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derrick van orden
'Yes, You Are,' Tlaib Tells Lawmaker Who Said Republicans Aren't 'Little Bitches' Doing Trump's Bidding
"This budget betrayal is the largest cut to Medicaid and food assistance in history to give billionaires a tax break," said the Michigan Democrat.
Jul 02, 2025
Progressive Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib on Wednesday clapped back at one of her Republican colleagues who suggested that the GOP effort to pass the so-called Big Beautiful Bill this week isn't in response to a directive from U.S. President Donald Trump, who has set a July 4 deadline.
“The president of the United States didn't give us an assignment. We're not a bunch of little bitches around here, OK? I'm a member of Congress. I represent almost 800,000 Wisconsinites," Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) told journalists near the back entrance to the House of Representatives chamber, according to Punchbowl News' Kenzie Nguyen.
Responding to Van Orden's claims on the social media platform X, Tlaib (D-Mich.) simply said, "Yes, he did, and yes, you are."
The Michigan Democrat also released a video explaining to constituents why she is voting "hell no" on the package, which would cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and strip an estimated 17 million Americans of their health insurance over the next decade while giving trillions of dollars in tax breaks to the ultrarich and corporations.
Tlaib wasn't the only House Democrat to notice the Republican's remarks. A fellow Wisconsinite, Congressman Mark Pocan, asked his followers on X, "Do you think Derrick Van Orden is right... that Congress is not a bunch of 'little bitches'?"
According to Politico's Samuel Benson and Mike DeBonis, Van Orden's comment came in the context of confirming he would vote for the budget reconciliation package, despite some critiques. The congressman reportedly said: "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."
His remarks to reporters, and the backlash, came as the House considered a version of the megabill passed by the Senate on Tuesday, with help from Vice President JD Vance. GOP leaders in the lower chamber are struggling to get it past a procedural hurdle due to opposition from Republican fiscal hawks—plus all Democrats, who oppose steep cuts to the social safety net.
To protest the Republican effort to send the bill to Trump's desk by Independence Day, House Democrats on Wednesday formed a procedural conga line offering an amendment that would block cuts to Medicaid and SNAP.
Multiple Democrats also took to the House floor to rail against the package, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who declared that "this bill is a deal with the devil. It explodes our national debt, it militarizes our entire economy, and it strips away healthcare and basic dignity of the American people. For what? To give Elon Musk a tax break and billionaires the greedy taking of our nation. We cannot stand for it, and we will not support it."
"You should be ashamed," Ocasio-Cortez told the chamber's Republicans.
As Common Dreams reported earlier Wednesday, progressives outside of Congress are also working to block the bill. Advocacy organizations, including Indivisible, are urging Americans to call and email House Republicans and pressure them to oppose the package. The phone number for the House switchboard is 202-224-3121.
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Rep. Derrick Van Orden Is My Local Villain in the Trump-GOP Cult. Who Is Yours?
A brave legislator would break with the Republican policy to put more money in the pockets of the rich while children go hungry, but not Van Orden.
May 19, 2025
U.S. Representative Derrick Van Orden campaigned for his Wisconsin 3rd Congressional District seat stressing his intention to cut government costs by targeting waste, fraud, and abuse in government spending. As a member of the House Agriculture Committee he had the opportunity to block the committee from, as instructed by the Trump Administration, cutting nearly $300 billion in spending from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). These proposed cuts will take food from the tables of the poorest families in this country to pay for tax cuts for the richest 1% of Americans as part of the Republican House Budget bill.
SNAP is a recurring target for Van Orden’s Republican Party. Van Orden has spoken as a defender of the program, even sharing his own story of his families reliance on SNAP benefits when he was a kid. He called the program “a hand up, not a hand out.” Yet last week, Derrick Van Orden, as he often does, made the wrong decision. Despite his insistence that he would defend the nation’s largest anti-hunger program, vital for so many low income families, he sided with the Trump administration to decimate a program that well over 40 million people rely on. These are people who, as Van Orden notes, just need a hand up.
Even as the president has grudgingly admitted that his tariffs will cause prices to rise, Van Orden conveniently failed to recall his gratitude for that “hand up” when he needed it. He could have done the right thing as a member of the Agriculture Committee by loudly and clearly stating that with rising food prices, cutting any funding from SNAP is morally wrong for those who depend on the program. It is also wrong for so many farmers who supply food for the program—about $30 billion wrong for those farmers and it’s wrong for the economy in general, as the Democrat members of the Ag Committee report that every $1 in SNAP funding puts $1.50 back into the economy.
To his credit, after pressure from constituents, Van Orden came out in opposition to the current plan to shift 25% of SNAP costs to state governments—this proposal would severely impact the poorest states, those with the most needy recipients, much harder than wealthier states. Van Orden instead proposed to focus on correcting “inefficiencies” within the SNAP program by tying the state’s share of SNAP payments to that state’s SNAP error rate.
However, these error rates or “inefficiencies” are false flags used by Van Orden and other Republicans to justify massive cuts. USDA policy changes counted the entire benefit amount as an error if there were any procedural mistakes, regardless of the household being eligible and receiving the correct benefits. SNAP already has a rigorous quality control system. Most over-payments are honest mistakes made by households or USDA, and quickly rectified. Hardly the massive fraud Republicans like Van Orden claim. Using these false numbers to justify massive cuts to a program thousands of Van Orden’s constituents rely on is deception, and will harm Wisconsin families.
There are families across Western Wisconsin in similar situations to that of Congressman Van Orden’s when he was a child; those who through no fault of their own need that hand up, just like he did. A $230 billion cut would decimate program services and put thousands of Wisconsinites into food insecurity. Any cuts to the program are direct cuts to the poorest families in our country.
It’s not just the recipients of SNAP that will be affected. Programs already cut by the Trump administration, cuts supported by Van Orden, have crippled family farms in Wisconsin. A program called the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program refused to pay nearly 300 small farms in Wisconsin after Trump cut funding for their already-committed grants. SNAP benefits are often used to pay for this fresh, local produce, and cutting these benefits would further slash the already meager incomes of Wisconsin’s farmers and deny low-income Wisconsinites a valuable source of nutritious food.
Congressman Van Orden has again raised the cup of Republican Kool-Aid and convinced himself that cutting $300 billion from needy families is a good option for funding tax cuts for those high-income Americans who already have too much. He remembers the times when his family was in need, but that was then, this is now, and he is part of the Republican cult of Trump. A brave legislator would break with the Republican policy to put more money in the pockets of the rich while children go hungry, but not Van Orden.
The Republican budget bill, in addition to cuts in SNAP also included cuts to other safety net programs like Medicaid, failed to pass the House Budget committee on Friday because some members felt it did not make the cuts deep enough, it was not cruel enough.
But the Budget Committee showed its true colors on Sunday and passed the bill after making it more cruel for the nation's poor. And make no mistake, the full Republican-controlled House will pass a Budget bill and it will be cruel as can be, with even deeper cuts to the safety net programs so many low-income folks depend on. Van Orden will have a chance to side with his constituents and help those needing “a hand up” or side with his Republican cronies and fund tax cuts for the rich who want another “hand out.”
What will he do? What will your representative do?
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Our Plan to Stop Trump and Musk From Destroying Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid
We are demanding that every member of Congress, starting with the members of the DOGE Caucus, pledge to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Jan 16, 2025
Donald Trump is about to return to the White House, but it's clear who's really running the show: Elon Musk, the wealthiest man in the world and the chair of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
Musk will do anything to avoid paying his fair share of taxes. That's why he wants to use DOGE to cut $2 trillion in government spending—which is mathematically impossible without slashing Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Last month, Musk amplified a thread from Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) that used zombie lies about Social Security to call for cutting and privatizing it.
Nobody voted to cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. Despite his past history of supporting cuts to these programs, Trump blanketed millions of households in swing states with flyers promising to protect them.
Our job is to remind voters of that promise, and demand that Republicans keep it. Trump won't be on the ballot again, but every member of the House of Representatives (and one-third of the U.S. Senate) is up for reelection in less than two years. That's why they want to slash our benefits behind closed doors.
I went to the first meeting of the DOGE Caucus, and stood outside those closed doors to confront members as they entered and exited the room. I handed them copies of Trump's campaign flyers promising to protect Social Security and Medicare, and asked if DOGE intended to keep that promise.
One Republican told me that "there will be some cuts" to Social Security and Medicare. Another said that "everything is on the table." Most of the rest refused to answer—except for DOGE Caucus co-chair Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). When I handed her Trump's flyers, she said, "We don't care" and tossed them to the ground.
That's what Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks of Trump's campaign promise to protect earned benefits—and we're going to make sure her constituents know it. My organization, Social Security Works, just sent a billboard truck to drive to every large senior center in her district, reading "Marjorie Taylor Greene is helping the richest man in the world cut YOUR Social Security" and urging voters to call her office.
We are also planning to send a billboard truck to the district of Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.). Van Orden is a member of the DOGE Caucus and refused to pledge to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. He is one of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents, winning his most recent race by fewer than 11,256 votes.
These two billboard trucks are just the beginning. We are demanding that every member of Congress, starting with the members of the DOGE Caucus, pledge to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. If they refuse, our trucks will be driving through their districts in the very near future.
Join our campaign to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid at https://socialsecurityworks.org/pledge.
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