the cicadas strike again
Biden press plane delayed over 6 hours due to cicadas
A press charter plane for President Biden's first foreign trip abroad was held up for almost seven hours before finally departing on Wednesday — and it was all because of those pesky cicadas.
The press plane was set to leave Tuesday evening at around 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time, but CNN reports that a new plane needed to be dispatched "after airline officials informed White House travel aides that cicadas had invaded exterior sections of the plane late Tuesday afternoon."
The plane ended up leaving on Wednesday morning, which according to CNN was over six and a half hours behind schedule. It's just the press' latest cicada-related incident after video captured CNN's Manu Raju having one crawl on him during a live shot, and earlier this week, experts said a massive blot on a weather radar in Virginia was even thought to be because of the insects.
"I'm not surprised because the first thing I thought of: if it happened to me, it's gonna happen to you, too," Raju, who CNN has dubbed its "chief cicada correspondent," declared Wednesday in reaction to the news. "And it clearly did here with this press plane because those beasts are everywhere in Washington, D.C."
CNN's John Berman jokingly responded, "I don't know if these bugs have an issue with the First Amendment, but first to attack you, a congressional correspondent, and then to ground the White House press plane, certainly does raise questions."