Former House Speaker John Boehner used every bit of ammo in his arsenal to “convince” Paul Ryan to run for Speaker. When Ryan rejected the idea, Boehner said he told the Wisconsin congressman that God wanted him to run.
“First, I laid every ounce of Catholic guilt I could on him,” Boehner told CNN. “I pulled it all out. Listen, Paul was the right guy at the right time. I know, knew he didn’t want to do it. He kept telling me he didn’t want to do it. But it was obvious to me he was the right person for the job and I had to do everything I could to convince him.”
Boehner also acknowledged that by becoming speaker, Ryan’s hopes of becoming president may have been dashed. But, Boehner noted, he thinks Ryan “got over that.”
“Do you think it’s still possible for him to be president?” asked host Dana Bash.
“Well, I’m not sure that — I think he would have liked to have been president, but I think he’s figured out that God has another plan in mind for him,” Bohner said. “And it’s to be speaker of the House.”
Ryan told CNN in a separate interview that if he wanted to run for president he could have done so for 2016, but he chose not to do so.
The former speaker said the best advice he could leave Ryan was to be open, transparent, and decisive, and listed failing to accomplish immigration reform as one of his biggest regrets. Boehner blamed President Obama for “poisoning the well on immigration” because he “could have dealt with” the Republican immigration hawks in the House.
