Democrats make a mark in their pushback to Trump

Democratic momentum comes after months of intra-party squabbling and an inability to find a coherent post-election message.

All week, officials in the Trump administration hailed the images of protests against their deportation campaign in Los Angeles, saying their opponents were playing right into their hands.

But on Thursday, the administration was put on the defensive.

A video of Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., forced to the ground and handcuffed after he interrupted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a news conference in Los Angeles on Thursday, immediately ricocheted across social media platforms and cable news, shifting the narrative to warnings about overreach by the White House.

It capped a week when the Democratic Party seemed to finally find its voice, in ways big and small, to push back against the administration. From California Gov. Gavin Newsom questioning President Donald Trump’s acuity to Padilla’s move to interrupt Noem to mini-rebellions playing out at the nation’s capital, Democrats began to break the hold Trump usually has on the news cycle.

It comes after months of Democratic intraparty squabbling over how to move forward after a bitter loss in the presidential election. In that time, Democrats have been unable to come up with coherent, unified messaging to rebut Trump and instead have been mired in fighting about issues like whether activist David Hogg should remain part of the Democratic National Committee and who was to blame for Joe Biden's refusal to walk away from the Democratic presidential nomination earlier amid concerns of his mental decline.