On the House Quotes

“You could be a total moron and get elected just by having an R next to your name—and that year, by the way, we did pick up a fair number in that category.”
― John Boehner, On the House: A Washington Memoir

“Guess what? None of these guys said anything when the Trump administration added $1 trillion to the federal budget deficit by the end of 2019—before a single dime was spent on COVID-19 relief. They were rubber stamps for it in Congress. Many of them who raised huge stinks about TARP were only too happy to let Trump bail out farmers hurt by his trade war with China. These are the same people who were willing to destroy our economy to make their point but went on to suddenly abandon this core principle.”
― John Boehner, On the House: A Washington Memoir

“There is nothing more dangerous than a reckless asshole who thinks he is smarter than everyone else. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Senator Ted Cruz.”
― John Boehner, On the House: A Washington Memoir

“You never get in trouble for something you don't say.”
― John Boehner, On the House: A Washington Memoir

“A leader without followers is just a man out taking a walk”
― John Boehner, On the House: A Washington Memoir

“honest about it, is that we the people put up with all this malarkey. We prefer the easy outrage over focusing our attention on tough questions that don’t have five-second solutions. We reward amateurs who know and care nothing about governing instead of having faith in seasoned officials with experience and patience, who are trying to make some changes to a democracy where change is meant to be hard. The left’s promises of a Green New Deal or abolishing the police?”
― John Boehner, On the House: A Washington Memoir

“Get the right people on the bus, and then find them the right seat”
― John Boehner, On the House: A Washington Memoir

“The mark of a good leader is to prepare those who will succeed you.”
― John Boehner, On the House: A Washington Memoir

“There is something very destructive—not to mention delusional—about the notion that there is some plot deep within the nation’s capital—in the FBI, in the federal courts, in the intelligence community—to undermine democratically elected officials and, as Trump often charged, “undo” his election in 2016. Let me be diplomatic here: that’s horseshit.”
― John Boehner, On the House: A Washington Memoir

“But I knew the truth. It was a story I would see played out over and over again in the next few years. It wasn’t about any so-called principles—it was about chaos. But it was chaos that developed in a predictable pattern: the far-right knuckleheads would refuse to back the House leadership no matter what, but because they were “insurgents” they never had the responsibility of trying to actually fix things themselves. So they got to “burn it all down” and screw up the legislative process, which of course allowed them to continue to complain loudly about how Washington’s spending problem never got solved. That kept their favorite straw man alive to take more hits. And every time they punched him, they got another invitation to go on Fox News or talk radio, or they got another check from their friends in outside groups like DeMint’s outfit. It was their own little private stimulus plan.”
― John Boehner, On the House: A Washington Memoir

“This was back in the days when Mitt was the next great conservative hope, before the rabble-rousers decided he wasn’t a big enough lunatic for their liking.”
― John Boehner, On the House: A Washington Memoir

“You would not want him against you .”
― John Boehner, On the House: A Washington Memoir

“These guys had no clue what kind of clown car I was trying to drive on the Republican side of the House.”
― John Boehner, On the House: A Washington Memoir

“It's just golf... hit the ball, find the ball, hit it again”
― John Boehner, On the House: A Washington Memoir

“I had to explain how to actually get things done. A lot of that went straight through the ears of most of them, especially the ones who didn’t have brains that got in the way. Incrementalism? Compromise? That wasn’t their thing. A lot of them wanted to blow up Washington. That’s why they thought they were elected.”
― John Boehner, On the House: A Washington Memoir