Former House Speaker John Boehner on his new book and the Republican Party (Full Stream 4/19)

do and ted cruz came over and kept winding them up uh to to do crazy things that have never had a chance of becoming law all they were gonna do is cause problems and and so uh over the years i've just decided screws hit groups i'm paul kane congressional correspondent and columnist here at the washington post my guest this morning is the 53rd speaker of the house of representatives john boehner who resigned in the fall of 2015 after a long tenure almost 25 years in the house of representatives welcome to washington post live speaker banner and let's get right to the questions hey paul it's good to be with you hey you're uh tell the audience you are in marco island your retirement home enjoying yourself it's a little bit overcast there just like here in dc um a little overcast a little windy and pretty humid all right well listen i'm going to start at the end if you will um on the evening of september 24th 2015 i got a text from a couple of friends who said hey meet us at albertos we're having dinner so i jumped in an uber went over to albertos i don't know if i ever told you this and i got out and i looked i looked at the street and there were a couple of suvs and i was like oh man boehner's here so i walked in met my friends got out the menu and there it was staring at me veal a la boehner so listen tell the audience first what is veal ola boehner and what is so important about that night well uh vlola boehner is uh basically veal melones uh with a fried egg on top or two and uh eight or ten anchovy fillet uh it's a german dish but the italians actually make it better and uh i would always get it order it there and finally they put it on the menu but september 24th uh 2015 was the day the pope came to the capitol i had family in town friends in town and we were all upstairs uh in the private dining room having a big dinner simple as that yeah but the big dinner also led you to a big decision and you decided that night right or was it the next morning when you woke up and went on your walk well after uh after the pope left on the 24th uh i got calls from senators house members democrats republican staff uh it was might have been the happiest day i saw on capitol hill in the 25 years i was there i was going to leave at the end of 2015 i was going to announce it in mid-november when uh around my birthday actually uh but uh later on the afternoon i told my chief of staff i said you know what i might just do this tomorrow yeah i don't think it's going to get any better than it is today and he said why not and so uh i thought about it that night next morning i walked up to starbucks and back with my boys and uh and then uh sat in red for about an hour and walked up the peach diner on 2nd street and thought about it i was walking down 2nd street past saint peter's church on the house side and thought you know i think today's the day and it was it was but it was also at a time when you were facing this just it was almost five years of just this constant relentless uh siege from the mark meadows wing the house freedom caucus jim jordan and these other figures who just kept giving you unending headache after headache after headache how much did it upset you that it it got portrayed and felt as if you were sure you were leaving a couple of months earlier than usual but you were leaving at a time and a sense of people were trying to push you out well listen uh i didn't mind those members giving me headaches every day if it wasn't them it'd be somebody else all right uh well that was really never the issue uh the fact that the people in the press want to portray this that these guys push me out is i'm pretty laughable but i can understand how people could see it that way but i'm here to tell you uh it had absolutely nothing to do with my decision actually i was going to leave it i was going to leave at the end of 2014. uh i thought uh when i was first elected speaker i thought you know if i'm lucky enough to do this job for four years that'll be long enough i was never going to be one of those members who was going to hang around in congress and hang around congress uh not even um even not sure even where they are and so uh i i was i was going to leave in my mid 60s uh air after cancer lost his primary election in 2014 uh i thought i had to stay next to a year i think the mark of a good leader is is having someone in place behind you that is capable of carrying the torch and being a good leader and at the time i think kevin mccarthy was quite there yet so i wanted to spend an extra year doing everything i could to get kevin ready to do my job i didn't turn out that way a couple a little step along the way uh but uh i did stick around another year uh listen i've there's nothing i regret about my 25 years in congress uh enjoyed uh almost every day uh even when the knuckleheads were driving me nuts the knuckleheads now when you look back at these last 10 12 years of the republican party in the book you really portray it you even call the house of representatives crazy town and that you were essentially mayor of crazy town when you look back at this evolution of the republican party is donald trump the cause or the effect of today's republican party did those people who were the knuckleheads did they set the stage and make trump almost the logical outcome of what happened or is it all on trump and what he has done to the party no paul i think you're taking a too narrow view of of this uh trump was a product of a increasingly dysfunctional political system you know over the last let's take 30 years uh over the last 30 years uh where we get our news how we get our news what the news is uh has changed dramatically uh the american american people are probably getting 100 times 200 times more news about their government and people in their government than ever got 30 years ago and all this information is tending to push and or pull people into one of two directions either to the far right or to the far left leaving fewer and fewer people in the middle and uh and by the time we got to 2016 i would argue donald trump uh understood what was going on better than any other uh candidate for our nomination in 2016. he beat some really frankly some really good uh potential candidates and uh and frankly did it rather handily and i would argue he's a product uh of this uh of this increasingly dysfunctional system and in the media ecosystem apparently particularly on the on the conservative side of things you write about that in your book where you had conversations with roger ailes in which you were trying to get him to to not put the knuckleheads on tv nearly as much and it ended up with roger ailes talking about his own conspiracies so you think that the media the media created those incentives well i would i don't call it the media you got talk radio you've got uh cable tv which is nothing more than 24-hour political channel then you have the internet and then you've got every social media platform known to man uh that allows people to create their own persona and uh and create more news some of the truth some of it not true i mean it's bizarre this stuff a lot of people don't remember this about you you get elected in 1990 in a very competitive primary in uh south uh southwestern ohio you come to congress when the republicans are in the minority and you were an early generation of these rabble rousers you were exposing uh corruption and these were things that exposed republican leaders and democratic leaders you and uh uh doolittle nussell santorum you exposed things at the house bank uh house post office house restaurant and people hated you you were were you weren't you an earlier version of some of these knuckleheads uh well uh listen i saw things that i thought were wrong and uh i decided to stand up and expose it along with some of my freshman republican colleagues uh there was a purpose in us exposing it and that was to clean up the institution the institution was a mess as charlie rose the then chairman of the house administration committee described it one day in the early 90s he said we run this place like the last plantation in america well let me tell you what it was a mess and uh and so cleaning up the institution uh became one of the uh one of the early goals more transparency more openness but there was uh there was substance of what we were doing uh some of my colleagues in the knucklehead caucus what they want is chaos uh chaos and noise uh which is about all they do when you were when you were that young rabble-rouser um the early knucklehead caucus so to speak there was no fox news rush limbaugh was just sort of starting to create some sort of national brand in if the rules were reversed and a young john boehner was arriving in congress today or two years ago do you think you would which path would you have followed would you have ended up in the knucklehead caucus being in the media social media creating your own brand or would you have continued up into the leadership ranks uh who knows only god knows the answer to that question now listen uh i tried to live by one of my bannerisms that i try to teach my colleagues every day and uh and that's this if you do the right things for the right reasons the right things will usually happen don't worry about and so i just try to do the right thing every day and i didn't worry about it when you first became republican leader when you folks were in the minority in 2007 through 2010 you came in after a period of like some bad corruption and personal scandals that really tarnished the republican brand and you had something you didn't officially say it was a zero tolerance policy but you were pretty tough um congressman vito fasella got caught with a dui when he was driving home to see his family it turned out this was his second family that his first family didn't know about pretty soon thereafter mr pacella but the encouragement of your leadership uh no longer was in congress there was a guy named chris lee who on one of the republican retreats was uh seeking out uh getaway romances with people who were not his wife he pretty soon was out of congress today you've got somebody like matt gates who's now under investigation for potential underage sex trafficking and there doesn't seem to be anything any consequence that is happening to him could you what would you advise kevin mccarthy to do in this situation um and you've got marjorie taylor green and some others who were initially talking about you know an anglo-saxon focused uh caucus is there anything that a leader today can do to people uh who are causing troubles in the in the caucus uh governing today uh uh is difficult and i think all the leaders i have their hands full trying to govern uh the congress and trying to find common ground with the other side uh listen uh before i became the minority leader uh there were a number of uh corruption issues scandal issues that frankly had never been it's people didn't address them the leaders didn't address on both sides of the eye and i told my colleagues when i was running for minority leader uh that on behalf of the congress and on behalf of the republican caucus i wasn't going to put up with that nonsense and i didn't i'd bring these members into the office and look up in the eye and determine what the truth was or try to determine what the truth was and if i thought somebody uh was was guilty of uh a horrendous behavior i told him you've got one hour one hour to go and bring your letter of resignation and i'm gonna go to the floor and move to expel you i one when these members get in trouble it tarnishes all the members of congress uh it's frankly not fair to the member and the quicker the leaders deal with it the better off they are did you ever give that advice to kevin mccarthy about how to handle these situations oh don't worry he's he saw me handle it many times but you know every every one of these cases is different you know i don't know all the details of this matt gates uh uh investigation i mean i've read some of the the articles but i don't know what the details are uh but when i sit down these members i look them in the eye remember paul i grew up in a bar all right i can smell bs a mile away and uh you know i can look these guys in the eye and i knew whether they were telling me the truth or not or i i'd ask him this question is there anything else well that answer didn't come out no and come out quickly then i knew it's time for them to go all right uh listen we have some questions from readers um there's a great one from a woman named susan uh who here's here's the question susan wolfson from pennsylvania wrote in really simple why didn't you come forward sooner well listen uh you know i'm not into writing books i've never written a book before uh after i retired i thought i'd write a book i thought i had a pretty interesting life pretty interesting very interesting career and uh i thought it'd be a good story for people to read uh but uh you know as i got started i'll say i had a false start and then i kind of put it on the back burner and uh eventually got around to putting the book together and getting it published uh you know it just happened to come out last week uh there was no there was no effort to delay it no effort to to move it forward it just happened to happen next week or after yes there have been some critics who've said why didn't you speak out sooner if this is the way you really felt about the state of the republican party um they they feel like you should have said something that you know as a leader even though you're in retirement you're still a distinguished elder statesman of the party why not speak out sooner and would you listen the leaders have a hard enough time trying to kind of handle their caucus and trying to go the last thing i need to some has been some monday morning quarterback uh firing shots at him across the bottom that's just not my style uh but you know as i tell my story in the book you know some of these things are going to come out but it's not my job to tell them what to do or what not to do they've got a tough enough job isn't it all right one of the things that really marked your almost five years as speaker was this continued search for the big deal you were always in the mix with uh obama trying to get a big fiscal deal there were two or three different fights at that apple there was a big immigration package that the senate put together uh john mccain and marco rubio lincoln arms with chuck schumer dick durbin um that you never never could quite bring to the floor of the house um and there was gun legislation that was very popular uh on background checks and it never none of those things ever got done some of them were down into the five yard line to use a football metaphor from your old mueller high school days and it just seemed to fall apart um what do you regret the most of those uh given how everything turned out if you could go back and do it over again would you roll the dice on any of those and even if it meant giving up your your speakership a little earlier than then you would have well i think uh the big deficit reduction package that president obama and i worked very closely on in 2011 is clearly my biggest disappointment uh we we had we we had worked for six or eight weeks and had a solid package that would have really began uh to put america's fiscal house in order and then the president walked away from the deal i tried to come back to it several times after that over the years uh but here's the issue paul we're spending more than what we bring in we've done it for about 60 the last 65 years you can't do this in your home no business in america can do it and guess what your government can't do it either i mean the money that we're spending today is going to get paid back by our kids our grandkids and our great grandkids for god's sake and so uh if you look at the biggest focus of my speakership i was trying to put our fiscal house in order now we didn't reduce the deficit five years in a row even though i was the republican speaker barack obama's president harry reid was the majority leader for most of that time uh we made progress just not as much progress as i would but my second biggest disappointment was immigration the pres i told the president i want to get this done our immigration system is a mess from top to bottom and haven't been overhauled in decades and decades and uh and the senate sent a bill over i had a bipartisan group of members working together uh going back to 07.08 uh in this bipartisan group i kept waiting for them they were very close to have an agreement i mean very close i know sooner we just get ready to move uh president obama would do something on immigration to kind of set the whole field on fire again uh that prevented us from being able to bring it to the floor and so uh uh it was a big disappointment i wish we had gotten it done but uh but on immigration sir they had a senate bill that got 68 votes that's a that's a big vote in the senate for a big bill with a lot of components and and you folks you you never even had anything that was being marked up in the judiciary committee i mean were you really ever that close to anything i mean was it well the judiciary the judiciary committee would not produce a bill period i tried i tried i tried i can't tell you how many meetings i have uh with the then chairman they could not produce a bill but mr goodlatte just couldn't do it is the or is it or wouldn't or wouldn't okay um was eric cantor's loss in the primary in 2014 was that the moment where he loses to uh never before heard of david bratt who ran against cantor as soft on immigration was that the moment that any chance of immigration legislation ended because house republicans would never support it i don't think eric's loss in 2014 had anything to do with immigration it may have moved a few votes but i don't think that i don't think it was the issue and it did not deter me in the least but you didn't move anything for the next 15 months oh you know we got committees and committees are supposed to produce bills uh sometimes if they're unable to produce a bill uh you know you'll see a bipartisan group uh and i uh i had some real hardliners bipartisan uh group uh trying to come together on immigration uh and i mean we were very very close uh yeah it's a disappointment but didn't get it done okay um if in today's members who folks are still there um do you talk to many of them much i mean even if it's just about golf or wine or they call me once in a while i never call them but they call me once in a while either shoot the breeze or seek some advice well who are some of those that you still stay in touch with well i don't think i would i think i'll protect the innocent here all right um our friends over at i think a playbook reported you're going to help out liz chaney for her primary are you going to do a fundraiser for her uh i've supported liz keaney in the past i continue to support liz cheney um i'm not familiar that i'm actually doing an event okay my bad but you're still supportive of her do you think what does that say what does that say about the evolution of the republican party where a guy like dick cheney who we in the media may have spent a lot of time sort of castigating as this hard line conservative and now here she is a few terms into the house and she's being attacked from the right flank if that is even a flank anymore she is somehow soft is that what does that say well listen i'm a conservative republican all right so is liz king we're just not crazy and uh you know i will you people in the media want to talk about these people being on the right uh they're on they're in the crazy car all right it's got nothing to do with uh being conservative oh my god uh i have one of the most conservative rhodium records in congress before i became speaker and no longer uh cast by a vote typically uh and yet here i was uh being referred to as the establishment the centrist i used to laugh my rear end off uh that people could call me a centrist uh squish the establishment but i guess when you're the speaker of the house you are the establishment fair did you speaking of crazy where were you on january 6th i was uh i was at home uh here at markow island i don't watch uh i don't watch much tv but i got a text from uh one of my uh former staff one of my staffers told me i should turn on the tv and i did and i watched it for about an hour and i turned tv off couldn't take it anymore uh i was angry uh sad i thought it was one of the most pathetic moments in american history that even prompted you to rewrite some of your uh portions of your book right it did i just had to rewrite a few portions and a few more statements uh made clear that uh that what led to that uh uh should not should nobody should accept it ever yeah did you uh did you ever talk to mitch mc did you talk to mitch mcconnell about that after that day any other senators no no what did you make what did you make of mcconnell's positioning in all of that where at first he seemed to send a signal that he was willing to consider convicting trump in the end he said it wasn't necessary because trump was out of office but then delivered that scathing speech where he seems to have just really ticked off all sides of this fight including trump yeah well you know mitch has got a tough job like all the other leaders do and uh yeah he's in a difficult spot and so uh you know i frankly i like i think he's a great leader uh and uh uh i've been very supportive of him but i haven't talked to him so and i'm not gonna criticize him because i'm gonna make his job harder all right well listen um a couple of senators who are long time friends of yours rob portman and roy blunt uh are both have both decided to retire we're already seeing you know competitive primaries in those states states that including your original home ohio states that should be republican seats and you're already seeing this sort of rush to be the trumpiest of the trumpers uh in the two primaries um what do you you know first of all in ohio do you do you have a favorite that you would you would try to nudge into the race and what do you do you worry about what happens to i know you never really care that much for the senate but if the senate turns into the house what's left of congress well if they got rid of the legislative filibuster in the senate the senate would then look like the house which i think would be a huge blow to american democracy listen uh uh i understand these members one the both blunt and uh portman are getting a little older uh they've been running for office for quite a while and who would want to run for office one more time in this environment i get it i'm i wouldn't do it i said yesterday i'd rather shut myself on fire than to put myself on the ballot uh but uh uh yeah there's gonna be uh there's always a contest for these seats and there's gonna be a big risk contest uh and uh they're gonna be some trumpers are gonna be some republicans uh god knows what else shows up good luck you know there was a time in uh 2016 and 2017 became this sort of retro thing and there were young republican staffers who would walk around wearing reagan bush 84 t-shirts and it was it was both sort of kitschy and like a nod to the past but also it was their way of trying to signal they still believe in the republican party epitomized by ronald reagan and the bush family is that is that republican party dead you said in your book at the very end you said that you couldn't get elected in today's party and you didn't think ronald reagan could is that party dead no it's not dead uh it's just the republicans they need to go back to the principles of what it means to be a republican uh this isn't about personalities and cults uh we're a party a fiscal responsibility a party of a strong national defense uh they can lay out the half a dozen republican principles uh that would would appeal to two-thirds of america and go talk about it uh that's not the key to reviving the party and putting it back in power is there anyone that you see on the horizon who can do what you just outlined for the republican party heading into 2024 well there's a lot of candidates out there i'm sure there are several of them uh who can bridge the gap if you will and uh you know good luck to them i don't call them some of them call me i'll talk to them but i'm not in the middle of this as much as you all want to push me into the middle of it good luck oh we always are going to try and push you into it speaker boehner um well listen we'll uh i'll i'll have to meet you sometime for the vlabainer up at albertos good luck with everything that's all the time we have this morning thanks for joining us uh look everybody please tune in tomorrow at 1 20 p.m my colleague jonathan haypart is interviewing michigan governor gretchen whitmer whitmer as that state is reeling for another surge in cova cases just remember you can always go to washingtonpostlive.com to get the schedule of upcoming events and register for those anyway thank you all very much book is great always great hearing from you speaker boehner thanks for everything you

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Length: 31min 16sec (1876 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 19 2021