Il Messaggiere - 'Smooch of the Union': US first lady steals show with wayward kiss

NYSE - LSE
BCC -3.05% 70.42 $
CMSC -1.89% 20.08 $
RBGPF 0% 75.17 $
JRI -0.85% 11.83 $
NGG -0.77% 83.62 $
RIO -2.19% 84.54 $
BCE 0.69% 21.64 $
CMSD -1.99% 20.08 $
VOD -1.23% 15.5 $
RYCEF 0.45% 17.94 $
BTI 1.2% 60.82 $
GSK -0.61% 51.23 $
RELX -0.28% 39.91 $
AZN -1.41% 186.76 $
BP -0.02% 44.58 $
'Smooch of the Union': US first lady steals show with wayward kiss
'Smooch of the Union': US first lady steals show with wayward kiss / Photo: SAUL LOEB - AFP

'Smooch of the Union': US first lady steals show with wayward kiss

Did they, or didn't they?

Text size:

For a surreal moment -- just as Joe Biden prepared to deliver his State of the Union speech -- his wife Jill Biden stole the show by appearing to plant a kiss smack on the lips of the vice president's husband.

It happened in a heartbeat: after sweeping into Congress to cheers, the first lady made her way over to the second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, and clasped his hand.

Then, in a moment destined to go viral, they leaned in for a friendly embrace -- but at least one of them appears to have miscalculated and the result was a kiss either on, or very, very close, to the lips.

"Smooch of the Union," teased the New York Post tabloid -- zooming in on photos of what it declared without a doubt to have been a kiss on the mouth.

Other close-ups of the embrace seemed to show Biden's kiss landing just to one side of Kamala Harris's husband's mouth.

But Fox News -- a frequent critic of Biden's administration -- pounced on the apparent slip-up without the shadow of a doubt.

And Donald Trump's former advisor Kellyanne Conway shared a picture of the smooch with similar delight, quipping: "Wow, Covid really is over."

C.P.Ajello--IM