John Boehner says he remains the same man who honed his skills dealing with jackasses who walked into his family’s tavern in Cincinnati. He is also pretty relieved to have accomplished being a bit of one himself.
“My greatest accomplishment was walking out of Congress after 25 years being pretty much the same jackass that walked in,” Boehner said in an interview with the Washington Examiner about his new book, On the House, released this week.
The 53rd speaker of the House of Representatives, in a candid interview, discusses the balance of being a rebel early in his career to earning his way up in the Republican leadership and the difficulty in achieving it.
“Governing is hard. Our form of government wasn’t designed to be efficient. It was frankly designed to be inefficient,” he said. “And for it to work, we’ve got send good people to Washington whose interest is in the country — not in themselves, but in the country.”
One of 11 siblings, Boehner said his path to Washington was far from direct. All he ever wanted to be was a salesman. It was his involvement in his neighborhood homeowners association in suburban Cincinnati that led him to Washington.
“I had never thought about running for political office. I didn’t want anything to do with politics, but one thing led to another, and next thing you know, I’m the speaker of the House,” he said. “Nobody is more surprised than me.”
In the interview, Boehner discusses taking on the establishment of both parties as a freshman congressmen, why he still to this day has no idea what Pope Francis whispered in his ear, how important his faith is in every aspect of his day, and how the song “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” lifted him up in his most trying times:
Washington Examiner: What did you want to accomplish in writing the book?
John Boehner: Well, listen, when I wrote the book, I wanted it to be me. I wanted it to sound like me. I make it pretty clear in the book, my greatest accomplishment was walking out of Congress after 25 years being pretty much the same jackass that walked in.
Washington Examiner: “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.” What is the story behind that?
John Boehner: When I bought my business, it was just me. My partner passed away, an older guy. And so I’m going to work in an office by myself. I’m dressed up, going to work, going to my office. To get myself in the right frame of mind, I’d sing “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” on the way to work. It’d kind of cheer me up, get me in the right frame of mind, and off I went.
Washington Examiner: So when you were under the most stress as speaker, that’s when you would sing it?
John Boehner: I’d be walking into a meeting or walking to the office singing “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.”
Washington Examiner: You were very much an anti-establishment part of that early part of the conservative populist movement that began within the party in the ’90s — yet a lot of the guff about you when you became speaker was that you were the epitome of the establishment. How did that square with you?
John Boehner: I tell you what, I used to just chuckle to myself when members would refer to me as the establishment, here having spent most of my career being the anti-establishment guy. But you know, when you’re the speaker of the House, you’re at the top of the establishment. And so I knew where these members were coming from. I kind of understood their rebellious nature. I’ve had it myself. Some of them wanted to be rebellious just to be rebellious. I was never into that camp. I only rebelled when I saw things that I thought were very wrong and needed to be dealt with.
Washington Examiner: How, then, does someone who wins as an outsider and moves up the ranks strike a balance of being a conservative populist and govern when governing requires compromise?
John Boehner: Well, you know, we had some members who came to Congress, and frankly, all they could do was come to make noise and chaos and draw attention to themselves, raise money, and it was all about them. I went to Congress to try to work with the members to do good things on behalf of our country. And there is a balance. You know, while I was somewhat of a rebel in my early years, I had members on both sides of the aisle that didn’t much care for me. But, you know, over the years, I developed relationships with a lot of these members. While they may have disapproved of some of the things that I did, I got to know and they got to know me. And then, obviously, as time went on, I worked with members on both sides of the aisle in my committees to move various pieces of legislation. And people began to realize that I was a serious legislator as well. You can do both.
Washington Examiner: If you were mentoring someone, someone who wants to run for Congress, and you’re talking to them about striking that balance, what is that advice that you’d give to them?
John Boehner: It’s real simple. I used to tell my colleagues what my parents taught me and I taught my girls. If you do the right things for the right reasons, the right things will usually happen. So don’t worry about it. This is not rocket science, right? Jesus. It’s about getting along with people. It’s about doing the right thing and living to fight another day.
Washington Examiner: The Republican majority rose alongside and paralleled the rise and impact social media has on politics. How has that shaped it?
John Boehner: It wasn’t just the rise of the social media. It was also the expansion of talk radio, the development of 24-hour cable channels that just hit politics all day, every day. You put all that together, and the American people were being inundated with mountains of information, tending to push people either to the Right or to the Left, leaving fewer and fewer people in the middle.
Washington Examiner: How did you go from one of 11 brothers and sisters whose father owned a neighborhood bar to the halls of Congress?
John Boehner: All I ever wanted to do growing up was to be a salesman. I want to go out and be a salesman, and that’s what I turned out to be. I was a salesman in the packaging and plastics industries. And along the way, I got involved in my neighborhood homeowners association. Next thing you know, I’m the president of homeowners group a few years later and suggest that we take a more active role in our growing community, so just for our little neighborhood. They thought that was a great idea as long as I was going to go do it. And so, before I knew it, I’m running for township trustee.
I had never thought about running for political office. I didn’t want anything to do with politics, but one thing led to another, and next thing you know, I’m the speaker of the House. Nobody is more surprised than me.
Washington Examiner: Gerry Faust, your high school football coach who went on to coach at the University of Notre Dame, once told me he saw in you the wherewithal to withstand the hard stuff. How did you transfer that from the field to your life?
John Boehner: Well, I would wake up every morning, and I would play the cards I’m dealt, not the card I’d like to have. I’d play the cards I’m dealt. And on some days, you wake up with a good hand. Some days, you get a bad hand, but you’ve got to play the cards you’re dealt. So whatever comes at you, you’ve got to figure out how to deal with it, and you won. And you know, I’ve lived my entire life, including the years I was a speaker, when I had a lot of things being thrown at me.
Washington Examiner: Gang of Seven, 1991, where you demanded the public identification of all 355 House members who had overdrafted the House bank. You weren’t just taking on Democrats. You were taking on the establishment and your party.
John Boehner: It started when I became a member of Congress. They told me I had to have an account at the House bank. I didn’t want an account at the House bank. I had enough accounts of my own. I wanted to have them wire my pay to my account back in Ohio. “Well, we can’t do that. We can’t do that. You have to have an account at the House bank.” So after fighting with them for a couple of weeks, it was pretty clear to me that if I was going to get paid, I had to have an account at the House bank.
And so, about nine months later, sometime in September of 1991, I’m reading USA Today. And there was this little box on Page 6, lower left-hand corner, where it said that the General Accounting Office had done their annual audit of the House bank, and members of Congress in 1990 had bounced 8,226 checks. So I said to myself, “Well, this was pretty bizarre. What the hell is this all about?” And so I began to ask some questions, and I got some other members to start asking some questions, and people would just look at you and turn white. And I thought, “What the hell is going on here?” I grew up on a farm. I can smell BS a mile away.
And then we have this privilege resolution on the floor. Tom Foley was speaker, and Dick Gephardt was the majority leader, and even Bob Michel, a Republican — they all came to the well of the House and said, essentially, we didn’t do anything wrong and we won’t do it again. Well, I got outraged, and I’m with Rick Santorum, and I grabbed a couple of other freshman colleagues. There turned out to be seven of us who that night met, came up with a strategy of going to the TV people, the radio people, the press people.
And we spent the next three days basically telling the story. Well, on Tuesday, they closed the House bank. The House closed the House bank. It had been around for 168 years. And so, they send this whole thing off to the Ethics Committee. And about six months later, they come back and say, “Well, we’re only going to blame this on the top 24 check bouncers.” Our fight was, “Now, wait a minute. The American people have a right to know what happened. Let’s let it all hang out there.” So they finally let it all hang out there, and when they did, oh my God, what a mess it was.
Washington Examiner: How did that form who you were as a member of the House from that moment?
John Boehner: I mean, Democrats just ignored me. But Republicans would just pound me on the chest with their finger about how much they didn’t like me. Or, “Shut the hell up.” It was not really the way I wanted to start my career in the House. But out of that came the House restaurant scandal, the House post office scandal. We were involved in exposing. And next thing you know, nobody in Congress liked us — nobody. But, you know, right’s right, and wrong’s wrong. It’s not rocket science. You just have to do the right thing.
Washington Examiner: “Mr. Speaker, the Pope of the Holy See!” What was that moment like when the sergeant of arms said those words?
John Boehner: It was great. You know, I tried for 20 years to get a pope to come, and he came. It was really was a great moment. He gave a nice speech. He blessed my little grandson, who was about 6 weeks old. And he went to leave, and I put the pope on my little elevator, which used to be an air shift in the Capitol. He went down to the first floor, and I ran down the [staircase and met him. And there was this somewhat of a departure ceremony. People apparently weren’t where they were supposed to be yet, so they were holding the pope and I back.
So I’m looking around. I look around. Standing on the first floor of the Capitol was just the pope and me. So while we’re starting off, we’re going to have a conversation with him, I guess, but the pope takes his left hand and grabs my left arm and pulls me next to him. And he starts saying the sweetest things anybody’s ever said to me.
Washington Examiner: Which is?
John Boehner: I was crying so hard I couldn’t tell you what he said. But he was being really sweet. He’s still hold on to me, and he takes his right arm and puts it around me, gives me this giant bear hug. And he says to me, “Speaker, will you pray for me?” I said, “Who, me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure, sure, sure.” So by the time we walked outside for this departure ceremony, it was all the cameras. I looked like somebody had dumped a bucket of water on my head. Great moment, though. Great moment.
Washington Examiner: You seemed genuinely at peace from the moment on after he was there. Did I read that wrong?
John Boehner: No. I was fine. I was going to leave at the end of 2015. Actually, I was going to leave at the end of 2014. Then Eric Cantor lost his election of the middle of 2014 and left. And I didn’t think Kevin McCarthy was ready to be the speaker yet, so I thought, “Well, I’ll stick around another year.” And so I was going to announce in November that I was leaving at the end of the year. After the pope left, my phone ringing and all the members were calling, Democrats, Republicans, House, Senate, and I realized that I was at the happiest moment I saw in the 25 years I was in Congress. The place was just kind of abuzz with how nice it was. And so, later on in the afternoon, I walked by Bob, my chief of staff’s office. And I said, “You know what? I might give this tomorrow.” He said, “Oh, why not?”
We had family in town, friends in town. We went to dinner, and I thought about it. And the next day, I walked up to Starbucks and back, six blocks, with my boys, thinking about it, and read for about an hour, still thinking about it. And I walked up to the diner and had breakfast, and I’m walking down Second Street. Past St. Peter’s Church, there’s a grotto — right next to a church, a grotto with a statue of Virgin Mary. I looked over at her, and I went, “Yep. Today’s the day.”
And it was about quarter to eight in the morning, and my phone rings. It’s my chief. He says, “Hey, what do you think?” Well, I’ve got all these security guys around me. I can’t say anything in front of them. So I just said, “Yeah, I think today’s the day.” He said, “Well, you’d better get over here.” You know, I’m meeting with the senior staff first and open the House, and all the members, Republican members, are going to be downstairs at 9 o’clock. So I rushed around and got ready, went in, talked to my senior staff, opened the House, ran downstairs. There was no leaks. I didn’t have to work the leaks.
You know, it was at the end of September. So it was all about the end of the fiscal year activities. And I was making an announcement. We’re going to do this, we’re going to do this. We’re not going to do this, we’re not going to do that, you know? And there’s moaning and groaning and grumbling. So I said, “Hey, by the way, I got a few other things I like to say.” And so I started talking, and the place got really quiet. And by the time I told them I was leaving, it looked like I’d hit every one of them upside the head with a two-by.
Washington Examiner: You know you don’t often talk about your faith, but yet I know it’s very important to you. How much of a role did it play in your decision? Did you pray about it?
John Boehner: Oh, I prayed all day, every day. It’s real simple. Can’t do this, can’t do any job by yourself.
Washington Examiner: What is life like now?
John Boehner: Oh, life’s good. Just trying to be the best grandfather I can be. Both my daughters have a husband and a little boy, a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old. Each of them have one, and just trying to be a good grandfather.
