Former House Speaker John Boehner revealed on Tuesday that he voted for Donald Trump in the November presidential election but kept quiet about his attack on American democracy because he was retired.
“I voted for Donald Trump. I thought that his policies, by and large, mirrored the policies that I believed in,” Boehner told Time Magazine. “I thought the choices for the Supreme Court were top notch. At the end of the day, who gets nominated to the federal courts is really the most important thing a President does.”
Asked if he wished he’d done more in pushing back against Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, Boehner said “no. I’m retired”.
“I try to stay out of the day-to-day rumble of politics,” he continued. “I really didn’t need to speak up. At some point [in 2018], somebody asked me about the state of the Republican Party, and I said, ‘The Republican Party’s taking a nap.’ I wrote to my staff several days after January 6, I said, ‘I called it a nap but now it’s become’… I might have said ‘crisis.’”
Days after the insurrection, Boehner tweeted a condemnation of the attack and denounced the Republican Party, and he sent an emotional email to an informal group of friends, allies and former aides he refers to as “Boehnerland, according to The Hill.
Boehner is speaking out ahead of the release of his memoir: On the House: A Washington Memoir.
In the book, Boehner reflects on his career, and wrestles with how the Republican Party has changed and that there might not be a place for him in the new part. He also offers his commentary of a number of Washington power players, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) who he called a “reckless asshole” and “lunatic” former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.).
Boehner also called the claim of election fraud pushed by Trump a “bullshit” lie and said he incited the “bloody insurrection” in January “for nothing more than selfish reasons,” the Hill reports.
