Joe Scarborough perpetually acts like a former congressman who thinks everyone who came after him isn’t as great as he was.
On Wednesday, he mocked Speaker Mike Johnson’s stature, calling him “Little Mike Johnson, Mikey.”
We love Southern accents, but [not for the first time] Scarborough misleadingly imitated Johson as having a Southern drawl. Yes, the Speaker’s from Louisiana, but his accent evokes polished newsreader, not James Carville.
Scarborough even managed to work in a boast about his own electoral prowess, claiming that even when he was behind in the early counting of some of his elections, he assured others that he was going to win since he knew where the uncounted votes were coming from. He thought “Mikey” shouldn’t go along with conspiracy theories about initial voting results on Election Night turning into defeats. That’s interesting, since Scarborough & Co. spent years on Team Mueller suggesting there was more “onion to unpeel” on Russian collusion with Trump to steal the 2016 election. Then there’s Joe’s favorite conspiracy….that Trump is a fascist, a Nazi.
Scarborough’s Wednesday shtick came in the context of criticizing Speaker Johnson’s support for Trump’s advocacy of the SAVE Act and its voter ID requirements, and expounding his view that Trump’s notions of “federalizing” elections are unconstitutional. Funny, they didn’t hate “federalizing” elections when Democrats were proposing it. But now, Scarborough cartoons it as Trump “trying to overthrow elections in the fall by shredding the Constitution.”
Scarborough’s mocking of Mike Johnson’s stature was utterly hypocritical. Over the years, Trump and Mika have often hammered Donald Trump for his mocking of the physical attributes or disabilities of others. Most notably, of course, was in response to Trump’s allegation about the alleged after-effects of a facelift he asserted Mika that had undergone.
But even if Joe and Mika’s condemnation of that was understandable, the possible sins of the President shall not be visited upon the Speaker. Mike Johnson is a mannerly man, with no history of disparaging the looks of others. And in contrast with Scarborough, Johnson doesn’t litter his lexicon with assorted f-bombs and other vulgarities.
In sum, there’s no excuse for Scarborough’s middle-school mocking of Johnson. Does calling Speaker Johnson “Little Mike” and “Mikey” make Joe feel like a big man?
Here’s the transcript.
MS NOW
Morning Joe
2/4/26
6:00 am ETKAROLINE LEAVITT: What the president was referring to is the SAVE Act, which is a huge, common-sense piece of legislation that Republicans have supported, that President Trump is committed to signing into law.
REPORTER: Just to be clear, he does believe the states should oversee [it all?]
LEAVITT: The president believes in the United States Constitution. However, he believes there has obviously been a lot of fraud and irregularities that have taken place in American elections. And again, voter ID is a highly popular and common-sense policy that the president wants to pursue, and he wants to pass legislation to make that happen for all states across the country.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, trying to explain what President Trump meant when he said on Monday that the federal government should take over elections in several states. But the president would undercut all of that a few hours later, ranting in the Oval Office about false claims of election fraud and telling reporters that the federal government should get involved.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Uh, can’t do that. So there’s this. There’s this little piece of paper called the United States Constitution. And somebody there should read it. Little Mike Johnson should read it as well, because Mikey now is starting to kind of feed into this brewing sort of scheme the White House is getting engaged in and talking about trying to overthrow elections in the fall by shredding the Constitution. Details, details. We’ll get into it in a little bit.
MIKA: Yes.
SCARBOROUGH: Just to clarify for our friends on Capitol Hill and on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue, the Constitution, Article 1, Section 4, Clause 1. That one. The Constitution, just in case there are any questions with Mike Johnson or Donald Trump or anybody in the Senate, and I don’t think there is in the Senate. Locals, the state governments, they run elections. It’s black and white. It’s in the United States Constitution. This has been the way it has always been in the United States.
Oh, there we go. Clause 1. I’m going to read it slowly for our friends on Capitol Hill. Clause 1. Elections Clause. The times places and manner of holding elections where senators and representatives shall be prescribed by each state, by the legislature thereof. But the Congress may, at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations, except for places of choosing senators.
So if Congress wants to get involved and pass something, they can pass something. But it is the states who, at the end of the day, run this, not the President of the United States.
And you have Steve Bannon saying they’re going to swarm. You know, ICE is going to swarm polling locations. No, they’re not. No court’s going to allow that to happen.
And you have Mike Johnson actually playing into it. Mike Johnson: I mean, how low can he go? I actually am very disappointed. Mike Johnson now playing into these conspiracy theories, going, [imitates Johnson speaking with Southern accent] Well, you know, you know, one candidate was ahead, and then he fell behind, and that seemed to happen.
That’s elections! Ask everybody. I’ve been behind on, you know, early in elections. And they’re saying, how you doing? Well, doing really well. We’re going to win.
I mean, when we project sometimes, you’ll look and it’ll say a candidate may be behind by a percentage point or two. And NBC or ABC or CBS will project the other candidate the winner because they know where the votes are all coming in from. I mean, this is such garbage and nonsense, but they keep doing it.
