It’s only my third week at Vox, and before I’ve learned how to properly use the printer I had the opportunity to interview the new prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau. That interview is going to come out next week — but, to my surprise, it's already gone viral.
As you can see in the video above, during our interview we were interrupted not once, but twice, by two young men begging Trudeau to run for president of the United States with a seemingly rehearsed performance about the lackluster slate of American presidential candidates.
Before Trudeau and I even had a chance to sit down, they swarmed him. "All those guys are so bad. They're so terrible, please," the pranksters shouted, as they fell to their knees and tried to recruit the prime minister to run. "They're boring, weird … we have to settle for them."
Trudeau, bless him, responded to their plea with an easy grace, saying, "Get up, guys. I don’t know if you notice, but I actually already have a job, and it’s a pretty good one," as he continued to shake hands in the Mile End Deli where we were.
I told the two men to stop stealing my interview questions. They eventually let us sit down. The prime minister and I ordered poutine. He got smoked meat (medium rare) and a very on-brand Canada Dry ginger ale, and we chatted about his plans for Canada.
The interview went uninterrupted until, in the middle of our interview, the bros decided to head out — clearly they had places to be but didn’t want to be rude and leave without saying goodbye. "Last chance — please run for president," they said. "Get rid of the border, don’t build a wall."
Some are speculating the two men have disrupted other political events before, which I guess would make them at least "semi-professional" interrupters. Many on social media noted they look similar to the two men who went to a Marco Rubio rally shouting that he allegedly stole a girlfriend from them, or who went to a Hillary Clinton event sporting shirts that said "Settle for Hillary."
In any case, their Trudeau performance went viral, and my dad saw me in the background of the video while watching the news — now I guess he finally understands what my job is. Maybe manterrupting has upsides, even if it’s during the most important interview of my career. The moment was covered by BuzzFeed, the Huffington Post,the Washington Post, AOL, and the Independent. Thanks, bros!
My full conversation with Trudeau will be part of the launch of my new web series around the 2016 election on Vox — stay tuned for it!
