John Boehner Explains His Animosity and Repeated Attacks on Ted Cruz : ‘Lucifer In the Flesh’

Former House Speaker John Boehner continues the promotional tour of his new memoir of On the House with a convivial appearance on The View and quadrupled down on his criticism of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas — referring to him as “Lucifer.”

Political media savants will recognize Boehner’s calling Senator Cruz “Lucifer in the flesh” during a 2016 speech at Stanford University. And while his condemnation of the junior senator from the Lone Star State may seem somewhat performative, it is still a noteworthy flouting of the 11th amendment made famous by Ronald Reagan which roughly states “thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.”

The comment came at the end of a segment in which Boehner was asked to opine on some current Republican members of Congress. Joy Behar asked if much-maligned Matt Gaetz would still be in Congress if Boehner were still House Speaker.

Boehner noted a past pledge he had made to his Congressional colleagues that he wouldn’t tolerate bad behavior, the former Speaker said that Gaetz “would have been in my office several times answering questions from me about his activities.” He then added “In America, people are innocent until proven guilty. The man hasn’t even been charged yet.”

Co-host Sara Haines then teed up Boehner to open on Senator Cruz. “You aren’t shy about your animosity for senator Ted Cruz, but you take it to the next level in the book writing,” she opened. Then, reading a quote from his book “there is nothing more dangerous than a reckless bleep who thinks he is smarter than everyone else,” Haines noted that Boehner has said in the past that “even Mitch McConnell hated him with a passion, I didn’t know he had in him.”

“What is it about Cruz that gets you so fired up?” she asked before noting that Cruz says you’re obsessed with him.

“Well, this guy was not even a member of the U.S. House,” Boehner explained. “He’s a member of the Senate. He’s coming over to the House side of the Capitol stirring up some of my knuckleheads and pushing them to do things that were the dumbest things I’ve ever seen in my life, and he was not even a member of our caucus.”

“Just a bit bizarre that I’ve never seen happen before or since like the activities of Ted Cruz,” he continued, adding “You know, I don’t really beat up too many people in this book, except one, Ted Cruz, Lucifer in the flesh.”

After Boehner said that, Whoopi Goldberg whooped her approval — to which Speaker Boehner smiled broadly, in a made-for-TV moment that pleased all participants, except Ted Cruz.

Watch above via The View.