Republican Wisconsin Congressman Derrick Van Orden called a group of Senate pages resting in the Capitol Rotunda and taking photos of the dome "lazy shits" and ordered them to "get the fuck up" as he gave a tour late on Wednesday night, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
Typically high school seniors, pages work for Senators and Congressmen delivering messages, handling errands, and acting as runners for the officials. Pages frequently gather in the Rotunda when the Senate is in session, which it was last night in one of the final nights of the session, scheduled to end Friday.
Attempting to defend his profane outburst at teenagers, the former Navy SEAL harkened back to the sacrifice of soldiers during the Civil War. "I would think that it'd be terribly disrespectful to lay on the grave of a soldier that died fighting for freedom," Van Orden told the Journal Sentinel. "And I don't know anybody that disagrees."
A freshman Congressman, Van Orden reportedly gets his jollies yelling at teenagers: during his campaign, he screamed and berated a teenaged public library employee for an LGBTQ Pride exhibit.