The Truth About The Fly In Mike Pence's Hair During The Debate

So what was up with that fly in Vice President Mike Pence's hair during the 2020 vice presidential debate? It was bad enough that everyone worried about the vice president having COVID-19, thanks to his recent proximity to, well, a lot of folks with it, including President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, Senior Adviser Hope Hicks, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, and many more in the Trump administration's inner circle. But a fly, a biblical and literary symbol of disease, landing on the vice president — who, you'll recall, is also the Chairman of the White House Coronavirus Task Force — in the middle of a global pandemic was, as they say, "Peak 2020." Twitter went wild about the bug, of course. In fact, Now This reports that there were more than 500,000 tweets related to "The Fly" posted in just one hour after it landed. The fly also became a Twitter trend, naturally, engaging millions of Americans in the debate. The fly on Pence's head not only created a social media tsunami — it likely has far-reaching implications as well. Politico reported that the fly was the breakout star of the debate, noting that the insect remained on the vice president's head for about two minutes straight as the two candidates discussed racial justice and police brutality. Pence did not appear to notice the insect — or if he did, he certainly kept his cool. Several parody Twitter accounts starring the fly began hatching soon after the debate. One such account, Mike Pence's Fly, is already internet famous, with more than 112,000 followers, as of the making of this video. It was started by Keith Edwards, the comms director for The Lincoln Project, a political action committee founded by anti-Trump Republicans. While the fly on Pence's head during the debate had Twitter rolling, Joe Biden's team worked hard into the night crafting fly-inspired tweets for their candidate. Just after the debate, Biden's Twitter account shared a picture of the candidate holding a fly swatter. Just after, the Biden campaign began selling "Truth Over Flies" fly swatters on their website for a $10 donation to the campaign. But not everyone was feeling the fly. This isn't the first time that a fly has made front-page news. Back in 2009, for example, President Barack Obama was giving an interview to CNBC when a fly started to buzz around him. And a year later, another fly buzzed around him while he was discussing the Affordable Care Act, resulting in some viral photos of the fly on his face. And back in 2016, a fly landed on Hillary Clinton during a presidential debate. She seemed to not notice it and let it sit until it finally lost interest in whatever her and Donald Trump were talking about at the time. But Trump wasn't spared either! During a campaign event, eagle eyes reportedly once caught a fly lounging in Trump's comb over, per the New York Post. Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg also dealt with a fly situation while speaking at the 2020 Democratic convention. These things happen! Keep watching to see The Truth About The Fly In Mike Pence's Hair During The Debate! #MikePence #MikePenceFly