--- title: Florida Congressman Joe Garcia Eats Earwax On CSPAN, Blames Hangnails description: "My mom always told me to keep my fingers out of my mouth, and now I know why" canonical: https://time.com/99049/congressman-eats-earwax-on-cspan/ author: Samantha Grossman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-05-14T14:50:49.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:09:40.014Z og:title: Watch a Congressman Pick His Ear and Eat It On Live TV og:description: He later blamed it on 'hangnails' og:url: https://time.com/99049/congressman-eats-earwax-on-cspan/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch a Congressman Pick His Ear and Eat It On Live TV twitter:description: He later blamed it on 'hangnails' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Congressman Eats His Earwax on Live TV, Then Blames Hangnails by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman May 14, 2014 2:50 PM UTC by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman May 14, 2014 2:50 PM UTC House Judiciary Committee meetings are already incredibly thrilling and action-packed, obviously, but last week, things got even _more_ interesting after Florida Congressman Joe Garcia picked his ear and ate it. Of course, the whole thing was recorded live on C-SPAN. In the video above, you can clearly see the Democrat digging in his ear, inspecting his findings, placing them into his mouth, and then going back for seconds. He got an earful (get it?) from lots of grossed-out people, so yesterday, he took to Twitter to respond: > [](https://twitter.com/RepJoeGarcia/status/466340426757451776) > [](https://twitter.com/RepJoeGarcia/status/466344673158905858) Okay, okay, we _guess_ that’s a valid explanation, but he sounds so defensive. Something is just not quite right here. Either way, now he knows that what happens on C-SPAN apparently doesn’t just stay on C-SPAN. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/99049/congressman-eats-earwax-on-cspan/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/99049/congressman-eats-earwax-on-cspan/"},"headline":"Congressman Eats His Earwax on Live TV, Then Blames Hangnails","datePublished":"2014-05-14T14:50:49.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:09:40.014Z","description":"\"My mom always told me to keep my fingers out of my mouth, and now I know why\"","url":"https://time.com/99049/congressman-eats-earwax-on-cspan/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Congress","politics","viral","Viral video"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Samantha Grossman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/99049/congressman-eats-earwax-on-cspan/","name":"Congressman Eats His Earwax on Live TV, Then Blames Hangnails"}}]}] ```