Former House Speaker John Boehner isn't holding back against former President Donald Trump in his new book.
The former Republican leader in his upcoming memoir On the House blasts Trump for pushing baseless allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election and blames him for inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, The New York Times reports.
"[Trump] incited that bloody insurrection for nothing more than selfish reasons, perpetuated by the bulls--- he'd been shoveling since he lost a fair election the previous November," Boehner writes. "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."
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Boehner reportedly writes that it was "painful" to watch Trump refuse to accept the results of the election, which ultimately "not only cost Republicans the Senate but led to mob violence." Seeing Trump's supporters storm the Capitol building on Jan. 6, he also says, was "scary" and "sad," adding this was "one of the lowest points of American democracy" and it "should have been a wake-up call for a return to Republican sanity."
But Boehner also says it didn't "surprise me in the least" to see some of the Republican lawmakers who backed Trump's efforts to overturn the election, and the "legislative terrorism that I'd witnessed as speaker had now encouraged actual terrorism." He calls on the GOP to "take back control" from "garden-variety whack jobs" and "insurrectionists."
This is the latest look at Boehner's book after its back cover included a number of revealing quotes, including one in which he ripped Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) as a "reckless a--hole," and he reportedly went off script while recording the audiobook just to tear into Cruz more. Trump responded to these Boehner quotes about him by telling the Times, "Was he drinking when he made this statement? Just another RINO who couldn't do the job!"
