Scarborough Parrots Clyburn, Says The South Has Been 'Redeemed'

MS NOW's Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough is the kind of guy who fancies himself as someone defending true Christianity against the "Christian nationalists" who seek to pervert it. However, on Friday, Scarborough welcomed Rep. James Clyburn to bask in the results of Tuesday's midterms and parroted his explicitly Christian analogy that claimed Democrats winning in the South has "redeemed" it in the same way Christ has redeemed the world.

Scarborough began by marveling at the electoral map, "Look at that map. Congressman, I'm telling you what, from Lizard's Thicket in Columbia, South Carolina, to Whataburger in Austin, Texas, the Democrats have broken the Solid South. Talk about it. What happened?"

Clyburn didn't waste much time comparing his party's win to Jesus, "Remember that song that we used to sing back in that Southern Baptist church you grew up in? And the fundamentalist Church of God that I grew up in. 'If anybody asks you just who I am, tell them that I've been redeemed.' I think that we saw on Tuesday a redemption of the South, unlike the Redeemer Democrats, we had back post-Reconstruction for the South, that has stayed true to the principles laid out in the Constitution of these United States."

Is this the Christian Nationalism I've been hearing so much about? After James Clyburn uses religious framing to say the South has been "redeemed," Joe Scarborough echoes the idea "This is one of the great stories of our time, political stories of our time, Congressman...You talk… pic.twitter.com/GQcLoVFs6l

— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) November 6, 2026

Not finished with the redemption talk, Clyburn added, "All of the leadership roles down in Georgia are going to be held by—the statewide leadership roles—held by African American women. And we've been hearing it for the last several years now. What do African-American women get for the investments they've made in this Democratic Party? Well, just look in January and see who will be raising their hands and putting their left hand on the Bible, taking the oaths of office. You are going to see that we have been redeemed."

Scarborough's effusive praise for Democrats was also just getting started, "This is one of the great stories of our time, political stories of our time, Congressman, because I remember after 2000 [sic] saying how remarkable it was that some of the people that could have been the most despondent and the most beaten down, and the first to ask, "Why do I have to step into the void and save this country?""

He then echoed the idea about redemption, "Well, they were the black women in Milwaukee, the black women in Detroit, the black women in Philadelphia that helped Joe Biden win in 2020 in that general election race and made the difference. And now you come six years forward and you talk about redemption. You talk about being redeemed. Black women in Georgia, a black man in Mississippi, a Hispanic woman in Texas. It's extraordinary. The most extraordinary part is that Republicans gutted civil rights protections to try to stop black representatives in the House."

Naturally, Scarborough's list of minority politicians from the South only included Democrats. As it was, Scarborough added, "And so these women and men said, 'Okay, okay, that's fine, that's fine. We got Jim Clyburn in the House. We'll just start winning governorships and Senate races.' It's extraordinary how the attempts to crush civil rights in the Deep South blew up in Republicans' face politically."

The fact that Democrats won in the South is evidence that all of the talk about Republicans hating civil rights and trying to suppress the vote was bunk. It was, however, a nice way for MS NOW to scare people into voting for Democrats despite the network's instance that fearmongering is only a Republican thing because MS NOW believes that America can only be its true self when Democrats win.

Here is a transcript for the November 6 show:

MS NOW Morning Joe

11/6/2026

7:43 AM ET

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Look at that map. Congressman, I'm telling you what, from Lizard's Thicket in Columbia, South Carolina, to Whataburger in Austin, Texas, the Democrats have broken the Solid South. Talk about it. What happened?

JAMES CLYBURN: Well, thank you so much for having me this morning. You know, if looking at me this morning and seeing the look on my face, remember that song that we used to sing back in that Southern Baptist church you grew up in? And the fundamentalist Church of God that I grew up in. 

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah.

CLYBURN: "If anybody asks you just who I am, tell them that I've been redeemed."

I think that we saw on Tuesday a redemption of the South, unlike the Redeemer Democrats, we had back post-Reconstruction for the South, that has stayed true to the principles laid out in the Constitution of these United States.

And that preamble that says we are in search of a more perfect union. We took a giant step back toward that track, toward a more perfect union. I'm so proud of Mississippi, of South Carolina, of North Carolina, of Texas. I'm proud of Georgia. My goodness, an African-American woman can be the next governor of Georgia.

All of the leadership roles down in Georgia are going to be held by—the statewide leadership roles—held by African American women. And we've been hearing it for the last several years now. What do African-American women get for the investments they've made in this Democratic Party? Well, just look in January and see who will be raising their hands and putting their left hand on the Bible, taking the oaths of office. You are going to see that we have been redeemed.

SCARBOROUGH: This is one of the great stories of our time, political stories of our time, Congressman, because I remember after 2000 [sic] saying how remarkable it was that some of the people that could have been the most despondent and the most beaten down, and the first to ask, "Why do I have to step into the void and save this country?"

Well, they were the black women in Milwaukee, the black women in Detroit, the black women in Philadelphia that helped Joe Biden win in 2020 in that general election race and made the difference. And now you come six years forward and you talk about redemption. You talk about being redeemed. Black women in Georgia, a black man in Mississippi, a Hispanic woman in Texas. It's extraordinary. The most extraordinary part is that Republicans gutted civil rights protections to try to stop black representatives in the House.

CLYBURN: Absolutely.

SCARBOROUGH: And so these women and men said, "Okay, okay, that's fine, that's fine. We got Jim Clyburn in the House. We'll just start winning governorships and Senate races." It's extraordinary how the attempts to crush civil rights in the Deep South blew up in Republicans' face politically.