CNN congressional reporter Manu Raju’s live shot was nearly ruined after a cicada crawled up his lapel and into his collar.
The network’s chief congressional correspondent posted a behind-the-scenes video Thursday evening that showed him talking to his field crew at the Capitol, planning their next hit, as a cicada quickly crawled up his blue suit, then disappeared behind his head. Seconds later, he slapped the back of his neck. In the clip uploaded by Raju, there was a little post-production magic: bleeps were added over the four seconds during which he unleashed a slew of swear words.
“What the hell!” Raju said as his colleagues audibly laughed. “Do I have more on me?”
Someone assured him he did not, and then the bleeping continued.
This summer, billions of the large bugs have descended on Washington, D.C — or rather, they’ve ascended to it. The pesky bugs are Brood X cicadas that emerge from the ground every 17 years; this is one of those years.
On Friday morning, Raju appeared on CNN’s “New Day” to discuss the incident, which he horrifically revealed was not an isolated one.
“The context here is important,” he insisted, as co-hosts John Berman and Brianna Keilar made their disgust clear. “A couple minutes before that happened, there was actually another cicada that allegedly fell out of my pocket and that happened while I was waiting to go on.”
He explained he’d been outside interviewing Sen. John Thune before returning indoors.
“Perhaps a cicada, one of those buggers, jumped on me as I was running back into the Capitol…” he postulated.
See Raju discuss the incident on “New Day” below.
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