Slate’s homepage editors spend a lot of time looking for photos to put on our site. Those searches sometimes yield unexpected results: random, perplexing, and mesmerizing photos that don’t belong on the homepage, but that are too good not to use. Every week, we’ll share something we’ve found.

As one of the key players in Congress, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy is a regular presence in the image searches of Slate’s homepage team, usually to illustrate articles about a GOP conference plagued by infighting. However, amid the photos of McCarthy looking completely exasperated, I tumbled down a much cuter rabbit hole this week.

Two things I know to be true: politicians love to do photo ops with babies, and babies love to touch anything they can get their little fingers on. Put them together, and you end up with something like this photo of McCarthy nibbling on a baby’s hand.

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This is from the first day of the 118th Congress, when members-elect were supposed to be sworn in. However, that bit of housekeeping was snarled by the drawn-out fight over selecting the next speaker. Day 1 did not go smoothly for McCarthy, who lost three votes in his bid for the speakership. During a break in the action, it appears McCarthy took a moment to soothe his presumably fried nerves by playing with a small child.

The baby in question, Julianna, is the daughter of Mike Lawler, a freshman Republican congressman from New York who supported McCarthy for speaker. Blessedly free from the corrupting knowledge of America’s broken political system, Julianna seems more interested in sticking her fingers in McCarthy’s mouth than judging him for his historic failure on the House floor. And McCarthy appears to be a good sport about the violation of his personal space, leaning in and watching the baby intently as she reaches past his lips.

One of the great things about babies is that they do not adhere to the decorum and pageantry of politics, so their presence is a wild card when it comes to the wire photos of elected officials and candidates. Inspired by this photo of McCarthy, I combed through Getty to see how other politicians fared with touchy babies.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

President Joe Biden’s identity as a father has been central to his political image. He has good rapport with kids, like when he recently consoled a crying toddler who interrupted his speech by quipping, “I don’t blame you—I’m bored with me, too.” In this photo from the 2020 campaign, Biden shares a serious moment with a baby. He is laser-focused on the tot as he appears to kiss the child’s tiny hand.

Emmanuel Dunand/Getty Images

With over 20 grandchildren, I assume Utah Sen. Mitt Romney has lots of practice handling little ones. In this 2012 photo from his presidential campaign, Romney smiles wide as a drooling baby claws their fingers into his cheek. The child looks mesmerized by something just out of frame, and Romney looks uncharacteristically carefree, with some of his hair plastered to his forehead.

While Romney, Biden, and McCarthy all have had their cute moments with babies, President Barack Obama undeniably won the baby primary. In all the photos I found on Getty Images, he appears unperturbed by small children grabbing at him. More than that, he seems to relish it, hamming it up as the babies reach out to touch him. He seems unafraid to be a little silly and puffs out his cheeks or scrunches up his face to entertain the babies.

Emmanuel Dunand/Getty Images

In this 2008 photo, taken at a North Carolina restaurant during the Democratic primary race, a 7-month-old baby named Aedyn reaches up to pat Obama’s cheek as he bends down to meet the child. An adult’s hand is caught mid-motion reaching toward Aedyn’s arm, presumably to prevent the baby from grabbing the senator’s face, but Obama seems fine with it (Getty’s caption makes a point to note that it was only a “gentle tap”).

There is one notable figure who struggles with the task. Donald Trump is not a natural with kids, to say the least. He certainly does not seem to share his political peers’ willingness to indulge babies’ curiosity and wandering hands. But it’s not a total wash: searching “donald trump baby” in Getty does yield some delightfully unique results.

Tolga Akmen/Getty Images