John Boehner, the former Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, publishes a stinging denunciation in his new book by Donald J. Trump, saying that the former president “instigated this bloody uprising” from his supporters on January 6 in the Capitol Republican Party that did this was taken over by Whack Jobs.
The criticism of Mr. Boehner in his book “About the House: A Washington Memory” is an extraordinary public reprimand by a former Speaker of Parliament against a former President of his own party and shows how much the Republican Party has changed since Mr. Boehner left Congress in 2015. And his remarks came as Mr. Trump tried to control the loyalty of Republican lawmakers from his new political base in South Florida.
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell sharply criticized Mr. Trump at the end of the Senate process for the former president’s second impeachment and pointed to his role in the Capitol riot. Others, like Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, number 3 on the House’s Republican leadership, have pissed him off as well.
However, Mr Boehner’s remarks went a step further and rejected what the party he had once led has turned into in recent years. While he has criticized Mr. Trump in the past, it is his comments on the January 6th events that have received the greatest response.
In the book, excerpted from the New York Times, Boehner writes that Trump’s “refusal to accept the election result not only cost the Republicans the Senate but also led to mob violence,” adds : “It was painful to see.”
At another point he writes: “I admit I was not prepared for what came after the elections – Trump refused to accept the results and fueled the flames of conspiracy that are on the seat of our democracy, the superstructure , turned into violence what I once presided over. “
He adds, “It was scary and sad to see it. It should have been a wake up call for a return to Republic health. “He nods to the divisions between the parties in Congress and writes,” Whatever they do or not do, none of it compares to one of the deepest points in American democracy that we saw in January 2021. “
Mr. Trump, he continues, “instigated this bloody uprising only for selfish reasons, perpetuated by the crap he’d shoveled since losing a fair election last November.” Mr. Boehner writes: “He alleged electoral fraud without evidence and repeated these allegations by taking advantage of the trust placed in him by his supporters and ultimately betraying this trust.”
In a statement sent by email, Jason Miller, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, called Mr. Boehner a “swamp creature” and accused him of favoring “communist China”. In a separate email to The Times, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Boehner, whose love for Merlot wine is legendary in Washington, “Was he drinking when he made this statement? Just another RINO who couldn’t do the job! “
The former president, despite multiple court judgments against him and the confirmation of President Biden’s victory, continued to make wild and false claims of widespread electoral fraud.
Speaking of members of the House and Senate who supported Mr. Trump’s efforts to scrap the election results, Mr. Boehner writes: “Some of the people involved didn’t surprise me in the least. The legislative terrorism that I saw as a speaker had now promoted actual terrorism. “
Mr. Boehner, whose tenure in the Republican leadership of the House coincided with the obstruction of Congress in the Obama years and subsumed by the rise of the Tea Party and members of the House who were rewarded with conservative media appearances, writes that the GOP must “take back control of the faction that has grown to include everyone from gardening jobs to insurgents.”
For the moment, Mr Trump has retained support among Republican voters. A slim majority would like to see him again as the party’s candidate when he runs in 2024, which he has said to advisors he is seriously considering. And some house G.O.P. Officials are deeply concerned about keeping him on their side in their efforts to regain control of next year’s midterm elections.