‘Big’ cockroach crashes State Department press briefing, alarms spokesman in awkward scene
He didn’t mean to bug.
An unwanted cockroach encroached upon State Department spokesman Mathew Miller’s press briefing Thursday, prompting him to interrupt his remarks and plot a way to terminate the insect with extreme prejudice.
“I hate to interrupt. There’s a big cockroach on the wall over your head there,” Miller said with a grin to Associated Press reporter Matt Lee, who is known for his tough lines of questioning.
“No insecticide or roachicide in the briefing, Matt,” he quipped. “Sorry to be distracted but that’s a rather large one.”
Lee asked, “Do I have to get it now?” but Miller suggested he hold off until he finished his remarks about Hezbollah’s spate of cross-border attacks against Israel.
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” the spokesman went on, “because now the room is gonna have a hard time focusing on the very important messages I have to deliver here.”
Not long after Miller alerted the room to the pest, a department sound engineer did some quick debugging, according to Washington Post reporter John Hudson.
“Solves that problem,” Miller said after some banging noises were heard on the news conference feed.
As in New York City, the nation’s capital is a notorious hotspot for roaches, especially during warner weather.
In classic DC fashion, social media users used the amusing moment to jab at their political bug-aboos.
“George Santos still lurking around, I see,” one X user posted in response to C-Span’s clip of Miller bugging out.