"What not to ask on a first date”: Mike Johnson asking Vice President Kamala Harris about her parents at the SOTU sparks wild reactions online

During the State of the Union speech on Thursday, March 7th, Vice President Kamala Harris, alongside House Speaker Mike Johnson, sat behind the President. However, Johnson asked her an unexpected question as he engaged in "small talk" with Kamala Harris after President Joe Biden's State of the Union speech.

As per Daily Kos and in the videos of the SOTU event that went viral on social media platforms:

"Johnson asked Harris if her parents were alive and claimed he was "practicing his 'poker-face.'"

When asked about it, he told Fox News host Sean Hannity:

"I asked her if her parents had been alive, did they survive to see her serving as vice president, and she lamented that they had not."

Meanwhile, once the event video, particularly his question to Kamala Harris, went viral, netizens took to platforms like X to react to the entire situation.

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Netizens react as Mike Johnson asked Kamala Harris about her parents

Netizens are trolling Mike Johnson on X (Image via Facebook / Kamala Harris / Mike Johnson)

As reported by outlets such as Daily Kos, Speaker Mike Johnson engaged in a conversation with Vice President Kamala Harris during the recent SOTU event, asking about the location of her parents.

A fresh speaker has taken the podium each year under President Joe Biden. This year, it was Mike Johnson's turn. After an astounding 21 days without a leader, he was voted to the position in October 2023. Congress remained without a leader for the longest time since 1962. At that time, choosing a new speaker took 55 days.

However, in an attempt to strike up a conversation during the event, he questioned US Vice President Kamala Harris about her parents. According to sources like Huffpost, Shyamala Gopalan, a cancer researcher and Harris' mother, passed away in 2009. On the other hand, her father, retired economics professor Donald Harris, is still very much alive. However, the vice president asserted that they are not close.

As per Newsweek, addressing the exchange with Harris during the State of the Union speech, Johnson told Fox News anchor Sean Hannity:

"We talked, for one example, about our parents. I asked her if her parents had been alive, did they survive to see her serving as vice president, and she lamented that they had not."

Nevertheless, once the video of the event went public, Johnson's choice of question for that moment left the internet perplexed. They took to X to react to the entire event and troll him.

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Biden and Harris recently appeared during the State of the Union event

The US Constitution mandates that a president disclose information to Congress "from time to time" on the State of the Union event. As per sources like the Hindustan Times, this year's SOTU event was very viral for Joe Biden as he gave his first speech since declaring his candidature for a second term.

During his speech in the US Capitol in Washington, the Senate and the House of Representatives were present for the joint session of Congress. Behind Biden were Vice President Kamala Harris, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and possibly members of the president's cabinet and the Supreme Court.

This time, Biden used his speech to emphasize the robust national economy, urge a higher tax burden on the affluent and big businesses, and ease voters' worries about his senior age.

To improve the flow of humanitarian aid into the region during the Israel-Hamas conflict, Biden further declared during the event that he had instructed the US military to assist in the construction of a makeshift port on the coast of Gaza.