GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden cursed at and berated a group of teenage Senate pages for lying down in the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday.
He noted it was disrespectful for someone to lay there as Civil War soldiers once passed in the same spot. “I don’t know anybody that disagrees,” he said.
Both Senate Minority Leader and the Senate Majority Leader admonished Van Orden for his conduct.
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It’s rare for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to find common ground, but such an opportunity arose after outlets reported that a Republican congressman screamed and cursed at a group of Senate pages.
Punchbowl News and The Hill reported on Thursday that Rep. Derrick Van Orden spotted a group of Senate pages —teenagers who help out in the Senate — lying on the floor of the Capitol Rotunda. He took it as an opportunity to berate the teens.
“Wake the fuck up you little shits … What the fuck are you all doing? Get the fuck out of here. You are defiling the space you [pieces of shit],” Van Orden reportedly told the pages late Wednesday evening, according to The Hill.
Following reports about his conduct, Van Orden confirmed the incident.
“Luckily, bad press has never bothered me,” he said, noting that the Rotunda was once used as a field hospital for soldiers in the Civil War and that it was disrespectful to “lay on the grave of a soldier that died fighting for freedom.”
“And I don’t know anybody that disagrees,” he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
It doesn’t appear that Van Orden checked with his colleagues before making such a statement. After hearing about Van Orden’s actions toward the Senate pages, Schumer tore into the congressman.
“I understand that late last night a member of the House majority thought it appropriate to curse at some of these young people,” Schumer said to a group of reporters, according to the Wall Street Journal. “I was shocked when I heard about it. I am further shocked at his refusal to apologize. What that congressman did last night was utterly despicable.”
And in a rare moment of bipartisanship, McConnell agreed.
“I want to associate myself with the remarks of the majority leader,” McConnell said. “Everybody on this side of the aisle feels exactly the same way.”
Some of Van Orden’s detractors have also called the congressman a “hypocrite” for berating the Senate pages for lying in the Rotunda when a Daily Beast report appears to show Van Orden in the restricted area of the Capitol during the January 6, 2021, attempted insurrection.
“Kids taking pics of the Capitol dome is more offensive to my opponent @derrickvanorden than the desecration of the Capitol on Jan 6 by DVO and his MAGA cronies,” wrote a potential Democratic challenger to Van Orden’s 2024 campaign, Rebecca Cooke. “A riot resulting in nearly 140 injuries to police officers and deaths. Where was your concern for history? Hypocrite.”
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