Morning Joe shreds House Speaker Mike Johnson for trashing America as 'depraved'

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough rebuked House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and other Republicans who seem to "hate" American values.

Video has surfaced of the Louisiana Republican taking part in a prayer call early last month with far-right Pastor Jim Garlow with the World Prayer Network, and the "Morning Joe" host was troubled that Johnson suggested the nation deserved God's wrath for its "dark and depraved" culture.

"He ran the big lie on Capitol Hill," Scarborough said. "Preach about that, Jimmy Swaggart, right? Go to your motel room and start faxing around, you know, conspiratorial documents. There's so much hypocrisy. Whether it is Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart. There's so much hypocrisy to go to here, about a guy, again, trying to undermine our institutions. The guy who led in the House of Representatives the attempt to undermine the United States Constitution in an attempt to end democracy. Suddenly, this great prophet, this Jeremiah of our times, went quietly silent, as mobs rushed the people's house where he was and battered and abused police officers with American flags that our soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen took into battle over 200 years to defend this country. The hypocrisy, in the words of, I think Homer Simpson when someone accidentally threw communion water in his eyes, it burns. There's so much hypocrisy."

Johnson specifically cited the growing acceptance of LGBTQ people, specifically teenagers, and the decline in church attendance as deserving of divine judgment, and Scarborough suggested that the apparent turn away from conservative values had much to do with Donald Trump.

"I have to go back to the question I asked yesterday, I'm serious – why do Republicans hate America so much?" Scarborough added. "I'm an evangelical. I believe, whether people think it's crazy or not, I believe, you know, what the Gospels say. I believe what the Sermon on the Mount says. I believe in Jesus. We're all sinners, we're all fallen, right? But I'm very optimistic about America's future. I see the good in people, I see the good in the country. It is interesting, he is trying to dig statistics about, I don't know, drag queen shows or something. What I see is that, not so long ago, teenage pregnancy at an all-time low in America. That's something we always heard about, you know, in the Southern Baptist Church growing up. Child poverty over the last year, like a 50-, 60-year low. Our economy is doing well. A lot of things going in the right direction."

"But I've got to say, if he's worried about pews emptying out, talk to young people," Scarborough added. "So many will tell you – Russell Moore has talked about this in Christianity Today – they're emptying out because they don't want to go to a church where preachers worship Donald Trump instead of Jesus Christ."

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MSNBC 11 17 2023 06 21 55youtu.be