John Boehner on how the rise of ideologues harms America

former speaker of the house john boehner made headlines this past week by speaking frankly about some of his former republican colleagues and he's at it again this morning talking with john dickerson of 60 minutes five and a half years ago speaker of the house john boehner decided to end his congressional career in this grotto by his church last over this grotto and i went yep today's today god bless america the pope had just visited congress a project boehner had been working on for 20 years it was like the happiest day i'd seen on capitol hill in 25 years i've been there maybe i'll just do it tomorrow because it's not going to get any better than it was now that day it didn't get any better in a new memoir on the house boehner says the ideological forces he fought with as speaker now threaten the country dishing expletives and payback the book is hot enough to light one of the cigarettes that were more a symbol of his speakership than his gavel and i said it looks right to me i got the washington i thought oh my god this is the biggest gamble i've ever seen when boehner came to power in 2011 he found no matter how big the gavel he lacked the power to keep reactionary members of his party in line you write in your book that you became mayor of crazy town what was that what does that mean well you know by 2010 talk radio had been around for a little while by 2010 we had the internet we started to have apps and people really didn't need the party as much as they used to need it and so members candidates members could kind of create themselves out of nothing the new modes of communication gave those rebellious members a direct line to the party base playing to the crowd rather than accomplishing things in congress became the route to success there's a lure there to be a noisemaker instead of a policy maker making policy means finding common ground with the opposition for noisemakers that was a sign that boehner was a sellout i thought if i could get half a loaf and live to fight for the rest that was a good deal no way no way sellout it's 100 percent all my way or nothing for partisan media attacking boehner was good for business i was like i was a caricature of myself which they needed to rile up their audience bigger audience the bigger the revenue the more they get paid without party unity boehner says he had no leverage against president obama and the democrats i'm negotiating with the white house and i'm naked i've got no position because my guys wouldn't vote for anything some of these members i i'm not quite sure what they're for they're against everything but i've never been able to determine what they're for when you're in the majority party uh you've got a responsibility to govern not just make noise boehner is describing a system still in place today where ideologues create a culture of fear we had a really good member solid member trying to do the right thing sometimes it was really hard to do the right thing because they were hearing from the far right if you will or the crazy right the knucklehead right that uh you know they were sellouts and well they didn't want to be accused of that and so it really put all these members in a really tough spot it's a poison boehner says affecting both parties but it's further along in his own you call some of these members political terrorists oh yeah jim jordan especially my colleague from ohio i just never saw a guy who spent more time tearing things apart and never building anything never put anything together and then there's senator ted cruz who boehner says is the ultimate false prophet you're gonna beat anybody up it's not really my style except that jerk perfect symbol of getting elected make a lot of noise draw a lot of attention to yourself raise a lot of money which means you're going to go make more noise raise more money the book examines boehner's humble roots in ohio and glosses over his role in building the party by electing many of the members he now complains about but as he warned the forces of extremism he confronted did grow the former speaker was at his florida home on january 6 when the capital was attacked by supporters of then-president donald trump it was sad revolting and i literally i couldn't watch it anymore did it make you angry oh hell it doesn't make me angry and was there anything you could do no not really other than i decided i think i'll send an email to beanerland vaynerland is what my staff called our team in the letter boehner urges all his staffers to speak up against the forces corroding his party remembering that day clearly wasn't easy for boehner why don't we take a little break in the book you write about political terrorists leading to actual terrorism is this the outgrowth of the mindset that you've been describing yes no question about this has been the most extreme example of political terrorism would you say donald trump is a political terrorist donald trump is a product of the political divisions uh that we've seen grown in our country over the last 20 years he's a product but he also knew how to play just the system you well he he has a little different style than i do in the book boehner is les coy he has no problem tying trump to political terrorism trump incited the bloody insurrection for nothing more than selfish reasons perpetuated by the bullet that he'd been shoveling since he lost a fair election the previous november i think you're ducking calling him a political terrorist you've described in the book wow aren't you basically saying i don't want the headache this is going to give me listen i i'm uh i'm not an office anymore i don't have to answer all the questions that i used to have to answer all right and and uh while it isn't my style i don't want to use a pejorative term like that talking about him or anybody else well some people you have used that term well here's why here's why i'm this isn't i'm not just trying to get you to say something incendiary what you describe in the book as a system that incentivizes behavior that is dangerous we saw in the sixth the attack on the people's house and so you're saying we want less of that behavior donald trump knew how to play to that audience and he's at the center of the republican party now you know the republican party today uh we have the trump republicans and the traditional republicans but you don't have any doubt that he's i mean he's driving the bus in the republican party even though he's out of the office well he's attempting to and he's got a still got a pretty big soap box uh but uh you know there's clearly been some pushback i think mitch mcconnell has uh laid out the case if you will for the traditional republican party you said that after the 6th of january it should be a wake-up call for a return to republican sanity but after the congress was breached 139 republicans voted to overturn the election results well let's go back to winning elections you gotta go home and for most of these members their biggest threats in a primary and uh the president's out there saying that he won the election and you know they don't want to go home and answer the answer the noise i don't i understand that boehner still owns this modest capitol hill apartment he lived in as speaker but other things have changed he says he needs golf less now as a stress reliever has evolved from merlot cabernet and has dropped his opposition to marijuana use i drink red wine you know somebody wants to smoke a joint or eat a gummy that's really none of my business am so what convinced of the medical benefits boehner joined the board of a cannabis company do you do any first-hand research uh no i'm not i'm not a cannabis user but you're not ruling it out for yourself tomorrow's tomorrow who knows

Channel: CBS Sunday Morning

Views: 153,468

Keywords: cbs news, john boehner, ideologies, america, house speaker, republican congressman, GOP, survival

Id: fcLjUu6D5ck

Length: 8min 29sec (509 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 11 2021