Former speaker of the House John Boehner, who resigned from Congress in 2015 amid widespread turmoil in the Republican Party, is obviously quite pleased with his post-Capitol Hill life. And how could he not be, now that he is freed from working with Ted Cruz—the man he once called “Lucifer in the flesh”—and his obstructionist colleagues? “I wake up every day, drink my morning coffee and say, ‘Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah,’ ” he said while speaking at an energy conference in Houston on Thursday.
Since leaving Washington, Boehner has done little to disguise the blinding joy coursing through every fiber of his being. So when Axios reported earlier this week that the former speaker temporarily had stepped out of retirement last month to implore Donald Trump not to willingly shut down the government, it came as a bit of a surprise. But at the Thursday conference, where Boehner indirectly boasted about how much better his life is than Paul Ryan’s, he also shed light on his motivation for jumping back into politics: he thinks Trump is doing a terrible job.
“Everything else he’s done (in office) has been a complete disaster,” the Ohio Republican said, according to the Associated Press. “He’s still learning how to be president.” The only thing in Boehner’s opinion that Trump has managed to get right is foreign policy, notably his fight against the Islamic State. Other than that, Boehner had nothing good to say about the new administration.
If there’s any good news for Trump, it’s that Boehner isn’t gunning for his seat behind the Resolute Desk. “I drink red wine. I smoke cigarettes. I golf. I cut my own grass. I iron my own clothes. And I’m not willing to give all that up to be president,” he said.
Boehner did, however, have a few things to say about tax reform—namely, that the odds of it happening are dropping. The former congressman characterized the G.O.P. plan to overhaul the tax code as “just a bunch of happy talk” and dismissed the divisive Ryan-backed border-adjustment tax as “deader than a doornail.” Boehner pegged the Republican Party’s chance at bringing it to fruition at 60/40.
This wouldn’t be the first time Boehner expressed skepticism about the Republican Party’s ability to tackle big ticket items on its agenda. In February, the Ohio politician said he “started laughing” when he heard his former colleagues’ plans to repeal and replace Obamacare and declared, “It’s not going to happen.” With the G.O.P. health-care effort seemingly stalled in the Senate, Boehner’s Obamacare comments could prove to be quite prescient—which wouldn’t bode well for tax reform.
