The Louisiana representative cited privacy as to why there are no pictures of his “adopted” child in public family photos.

Mike Johnson’s meteoric elevation from an under-the-radar congressman from Louisiana to second-in-line to the U.S. presidency sent journalists, Democrats and Republicans alike to uncover information about the personal and professional history of the most right-wing and least experienced House Speaker in history, who took the top job on Wednesday.

On the day Johnson was voted in, several major right-wing social media accounts on X, formerly known as Twitter, began circulating clips of an interview Johnson gave to PBS in 2020, in which he told journalist Walter Isaacson that the police killing of George Floyd was “an act of murder” and called for “systemic change.” Notably, Johnson said in the interview that he had learned about racism in America through the experience of raising a Black son, Michael.

  • memfree@lemmy.ml
    1161·
    1 year ago

    They aren’t complaining that he had a black son, but that he’s an “undercover Democrat” because he’s stated that he learned about racism from the kid, saying things like, “Michael being a Black American, and Jack being white Caucasian. They have different challenges,” he said. “My son Jack has an easier path. He just does.”

    Further, there was a question as to if the kid was real since there are no photos. That led to the new clarification:

    Speculation about whether Michael was a real person prompted Johnson’s office to clarify. “When Speaker Johnson first ran for Congress in 2016, he and his wife, Kelly, spoke to their son Michael—who they took in as newlyweds when Michael was 14 years old,” said Corinne Day, Johnson’s communications director, in a statement first reported by Newsweek. “At the time of the Speaker’s election to Congress, Michael was an adult with a family of his own. He asked not to be involved in their new public life.” Day added that Johnson “maintains a close relationship with Michael to this day.”

    So if we are to believe him, there are no photos because that is the way the now-adult kid wants it.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
      1713·
      1 year ago

      I’m not going to believe a dang thing any Conservative says without concrete evidence and peer review.

      If the black kid adoption story is real, there will be photos, and someone will be able to produce them. If there are no photos, it’s all a lie.

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
      1214·
      1 year ago

      So if we are to believe him, there are no photos because that is the way the now-adult kid wants it.

      Let’s start a new conspiracy theory that he doesn’t actually have a Black son. It’ll go viral in a day. Space lasers!