Former House Speaker John Boehner said Wednesday evening he intends to vote for Donald Trump because he expects the Supreme Court to play a larger role in deciding future policy issues due to congressional gridlock that will continue to spur increased executive actions by the president.
“The legislative process, the political process in Washington is at a stand still and will be regardless of who wins, and the only thing that really matters over the next four years or eight years is who’s going to appoint the next Supreme Court nominees,” Boehner told Fox News host Brit Hume. “I just believe that the next president’s going to appoint two, three, maybe four justices to the Supreme Court and all throughout the federal court system because more and more issues because they can’t be dealt with legislatively are going to end up in the court system.”
Boehner said even if Trump wins and Republicans keep the House, Congress as a whole may not cooperate with the commander in chief.
“Both of them [Clinton and Trump have painted themselves in a pretty far corner. Their ability to move beyond the people who elected them to work towards the middle to get things done I think is going to be severely tested,” Boehner said. “And so you’re going to see more and more issues in our society end up in the court system and eventually end up in the Supreme Court and that’s where the real action is going to be.”
The former GOP leader distanced himself from Trump, admitting the two do not see eye to eye on various policy issues. But Boehner said Trump’s list of Supreme Court nominees was one aspect of the campaign he could get behind.
Boehner doesn’t appear to be wavering in his support of Trump and expects more excitement in the final three and a half weeks of the race, which are unlikely to sway him against the GOP nominee.
“Listen, we’ve got 27 days. Anybody who thinks we’ve seen anybody we’re going to see are kidding themselves on both sides,” Boehner said. “But what more could be said in this election cycle than has already been said?”
