George W. Bush
They are close in age and personality, both outgoing men with a fondness for sports and frat-boy humor. “My brother,” Boehner said of George
W. Bush. “We’re like two peas of the same pod.”
They got to know one another in the 1990s, when House Republicans were trying to build closer relationships with GOP governors, including Bush. But Bush didn’t excel in the poker games they sometimes joined. The Texas governor would fold unless he had a packed hand – a “tell” to everybody else in the game. “He seemed incapable of bluffing,” Boehner said.
When Bush was elected president in 2000, Boehner was part of the House Republican leadership. He would be the House Republican leader during Bush’s second term.
They worked together to pass Bush’s signature education bill early in the administration but struggled to respond to the financial meltdown in 2008. By then, Boehner said, “my friend George Bush had pretty much lost all credibility with conservatives, who hated his view on immigration, and the rest of the country, who were tired of the war in Iraq.”