Democratic senator’s botched ambush of DHS presser ends in handcuffs

Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

He said the second incident was when Padilla turned into the agents as they were walking him out.

"At that point, from a security detail perspective, we're taking this person out against their will. We've asked the person — and again, this is all happening very quickly — but the moment he turns into them, they realize this is not someone who is going to comply," Campbell said.

He did express some concerns about whether they needed to take Padilla to the floor after he had already been ejected. But he added that Noem had no responsibility for their actions.

“This was neither the fault nor the responsibility of DHS Secretary Noem,” Campbell added. “She’s in the middle of a press conference. There’s someone who interrupts and then makes it clear by his movements that he is not going to comply. He’s taken out. Again, I don’t think any of that was her responsibility.”

Video of Campbell's comments were posted to the X account of White House communications director Steven Cheung.

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