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78-year-old senator's "Let It Go" ringtone interrupts trade hearing

Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call / Getty, Disney
Andrew Prokop is a senior politics correspondent at Vox, covering the White House, elections, and political scandals and investigations. He’s worked at Vox since the site’s launch in 2014, and before that, he worked as a research assistant at the New Yorker’s Washington, DC, bureau.

If I had to guess which member of the US Senate had "Let it Go" from the Disney smash hit Frozen as a cellphone ringtone, I'd probably guess ... none of them. But I definitely wouldn't start by guessing 78-year-old Republican Pat Roberts of Kansas, who has been accurately described as having a "grumpy-old-man persona."

But as Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack testified at a Senate trade hearing today, Idina Menzel's voice suddenly broke into the proceedings with the incredibly catchy chorus from "Let it Go." An annoyed Roberts pulled out his phone and said, "Ah, come on," before letting the joy of Frozen into his heart and cracking a joke, as the room laughed. Check out this video, via the Hill:

later tweet from the senator's account suggested that the ringtone was "#forthegrandkids." Roberts defeated independent candidate Greg Orman to win a fourth Senate term last fall, so he'll have ample time to enjoy his grandkids' — or his — favorite Disney animated features before he's up again in 2020.

(h/t David Nakamura, via Twitter)

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