A Republican lawmaker who told Raw Story he'd like to "f---ing punch someone in the face" responded to subsequent reporting by publicly shaming a former school teacher.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) took to X at 4:35 a.m. ET to lash out at Rachel La Due for sharing Raw Story reporter Matt Laslo's video of the lawmaker after he'd made his expletive-laden comments about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
"Winning," wrote Van Orden. "Not."
This comment appeared above a screenshot of La Due's X bio, which shows her to be a WisDems communications deputy and a former middle school teacher.
Van Orden highlighted her former role as a teacher and the number of her X followers in his sarcastic rebuke.
La Due, for her part, argued that Van Orden had behaved poorly.
"Watching [Van Orden] slowly come to terms with not having a job next year feels like watching a toddler kick and scream after being told they can't have something they want," she wrote.
At least one of Van Orden's readers on X expressed surprise at his response to La Due.
"What do you have against our teachers?" the X user asked, "And why are you posting in the middle of the night?"
On Thursday, The embattled GOP congressman told Raw Story he was eager to brawl on Hegseth’s behalf after Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) dropped impeachment articles against the embattled defense secretary.
“If these morons are talking s--- about Pete, you know, they're barking up the wrong tree,” the former Navy SEAL said.
Massie, meanwhile, has accused Hegseth of “murder” for the Pentagon’s extrajudicial killings of alleged drug dealers in the Caribbean and of conducting an “illegal war in Iran."
As Van Orden started his Harley-Davidson just off the steps of the U.S. Capitol, he claimed, “Thomas Massie has lost the bubble."