Former House Speaker John Boehner (R) is laying into former President Donald Trump.
In his new book, “On the House: A Washington Memoir,” Boehner slams Trump, saying the former president “incited that bloody insurrection for nothing more than selfish reasons, perpetuated by the bullsh*t he’d been shoveling since he lost a fair election the previous November,” according to The New York Times, which obtained an excerpt.
He was referring to Jan. 6 when protesters stormed the U.S. Capitol, as well as Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
“He claimed voter fraud without any evidence, and repeated those claims, taking advantage of the trust placed in him by his supporters and ultimately betraying that trust,” he continues in his book.
Boehner — who left Congress in 2015 — denounced Trump’s “refusal to accept the result of the election,” which he says “not only cost Republicans the Senate but led to mob violence.” He adds, “It was painful to watch.”
He adds in another part:
“I’ll admit I wasn’t prepared for what came after the election — Trump refusing to accept the results and stoking the flames of conspiracy that turned into violence in the seat of our democracy, the building over which I once presided.”
“Watching it was scary, and sad. It should have been a wake-up call for a return to Republican sanity,” the former House speaker writes, adding, “Whatever they end up doing, or not doing, none of it will compare to one of the lowest points of American democracy that we lived through in January 2021.”
Trump’s spokesperson Jason Miller fired back at Boehner’s comments.
Miller called Boehner a “Swamp Creature” in a statement to the Times and accused the former House speaker of supporting “Communist China.”
Trump also said in a separate statement to the publication, “Was he drinking when he made this statement? Just another RINO who couldn’t do the job!” He was referring to Boehner’s love of red wine.