Late night hosts eviscerate Speaker Mike Johnson: Our long national nightmare is finally different

After weeks of Republican infighting that left Congress paralyzed, the anti-LGBTQ+, election-denying Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) was voted Speaker of the House on Wednesday, and late night hosts wasted no time in reading the virulently anti-LGBTQ+ lawmaker for filth.

“Our long national nightmare is finally different,” Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday night’s episode of The Late Show.

Related: Speaker Mike Johnson wanted to criminalize sodomy & called gay marriage the “harbinger of chaos”

He also said that gay people should not be a protected class because they “are capable of changing their abnormal lifestyles.”

“Johnson was just elected this afternoon, getting votes from all 220 Republicans. Finally, a man who appeals to all factions of the Republican Party: the MAGA faithful, the social conservatives, the white nationalists, and the horny Beetlejuice goblins,” he joked, flashing a photo of Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO).

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After joking about how few people seem to have ever heard of Johnson, Colbert advised not to let the new Speaker’s “apparent blandness fool you,” noting that Johnson played a leading role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election. Colbert also quoted a newspaper editorial in which Johnson called homosexuality an “inherently unnatural” and “dangerous lifestyle” that could destroy “the entire democratic system.”

“‘And destroying the entire democratic system is my job!’” Colbert joked, imitating Johnson. “‘Did you know the 2020 election was rigged by gender fluid space lasers?’”

“He checks off all the important boxes,” Jimmy Kimmel said of Johnson on his ABC show. “He’s anti-gay, anti-choice, pro-conspiracy theory. He seems terrific.”

The host took shots at Johnson’s generic-sounding name: “You could go to the middle of the phone book and pick any of the hundreds of Mike Johnsons — each one would be a better choice for speaker, because not one of them tried to overthrow the presidential election in the House he now represents,” he said. “Instead Republicans swiped way right on this Mike Johnson who looks like a kid dressed up as a congressman for Halloween.”

“I think they’re trying to bore everyone into forgetting how extreme he is,” Seth Meyers said of Johnson on Late Night.

Meyers went on to rib the new speaker for being so obscure that even other Republican lawmakers didn’t know who he was. Noting that Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told a reporter that she would have to google him, Meyers joked, “Mike Johnson is such a common name, most of us went to school with one. My Mike Johnson played baseball. This Mike Johnson played a key role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election results.”

On The Daily Show, guest host Desus Nice also ribbed Johnson for being a relative unknown. “Now, if you don’t know Mike Johnson, don’t worry. Nobody else does,” Nice joked. “But what we do know is that he wants nationwide limits on abortion, he wants to criminalize gay sex, and he even wants to ban reggaeton. All right, I’m lying on the last one, but that seems like his vibe, cause he comes off as a d**k.”

“Let’s just say if speaker nominees were Star Wars characters, he’s their Jar Jar,” Jimmy Fallon joked on The Tonight Show. “That’s right, the new speaker of the House is Mike Johnson, and if that name sounds familiar, it’s because it’s on every fake ID.”

Fallon said he’d read that Johnson is the most inexperienced speaker in modern history and that his resume is “lacking.”

“George Santos is like, ‘I can help you out with that… Just say that you were president, yeah.’” the host joked.

Nice, Kimmel, and Meyers also had a field day with North Carolina congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R), who yelled at a reporter to “shut up” when she asked about Johnson’s role in trying to overturn the 2020 election at a press conference Wednesday.

“All right, someone come get their nana!” Nice joked.

“Go away before mee-maw whacks you with a rolling pin,” Kimmel laughed. Pointing out that Foxx was standing side-by-side with Boebert, the host described them as “beetle and prune juice.”

“Maybe steer clear of her house on Halloween, kids, cause I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be raisins!” Meyers said.