New speaker Mike Johnson said Black son requested to stay out of the public eye
It's unclear whether Johnson and his son Michael have the same last name or if the child was ever officially adopted.
House Speaker Mike Johnson shares the reasoning behind his Black son appearing largely absent from his public life.
According to The Independent, the Louisiana Republican’s “adopted” son, Michael, does not wish to be included in the public eye. Johnson’s Communication Director, Corinne Day, told Newsweek that the Louisiana Republican and his wife, Kelly, spoke to Michael about the political realm in 2016.
“At the time of the Speaker’s election to Congress, Michael was an adult with a family of his own,” Day said. “He asked not to be involved in their new public life. The Speaker has respected that sentiment throughout his career and maintains a close relationship with Michael to this day.”
While it’s unclear whether Michael’s last name is Johnson or he was ever officially adopted, Day noted in her statement that the new House Speaker and his wife, as newlyweds, took the former in when he was 14.
Johnson’s personal life has been thrust into the spotlight since he won the speakership, with some people taking notice of the fact that Michael was absent from a family portrait posted on the Republican’s official site.
He also isn’t mentioned in the politician’s bio, which notes that he and his wife have been married since 1999 and “have four children, Hannah, Abigail, Jack and Will,” according to The Independent.
However, Johnson has spoken about Michael on several occasions. In 2019, the Republican testified against reparations for slavery and said Michael also opposed it because it strayed from an “important tradition of self-reliance.”
“I have walked with him through discrimination that he has had to endure over the years and the hurdles he sometimes faced,” Johnson said at the time, The Independent reported. “I know all this because I was with him.”
Following the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, the congressman compared Michael’s situation to that of his biological son, Jack. During a 2020 PBS interview, Johnson noted that Jack, whom he referred to as a “white Caucasian,” had an easier road ahead of him than Michael, a Black American.
In the same interview, he likened his and his wife’s decision to take “custody” of Michael decades ago to the movie “The Blind Side,” saying, “Have you seen the story ‘The Blind Side’? That was our story, except my Michael was not an NFL prospect…we took him in as our own.”
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