Republican Congressman Derrick Van Orden has insisted that he and his GOP colleagues are not a “bunch of little b---hes” who do exactly as President Donald Trump desires.
Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have slammed their colleagues from the other side of the aisle for allowing the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” to pass to a floor vote, citing concerns about it adding to the national debt and killing off millions of Americans’ insurance coverage.
“You should be ashamed,” Ocasio-Cortez told the House of Representatives chamber. Almost all Republican holdouts caved in during the 219-213 vote.
But Van Orden, of Wisconsin, has held firm, insisting that he and his colleagues have not caved to pressure from Trump to get the bill through.
“The president of the United States didn’t give us an assignment. We’re not a bunch of little b---hes around here, OK? I’m a member of Congress. I represent almost 800,000 Wisconsinites,” he told reporters outside the Capitol building on Wednesday, according to Punchbowl News' Kenzie Nguyen via X.
Politico reporters Mike DeBonis and Samuel Benson said that Van Orden made the comments in the context of confirming he would vote for Trump’s mega bill, despite pushback.
“So this bill will pass. Am I happy about everything? No, but there’s a difference between compromise and capitulation. We’re not capitulating. We’re compromising,” DeBonis reported him as saying.
However, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib isn’t convinced. The Michigan Democrat replied to Van Orden on X, writing simply: “Yes, he did, and yes, you are.”
Congressman Mark Pocan, a Democrat from Wisconsin, also tried to get in on the act. He asked his followers on X: “Do you think Derrick Van Orden is right... that Congress is not a bunch of ‘little b---hes’?”
After hours of deadlock, all but one House Republican voted to pass the “rule,” a procedural measure which sets up the debate before a final vote on passing Trump’s bill, expected to take place later Thursday morning.
Trump wants the bill on his desk by July 4.
