'I don't work for them!' MAGA rep shrugs off GOP colleagues as he knifes key cut

Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) is not on anyone's radar as a foe of the Trump agenda — he even came under controversy for being present at the Jan. 6 attack, though he was never charged with any crimes.

But he poses a threat to President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill," consolidating tax cuts, energy deregulation, and border security — and he doesn't seem overly concerned about how hard that makes his GOP colleagues' jobs.

This week, Van Orden plans to raise a point of order in the House, along with a handful of other GOP colleagues, prohibiting the reconciliation bill from including any cuts to Medicaid or SNAP that affect people under 19 or over 65, as well as pregnant women or people with disabilities.

This would sharply limit how Republicans could reduce spending on health care and food assistance. The budget blueprint passed by Republicans seeks $880 billion in savings from these programs.

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"Congressman, are you worried about blowback from your Republican colleagues for making that kind of public pronouncement for putting forward that point of order?" Scripps News congressional correspondent Nathaniel Reed asked him.

"I don't work for them," he replied. "I work for the people of the 3rd Congressional District of the State of Wisconsin, and I don't work for a single person up here unless one of my constituents is visiting. Their opinion is completely irrelevant. What is completely relevant is that my farmers, my seniors, my factory workers, my folks in the district that have disabilities, that they're taken care of."

Van Orden and his co-sponsors are not alone — the push to cut Medicaid, which was made one of the largest public insurance programs in America by the expansion in the Affordable Care Act, has caused deep divisions in the GOP, with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) staking out a red line against cuts as well — even though as Attorney General of Missouri almost a decade ago, he sought to strip Medicaid expansion from tens of millions of people.

Some analysts, however, have warned that at least some of the GOP holdouts against Medicaid cuts appear to be giving themselves political room to agree to somewhat more modest cuts, or caps that could devalue the program's funding over time.

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