With a broad and taunting smile across his face, out Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) stepped into the arena on Wednesday for a heated exchange with fellow Wisconsinite and far-right GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden, live on television from the U.S. Capitol.

The very public confrontation between opposing lawmakers was caught on cable by news outlet Spectrum One.

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As Pocan and another Wisconsin House member, Rep. Tony Wied (R) chatted amiably with a correspondent for the outlet, a black-helmeted Van Orden rode through the background of the shot on his ubiquitous 2019 Harley Davidson Softail Slim and revved the engine loudly.

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“That’s your as***le buddy, Derrick Van Orden. You can put that on the news,” Pocan said to their interviewer as he watched Van Orden pull up and kick the stand.

“Hey, Derrick!” Pocan said, raising his voice, “Classy as always, man. We love it. Thank you.”

Van Orden then stepped into frame, already angry.

“Have you lost your mind? You know people read this stuff,” Van Orden said to Pocan, as Wied was caught wide-eyed in the middle of a simmering feud between the two reps that was now boiling over.

The day before, Pocan had posted an on-the-nose New Yorker cartoon authored by another Wisconsinite, Paul Noth, skewering Medicaid cuts the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.”

“You no longer have Medicaid, so expect a big, beautiful bill,” a doctor says to a patient in the caption.

Pocan called it “great work” by Noth.

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Van Orden responded to the post, retweeting with the cartoon, “Wisconsin is getting $1,000,000,000 a year plus up to Medicade [sic] per year. If any Wisconsinite loses coverage it will be due to incompetence, mismanagement, and malice by @GovEvers.”

“Seek mental health counseling,” he advised Pocan.

As the sun rose over Washington hours later, Pocan started his day with a response fileting his obstreperous opponent: “Only an idiot both votes to cut Medicaid and can’t spell it, @derrickvanorden. Please stop embarrassing Wisconsin.”

With Van Orden tenderized like prime Wisconsin beef, the table was set for the lawmakers’ on-air airing of grievances.

“I saw your drunken tweet at 1:30 in the morning last night,” Pocan told Van Orden, as Wied gingerly stepped away from the shot.

“No, I got done with the NDAA, you jerk,” Van Orden responded, referring to the annual National Defense Authorization Act.

“You’ve got a problem,” Van Orden continued. “I don’t know what it is, but I’d encourage you to seek mental health counseling. It’s absolutely disgusting.”

Pocan lobbed back, “Why are you so afraid to debate anyone here? Why don’t you want to debate the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’? Why are you afraid?”

Van Orden then accused Pocan of never holding a real job, claiming contrarily that the congressman “funnels over $500,000 a year of his campaign money to buy signs from his company.”

The longtime business owner shot back. “I’ve owned a small business for 37 years,” Pocan said, referring to Budget Signs & Specialties, a union print shop in Madison he cofounded in 1988.

“Tony, you owned a small business,” he said to Wied, stationed safely behind the interviewer for the fight. “That’s a little work, isn’t it?”

“Look that up,” Pocan said, as Van Orden hurled false accusations.

“Oh, my God,” Pocan continued, laughing as the Republican wandered from the scene. “Are you drinking right now, Derrick? That’s the real question.”

Van Orden has a longstanding reputation as a hot head.

In 2023, he made news when he excoriated Senate pages for taking a traditional photo lying on the mosaic floor of the Capitol Rotunda. He told the students, “Wake the f**k up you little shits!” and “Get the f**k out of here. You are defiling the space.” Pages reported him calling them “jackasses” and “lazy s**ts.”

In 2021, Van Orden confronted a student librarian in Wisconsin over a Pride Month book display, jabbing a finger at his victim and demanding to know who was responsible for setting it up so he could “teach them a lesson.”  

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