Grassley’s New Task: How to Silence a Cellphone

Veteran Sen. Chuck Grassley’s struggles with technology are well-documented. Now he has a new problem on his hands — how to put his cellphone on silent.

The 78-year-old Iowa senator found his own speech interrupted on Capitol Hill on Wednesday by the familiar Marimba ring of his iPhone. He reached into his pocket and after several seconds, quieted the phone before continuing his speech.

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Grassley was speaking against the nomination of Jeffrey Helmick to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, when the phone rang out.

C-Span cameras quickly cut away from Grassley, the chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, but he could be heard muttering to himself in frustration as he tried to silence the device.

Grassley has struggled with other technology, especially his attempts to use Twitter. On one day in April he tweeted the single letter “P,” followed by a message that read in part, “Bcause Am ppl r not stupid as this x prof of con law.”

In another tweet he referred to a Fox News interview with “greta van sunshine” and once sent out a message saying, “Need 2 pass my cameras in courts leg.”