Scarborough Mocks GOP on VA Redistricting—Skips Spanberger’s ‘No Plans’ Pledge

On Wednesday’s Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough mocked Republican criticism of Virginia’s gerrymandering scheme and cleared a path for Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger to defend it without facing a single hard question.

Scarborough ridiculed Republican objections as "all the screeches and the howls and the whining of Republicans who were claiming that this was a Marxist power grab, or you were supposed to be a moderate, and you ended up being a communist, etc., etc. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. "

How predictable is that? 

He went further, hailing the Democrat scheme as “conservative with a small c”—an outrageous misrepresentation of a plan designed, with malice aforethought, to wipe out all but one Republican congressional seat.

And then came Scarborough's silence on the flip-flop here.

During her gubernatorial campaign, Spanberger said: “I have no plans to redistrict Virginia.” But Scarborough never mentioned that campaign pledge. He never asked what changed. Never pressed her to justify her bait-and-switch flip-flop.

Instead, after dismissing Republican objections in contemptuous terms, Scarborough cleared the runway for Spanberger to recast the move as reluctant and limited.

Grinning like a Cheshire cat [see screencap], Spanberger happily obliged:

“We were saying, at this moment we are taking a responsive and temporary step. And we in the Commonwealth of Virginia are committed to getting back to that bipartisan commission… our goal should be that when we no longer have a reckless president who just believes he's entitled to congressional seats… we will ensure that Virginia leads the way in going back to our redistricting commission.”

That line is a direct swipe at Donald Trump—Spanberger explicitly tying any return to bipartisan redistricting to the absence of a president she labels “reckless” and “entitled” to congressional seats.

That’s the promise? Democrats will give up their redistricting edge when there is no longer a president like Trump? So when a future president meets that standard—say, the occupant of the Oval Office in 2029—Virginia Democrats will promptly surrender the advantage and restore the bipartisan commission?

I’ve got a Memorial Bridge in Richmond for sale.

Here's the transcript.

MS NOW
Morning Joe
4/22/26
6:32 am EDT

ABIGAIL SPANBERGER: But I think essential to the conversation, as I mentioned, in Virginia, was our commitment to our bipartisan commission. 

And so I think it's important that every step along the way, we weren't saying, okay, this is the new normal of this kind of tit-for-tat. 

We were saying, at this moment, we are taking a responsive and temporary step. And we in the Commonwealth of Virginia are committed to getting back to that bipartisan commission. 

So I think that that was an essential part of the discussion here, and certainly as governor and as a Virginian, I am going to continue to uphold that mantle, that our goal should be that when we no longer have a reckless president who just believes he's entitled to congressional seats, that we will ensure that Virginia leads the way in going back to our redistricting commission, as the amendment that we passed yesterday calls on us to do. 

JOE SCARBOROUGH: You know, Governor, it's fascinating. This, of course, got drowned out with all the screeches and the howls and the whining of Republicans who were claiming that this was a Marxist power grab, or you were supposed to be a moderate, and you ended up being a communist, etc., etc. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 

What it sounds like is that you have created, as conservative with a small c, as conservative a defensive response to the radicalism that took place in Texas.