LA CROSSE, WI — Today, Rebecca Cooke declined a debate with Congressman Derrick Van Orden hosted by the La Crosse Chamber of Commerce. She then falsely claimed that Van Orden was the one who declined, despite a recording of the negotiations showing otherwise.

Van Orden’s campaign asked the La Crosse Chamber to set up a call to agree on a date, time and location.

When asked directly by a Van Orden staffer whether Cooke was declining the debate, the Cooke campaign confirmed “not be continuing with these conversations” with the La Crosse Chamber and that it was ending negotiations.

Despite that recorded exchange, Cooke posted today lying that Van Orden had declined the debate.

Audio recording of the debate negotiations is here.

Van Orden has now accepted debate invitations from the Wisconsin Gun Owners Association, Wisconsin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Hunter Nation, the La Crosse Chamber of Commerce, and has agreed to the terms of the Eau Claire Chamber of Commerce with date permitting.

“I have now accepted four debate invitations. Rebecca Cooke has declined all four. Today, her campaign declined the La Crosse Chamber debate on a recorded call, and then she went online and outright lied that I was the one who walked away.

This is not a misunderstanding. It is another blatant, intentional lie from a candidate who has built her campaign around rewriting her own record.

Rebecca Cooke has spent years presenting herself as a waitress and political outsider while simultaneously working as a political consultant. Her own campaign still markets her as a waitress, while reporting has documented her paid political consulting work.

She now wants Wisconsin voters to believe she has always been an opponent of data centers, despite her professional ties to the Wisconsin Technology Council and Third Way, organizations with documented histories of supporting data-center development in Wisconsin.

And today, when given another opportunity to stand on a debate stage and answer for her record face-to-face, she ran away from it and then lied about who walked away.

Rebecca Cooke has made a career out of telling voters whatever version of herself she thinks will help her politically. The debate stage would require her to answer for her actual record, and that is exactly what she continues to avoid.” said Van Orden.

Positions Cooke Can’t Answer For:

  • Worked as a senior fellow for Democrat think tank Third Way and Wisconsin Tech Council, making at least $30,000 to cover up Wisconsin farmland with data centers.
  • Bankrolled by liberal billionaires, while cosplaying as a poor waitress.
  • Calling Trump voters fascists.
  • Calling Eau Claire “racist” while criticizing the presence of MAGA flags in her hometown.
  • Worked as a paid political consultant for Kirk Bangstad, who celebrated the attempted assassination of President Trump and fantasized assassinations of Republicans. 
  • Endorsed by AFSCME, which sued the Trump administration to let illegal aliens have CDLs and aided businesses on how to evade ICE
  • Endorsed by the NRDC, which pushes the Green New Scam
  • Endorsed by WEAC, a teachers union backing sex changes for minors and supports allowing men to play in women’s sports
  • Wants to sell Wisconsin farmland to China
  • Called her own hometown of Eau Claire “racist”
  • Has been exposed as a longtime Democrat political operative
  • Supported defunding the police
  • Supports socialist NYC Mayor, Zohran Mamdani
  • Endorsed by Bernie Sanders
  • Called ICE “disgusting” and “wrong”