For the first time since at least 2015, former House Speaker John Boehner is the toast of the town in Washington.
The Ohio Republican is out with his memoir On the House. In both the book and a series of interviews to promote it, Boehner dishes on his party.
On The View, Boehner accused former President Donald Trump of “one of the sadder things I’ve seen in the last 40 years in politics.”
“The president abused the loyalty and the trust that voters had placed in him by perpetuating this noise,” Boehner said of Trump’s claims that last year’s presidential race was stolen from him through widespread voter fraud. According to Boehner, Trump isn’t finished yet. “Here’s a guy who’s unemployed, has nothing else to do but cause trouble,” he said.
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Trump got off easy. While Boehner told Late Show host Stephen Colbert that the 45th president was “a little crazy” compared to President Joe Biden (“a really good guy”) and former President Bill Clinton (“the best politician I’ve ever met”), he dubbed Sen. Ted Cruz “Lucifer in the flesh.”
“The most miserable son of a b—- I ever had to deal with,” Boehner said of the Texas Republican.
After years beatings from the Right, the Republican establishment is striking back — against Trump, against the Tea Party, and against the populists who remain convinced they are the party’s future.
Boehner is, for the moment, the most prominent example, but he is not alone. While Trump lashed out at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell over the weekend, reportedly calling the Kentucky Republican a “dumb son of a b—-” and a “stone-cold loser” at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser, Republicans took note of the event’s location: Trump is in Florida, while McConnell remains in Washington, a single vote away from reclaiming his old job as majority leader.
“What I’m concentrating on is the future,” McConnell told reporters on Tuesday. That includes next year’s midterm elections, in which McConnell plans to help run against “a totally left-wing administration.” McConnell sharply criticized Trump’s election claims and left him twisting in the wind for part of his second impeachment trial before announcing he would vote for acquittal.
For much of the GOP governing class, last year’s election could not have gone much better. Trump lost, leaving the White House and loosening his grip on the party, but was competitive enough to prevent major losses down-ballot. Democrats were reduced to a single-digit majority in the House and stuck with a deadlocked Senate. But Republican fortunes seemed grimmer after Democrats won both runoff elections in Georgia, and then, the following day, Trump supporters attacked the Capitol to protest the certification of Biden’s victory.
Some Republicans, led by McConnell, began to turn on Trump publicly at that point. “Donald Trump is a product of the chaos we've seen in our political process over the last 10 or 12 years,” Boehner told Time magazine. He criticized the Tea Party in the same interview: “People want to confuse some of the knuckleheads as being conservatives. They were crazy.”
Under Trump, former President George W. Bush — who left office with his reputation in tatters after the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, and the financial crisis despite winning two terms and boasting 90% approval ratings in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks — was rehabilitated in the media. Boehner may achieve the same outcome, though critics were quick to point out the ex-speaker actually voted for Trump.
“Boehner is speaking for a lot of old-guard Republicans in going after Trump and Cruz,” said a GOP strategist. “I’m just not sure that’s where the party as a whole is right now.”
Former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley tried to distance herself from Trump after the Capitol riot. On Tuesday, she told an Associated Press reporter she would support him if he ran for president again in 2024.
“I would not run if President Trump ran, and I would talk to him about [her own candidacy],” Haley said. “That’s something we will have a conversation about at some point.”
Cruz on Tuesday announced he had raised more than $5.3 million in the first quarter of the year, much of it from small donors, with over $5.6 million in cash on hand, a sign the Texas lawmaker isn’t going anywhere.
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“Until I see something major change, it’s still Trump’s party,” said a Republican operative. “Maybe by 2024, something will.”
Trump has remained coy about his plans for the next presidential election, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, has welcomed his help in the midterm elections.
