11-Year-Old Damon Weaver Gets His Obama Interview

In the chaos of the 2008 presidential election, viral video had one champion of adorableness — sixth-grader Damon Weaver, a student reporter for KEC TV whose interview with Joe Biden propelled him to viral fame, securing him a college scholarship on top of endless media exposure. But he didn’t achieve his real dream — becoming the youngest person ever to conduct a one-on-one interview with the President — until yesterday.

Weaver, whose small hometown of Pahokee, Fla., has an unemployment rate of 24 percent, according to ABC News, admitted to Diane Sawyer back in April that he wanted a chance to ask Obama for help with the crime-torn community. But his chance to meet the President came instead when the administration saw an opportunity to present a new agenda for education.

In the video, Weaver is adorably starstruck by meeting the President, who strides in with confidence, complimenting Weaver’s suit before beginning to addressing his questions. It takes about half the interview for Weaver to loosen up a little — the exact turning point, I think, comes when he and Obama share a mutual fondness for mangos — and he suffers from a classic interviewer mistake of sticking too close to his prepped questions, not following up on his subject’s responses. However, when it comes to maintaining eye contact and keeping the flow of questions coming, Weaver earns an A-plus. So, not bad for an 11-year-old.

Of course, anyone thinking that this interview was going to be hard-hitting was living in fantasy land — deep down it’s a PR stunt, with Weaver focusing his questions on the administration’s plans for improving education. But while it’s hard to imagine that this interview would have happened if Obama’s team weren’t so incredibly media-savvy, the YouTube channel of Canal Point Elementary School (which Weaver attends) has the exclusive on this video and the overall production values definitely feel authentic to Weaver’s previous interviews.

And a grown-up reporter probably wouldn’t be able to pull off asking a question like “What is it like being the President of the United States?” But you know what? It’s a question that could lead to a lot of interesting answers. And Obama’s response is carefully worded, but does include the admission that the leader of the free world, in his first year in office, gets a little worn down. Not to mention the fact that he can’t dunk anymore.

This event is reminiscent of an recent incident where Daniel Radcliffe gave some serious red carpet time at the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince premiere to a 11-year-old reporter for Scholastic News, albeit on a much larger scale. Sure, these are special cases. But there is nothing more empowering for kids than knowing that their voices have a chance of being heard.