July 28 (UPI) — Senate leaders Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell on Friday admonished a Republican congressman for cursing at a group of teen pages earlier in the week for lying down in the Capitol Rotunda.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., came under fire Thursday after it became public that he scolded the group of 16- and 17-year-olds, calling them “pieces of [expletive]” and other derogatory names, according to a transcript of the incident provided to The Hill.
“Wake the [expletive] up, you little [expletive.] What the [expletive] are you all doing?” he said. “Get the [expletive] out of here. You are defiling the space, you pieces of [expletive].”
Van Orden said he was upset that the teen pages were lying on the ground under the Capitol dome while waiting for members of Congress to complete their business, which went late into early Thursday morning. The representative said it was disrespectful for the teenagers to lie on the floor there because the Rotunda had been used as a field hospital during the Civil War.
“If anyone had been laying [on] a series of graves in Arlington National Cemetery, what do you think people would say?” Van Orden said.
Senate Democratic leader Schumer rebuked Van Orden for the confrontation while speaking from the Senate floor Friday.
“I was shocked when I heard about it and I am further shocked at his refusal to apologize to these young people,” Schumer said, according to ABC News.
Senate Republican leader McConnell agreed with his colleague.
“Everybody on this side of the aisle feels exactly the same way,” he said from the Senate floor.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told reporters Friday that he plans to talk to Van Orden about the incident.
“I haven’t been able to speak to him yet. I’ll call him today. I don’t know the situation, I saw what was reported,” he said. “That’s not the norm of Derrick Van Orden.
“I guess the interns have some ritual laying down, or something like that. I think it’s a misunderstanding on all sides from what’s going on.”
