John Dingell Reads Mean Tweets

Dingell was back in Washington to celebrate the anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)
Dingell was back in Washington to celebrate the anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)
Posted July 31, 2015 at 5:06pm

No one is safe from mean tweets, not even the longest-serving member of Congress.  

Former Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich., took to Twitter Friday to read some mean tweets directed at his popular Twitter handle after losing a bet with his wife, Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., who succeeded him in Congress. The Dingells announced their bet on Twitter on July 15. “If she can get 5,000 followers by Sunday night, I have to film a @jimmykimmel-style Mean Tweets video,” Mr. Dingell tweeted, referring to the popular “Jimmy Kimmel Show” segment where celebrities read insults hurled at them in 140 characters or less.  

Mrs. Dingell won the challenge, and now has 5,649 followers on Twitter. So her 89-year-old husband went in front of the camera to read and provide some retorts to the insults, which mostly make cracks about his age.  

“The only thing I learned from my political science course was that John Dingell is like 307 years old,” wrote Nicole Curtis. To which Dingell replied, “That would make me older than the Constitution.”