Startup Mic.com Scores Interview With President Barack Obama On Iran Nuclear Deal

The self-styled millennial news startup Mic has snagged a sit-down video interview with President Barack Obama for next week. The site clinched the offer after interviewing deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes last week.

Mic will ask Obama about the recently completed negotiations for the Iran nuclear deal, and has requested that readers submit questions for the president online.

“This is something we were hopeful that we would get, a sit-down with the president,” Mic’s head of communications James Allen told International Business Times on Friday. “We’ve proven we can engage young people on serious and substantive topics, and we’re proud the White House has decided to sit down with us.”

The interview will be conducted by Mic’s Editor-in-Chief Jake Horowitz, who with CEO Chris Altchek founded the website in 2011 after raising an initial $5 million in funding.

When asked why Horowitz, who had no background in journalism prior to starting Mic, would conduct the interview, Allen said the company’s co-founder was up to the task.

“Jake has been our editor-in-chief for four years now and has worked in the Middle East before,” he said. “He’s familiar with this topic.”

Allen said Horowitz had previously worked for think tanks studying the Middle East and had traveled throughout the region.

The big get for Mic is reminiscent of the New Republic’s exclusive interview with Obama in 2013, when the magazine’s new owner -- Facebook multimillionaire Chris Hughes, another nonjournalist -- sat down with the president to talk foreign affairs.