Donald Trump
As with several other presidents, Boehner first met Trump over a game of golf.
Boehner was the House minority leader on a fundraising tour, scheduled to play golf at the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester, New York, with two insurance executives. “Out of nowhere,” they were informed that Trump himself would be their fourth.
“He was very friendly, but in an inyour-face, this-is-how-they-talk-in-New-York kind of way that I was not used to at all,” Boehner recalled. “Direct, loud, intense.” When a young aide to Boehner embarrassed Trump by giving him the wrong name for one of the insurance executives, Trump dressed him down in a way that Boehner said was “dark.” He called the aide an “idiot” in an expletive-laced tirade.
“This was more than New York bluster,” Boehner said. “This was real anger, over something very, very small. We had no idea then what that anger would do to our country.”
Boehner retired from elective politics in 2015, as Trump considered a bid for the White House. Early in his presidency, Trump called him for advice. Among other things, Boehner urged him to stop tweeting, counsel the president declined to take.
How will history judge Trump? “Well, I don’t think very well.”