Orban Loses, Joe Scarborough Sneers at ‘Crayon Book’ Conservatives

On Monday’s Morning Joe, MS NOW’s Joe Scarborough used Hungary’s election results as an occasion to reprise a familiar habit: denigrating conservatives as ignorant and unserious.

Reacting to Viktor Orban’s defeat, Scarborough hailed it as a “great day for Western democracy” and a “very bad day” for those who have “done their best to try to destroy Western democracy.” He then pivoted to a broader swipe at critics of his preferred definition of “liberal democracy.”

“Liberal: a traditionally small-government term,” Scarborough insisted—before adding that “a lot of really stupid people don’t understand that, because they don’t read history. I guess they just scrawl in crayon books.”  Liberal democracy = small government, Joe? If only!

The line fits a long-running pattern. Over the years, Scarborough has repeatedly caricatured conservatives—especially bloggers—as unserious or dim, mocking them as Cheeto-chompers living in their mother's basement. More recently, he sneered that he’d have to “talk slowly” so bloggers could understand him.

Now the insult has evolved again: if you disagree, you’re not just wrong—you’re illiterate, “scrawling in crayon books.” Liberals have a bad habit of doing this. Back in 2003, Mario Cuomo disdained Rush Limbaugh and conservative talk radio in this fashion: "We believe in subtlety. We believe in telling the whole truth. We don’t want to exaggerate. they write their message with crayons. We use fine-point quills.”

Co-host Jonathan Lemire followed with a sweeping—and demonstrably false—claim of his own.

Calling the result “a tough day” for Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Donald Trump—whom he said had backed Orban—Lemire added: “You never see an American administration back a foreign candidate like this.”

That’s a striking assertion—and flatly false.

During Israel’s 2015 election, operatives tied to the Barack Obama campaign apparatus worked with efforts aimed at defeating Netanyahu, including the V15 campaign. A bipartisan Senate investigation later found that an Obama State Department-funded group had helped build infrastructure that was subsequently used in that anti-Netanyahu effort.

In other words, the kind of involvement Lemire now treats as unprecedented.

So within a single segment, viewers got a two-for-one: Scarborough’s reflexive contempt for conservative critics, and Lemire’s conveniently selective memory when it comes to Democratic involvement in foreign elections.

Here's the transcript.

MS NOW
Morning Joe
4/13/26
6:11 am EDT

RICHARD HAASS: Orban, as you've talked about here, was such a symbol, he was such a model for what you might call modern illiberal democracy. 

So the fact that he went down as decidedly as he did, I actually think is a really inspiring, positive development for all of us. And all the people you mentioned, it was a bad day for them and good for that. 

JOE SCARBOROUGH: You know, Jonathan Lemire, I still call it the West. Talk about Western democracy. I still believe in Western democracy. 

And I believe yesterday was a great day for Western democracy. It was a very bad day for people who over the past decade have done their best to try to destroy Western democracy, to destroy liberal democracy. Liberal: a traditionally small-government term. Even though, a lot of really stupid people don't understand that, because they don't read history. I guess they just scrawl in crayon books. But liberal democracy, Western democracy, what the United States of America has been for so long. 

But let's make no mistake about it. This administration lined up with Vladimir Putin instead of Western democracy. And it was a crushing defeat for them, was it not? 

JONATHAN LEMIRE: It most certainly was. This was a tough day for Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump, who all endorsed Orban in the campaign's final stages, either implicitly or explicitly. 

It was striking. You never see an American administration back a foreign candidate like this, and to do it for Orban.