John Boehner says Donald Trump 'abused' his loyalists by lying to them
Susan Page, USA TODAY
MARCO ISLAND, Fla. – Former House Speaker John Boehner no longer watches much cable TV news. Noise, he calls it.
It was only when aide John Criscuolo texted him a tweet with some raw video attached – "Trump supporters going at it with the police on the steps of the Capitol," it read – that he learned the Congress in which he had served for a quarter-century was under siege by a mob.
A mob fomented by a president from his own party, and one he had sometimes advised.
The Jan. 6 insurrection was a shock but not exactly a surprise, the violent culmination of a decade that has landed the GOP in a place Boehner dubs "a clown car" and "crazy town:" The rise of the disruptive tea party and the Freedom Caucus. The power of incendiary TV and radio talk-show hosts who make media heroes of the political fringe. And the election of the even more disruptive Donald Trump as president.
Boehner's new book, being published Tuesday by St. Martin's Press, is titled "On the House: A Washington Memoir." But it is unlike the classic Washington memoir, those soft-focus accounts extolling what-I-achieved in office. "I wasn't going to write some typical Washington walk," he told USA TODAY.
Instead, he describes Texas Sen. Ted Cruz as "Lucifer in the flesh." Freedom Caucus members as "political terrorists" and "far-right knuckleheads." Former Alaska governor and vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin as "one of the chief crazies." Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as smart and strategic but also someone who "holds his feelings, thoughts, and emotions in a lockbox closed so tightly that whenever one of them seeps out, bystanders are struck silent."
And those are just his fellow Republicans.
It is an extraordinary rebuke of the current-day GOP, an excoriation without precedent in modern times, leveled by one of the party's most senior figures. While Boehner is also critical of Democrats, his prime targets are Republican officials he says are more interested in praise on Fox News than in governing.
In an interview at his condo in this upscale Florida resort town, an expanse of pristine beach in view, he accused Trump of "abusing" the loyalty of his followers by lying to them about the presidential election he lost, rhetoric that fueled the storming of the Capitol.
His book brought a derisive retort from Trump spokesman Jason Miller, who suggested in a statement that Boehner drank too much, hadn't been an effective leader and wasn't truly committed to conservative values. Miller told The New York Times that Boehner was a "Swamp Creature."
Some Democrats who agree with Boehner's thesis question why he didn't do more to decry those forces when he was in a better position to do something about them.
"You invited in the crazies and gave them a big bear-hug," David Corn wrote last week in the progressive magazine Mother Jones. "You set them on a path that not so surprisingly ended up with a Republican president inciting a Republican crowd to ransack the citadel of American democracy where you once worked. So spare us your righteous indignation."
'Lies from some entrusted with power'
On Jan. 6, Boehner followed the chaos at the Capitol for about an hour, then turned off the TV. "I couldn't stand it, to watch any more," he said. "Awful. I mean, it's incomprehensible for me to believe this really happened." What he felt, he said, was "disgust."
The next day, he posted a tweet with a political message, something he rarely did.
"I once said the party of Lincoln and Reagan is off taking a nap," he said on his @SpeakerBoehner account. "The nap has become a nightmare for our nation. The GOP must awaken. The invasion of our Capitol by a mob, incited by lies from some entrusted with power, is a disgrace to all who sacrificed to build our Republic."
Two days later, he sent a longer, emotional email to an informal group known as "Boehnerland," a collection of several hundred friends, allies and former aides.
"It's been a dark and tragic week for America, on the heels of a very difficult year for our country and our world," he wrote. "I can't imagine any of us will ever escape the image of the United States Capitol being invaded and ransacked."
Since retiring from Congress, he had tried to leave public affairs "to those who still carry the burden of governing," he went on. But he said he now felt compelled to speak out, and he urged them to speak up, too. "Boehnerland still has something to offer the country we love."
He said he received dozens of emails in response, including some from active-duty Capitol Police officers who had once served on his security detail at the Capitol.
For Boehner, part of speaking out is holding Trump responsible for his part in the insurrection.
"I don't think it was just about him showing up at a rally on Jan. 6th," he told USA TODAY. "The comments that were made all summer about the election was going to be stolen from him, all the follow-up noise that occurred after the election – I kept looking for the facts."
There has been no credible evidence to support Trump's repeated allegations of election malfeasance.
"What struck me, especially after the election, was, here's all these people loyal to Donald Trump and he abused them. He stepped all over their loyalty to him by continuing to say things that just weren't true."
Early in his administration, Trump regularly called Boehner. The former speaker would sometimes volunteer advice, including urging the president to stop tweeting – counsel that Trump declined to take.
Now both men are out of office and living 150 miles apart, an almost direct shot across Interstate 75 from Marco Island on Florida's west coast to Mar-a-Lago on the state's east coast. They haven't spoken in several years. Neither seems eager to resume their conversation.
