Harry Reid Reacts to John Boehner’s Book: ‘We Didn’t Mince Words…I Did Everything I Could To Cause Him Trouble’
Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) chatted with CNN’s Jim Acosta on Saturday about his reaction to a new book written by former Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH), saying that the two party leaders got along and “got a lot done,” but they also “didn’t mince words” and he “did everything [he] could” to cause Boehner trouble.
Acosta read a quote from Boehner’s book where he mentions getting angry with Reid after he referred to the House as a “dictatorship of the Speakership,” writing that he “got in Reid’s face and said do you even list to all the s*** that comes out of your mouth, you can go f*** yourself.”
“Do we romanticize what it was like in the pre-Trump era?” Acosta asked.
“The deal was this,” Reid replied. “John Boehner and I got a lot done but we didn’t mince words. He was right, I did everything I could to cause him trouble because I knew he was having a lot of trouble. The more trouble he was having in his caucus, the better it was for us, and he knew what I was doing.”
Nonetheless, Reid continued, he and Boehner “got along well for a couple of reasons,” one of which was the “deal” they had that he and Boehner — a heavy smoker — would always meet in Boehner’s office where “he could smoke to his heart’s content.”
“We got a lot of things done,” concluded Reid, saying that he has “a lot of respect for John Boehner — he, as far as I’m concerned was a great patriot.”
Watch the video above, via CNN.
