‘On my way to tweet Ken Jennings!’ says Rush Holt

Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) may have only beaten IBM’s supercomputer, Watson, at one round of “Jeopardy!” on Monday night, but he isn’t letting his “term-limited” playing time diminish his achievement. 

“It may not have been regulation play,” Holt said of the exhibition match sponsored by IBM, “but those were regulation questions.” 

Holt talked to ITK as he hobbled through the Speaker’s Lobby on crutches, part of his recovery from a recent stress fracture in his foot.

“The tweets I’ve gotten have been great,” he said, “especially the ones from [all-time ‘Jeopardy!’ champion] Ken Jennings. In fact, I’m on my way to tweet Jennings right now!” 

Earlier in the day, Jennings had congratulated Holt via Twitter, writing, “Congrats to @rushholt! Uh, but his ‘win’ was just a single round. Seems the congressman supports Jeopardy term limits.”

 Holt, a five-time “Jeopardy!” champion, said, “The most important thing is that Ken and I both support the need for science and technology education.”

Asked by Holt whether he would join the lawmaker in supporting the issue, Jennings quipped, “Deal, @RushHolt! Sadly, your committee seems to have no oversight over supercomputers that might become sentient and take over the world.”

Jennings may have a point there. Holt serves on the House Natural Resources Committee and the Education and the Workforce Committee.

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