Boehner has choice words for Cruz in his new memoir
WASHINGTON — Former House Speaker John Boehner has some choice words for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in his new book, according to an excerpt published by Politico on Friday.
The former Republican leader calls Cruz “a reckless a------ who thinks he is smarter than everyone else” and says “the crazy caucus of the GOP” was taking its cues from the Texas senator during the Obama years.
It’s just the latest in longrunning hostilities between the two high-profile Republicans. Boehner, a former Ohio congressman who was speaker from 2011 to 2015, once called Cruz “Lucifer in the flesh.” Cruz spent the early part of his Senate career railing against Boehner and other congressional leaders, whom Cruz deemed the “Washington cartel.”
An Axios reporter posted a clip from the audio version of the book on Friday, as well, which included an expletive-laden aside about Cruz. The ex-speaker was reportedly enjoyed some wine during the audio recordings.
Cruz responded via Twitter with a “why are you so obsessed with me” gif from the movie “Mean Girls.”
The excerpt from Boehner’s new book, “On
The House,” talks about the rising influence of conservative media and the GOP’S right wing, which revolted against the former speaker before his 2015 retirement. Boehner writes that many of the 87 new Republican members elected in the 2010 midterms, when the GOP took control of the House, were not interested in governing.
“They were just thinking of how to fundraise off of outrage or how they could get on ‘Hannity’ that night,” Boehner said, referring to Fox News host Sean Hannity’s nightly show.
“Incrementalism? Compromise? That wasn’t their thing,” he writes. “These guys wanted 100 percent every time. In fact, I don’t think that would satisfy them, because they didn’t really want legislative victories. They wanted wedge issues and conspiracies and crusades.”
By 2013, many of them were taking cues from Cruz, Boehner writes.
“Now they had a new head lunatic leading the way, who wasn’t even a House member,” he writes. “There is nothing more dangerous than a reckless a------ who thinks he is smarter than everyone else. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Senator Ted Cruz. He enlisted the crazy caucus of the GOP in what was a truly dumba-- idea.”
Cruz’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
After reports surfaced last month that Boehner had taken aim at Cruz in his new memoir, Cruz quipped before a conservative audience, “Who’s John Boehner?”
Cruz has a history of rankling his GOP colleagues. In 2016, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina joked: “If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you.”
But Cruz’s reputation in Washington has done little to hurt his standing in Texas, where Republicans regularly rank him above nearly every other member of the party. He was second only to Donald Trump in a University of Houston poll released earlier this year.