Mike Johnson's 'lust for power' led him to bow down to 'Orange Jesus': Morning Joe

Panelists on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" heaped scorn on House speaker Mike Johnson for selling his soul to Donald Trump in his rise to power.

Former congresswoman Liz Cheney lambasted her ex-colleagues in her new book, "Oath and Honor," and singled out the publicly pious Louisiana Republican for filing a 2020 election challenge he knew to be flawed as a favor to Trump – whom she said other Republicans referred to as "Orange Jesus."

"These self-styled, the speaker of the House, you know, 'If you want to understand me, read your Bible,'" said "Morning Joe" analyst John Heilemann. "There's a pretty basic thing, Ten Commandments. He's like the leader of the cult to 'Orange Jesus' and this is -- there's so many hypocrisies among this group, but there is something so jarring to hear the invocation, even in a maybe comic way, of portraying Trump and treating him as if he is, in fact, their messiah. You got to kind of ask the question, someone has to go up to Mike Johnson at some point and ask him the question, 'You know, sir, you know, you said look at the Bible, I've looked – how do you feel about 'Orange Jesus?'"

Host Joe Scarborough and other panelists agreed that right-wing Christians do seem to regard the twice-impeached former president as something of a religious figure.

"You can look at quotes from so-called evangelical leaders, look at quotes from so-called Christian nationalists, they hold him up as an idol," Scarborough said. "I mean, read Jeremiah, about what Jeremiah says about what happens to followers of God when they worship idols. They become worthless, like the idols themselves. In this case, [New York Times columnist] David French, who is far closer to being in the pastoral realm than I will ever be, like almost full circle there, David French said, wait a second – read the Bible? Read the Bible and you'll know what the new speaker -- he said no, just the opposite."

"This is the great irony, he became speaker in part because he propagated the biggest lie that has ever been propagated in the U.S. government in our lifetime, in our lifetime," Scarborough continued. "He sits on a throne built on lies – in fact, built on the biggest lie that was an attempt to overthrow the government. It's a lie that he knows is a lie, but he did it anyway, and as Liz Cheney said, why did the speaker lie? The speaker lied because he wanted power. The speaker lied because he said, 'I have to be in Trump's circle.' He lied for power, and as David French so eloquently wrote in the New York Times, when Mike Johnson became speaker, he said, not only is there nothing in the Bible or in the New Testament, in the Gospels and Sermon on the Mount that would justify this, in fact, what this man has done is the antithesis of everything Jesus ever spoke about. Read the Bible – not even close, not even close."

"There's nothing that Mike Johnson has done, nothing in his government service, nothing in his lust for power, lust, lust for the speaker's gavel that has anything to do with what Jesus Christ preached about when he was here on Earth," he added.

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