[Music]
it's not just
roads and bridges we're investing in
water systems so americans can have
clean
water infrastructure we're investing in
high-speed rail infrastructure
we're building charging stations
investing as well
in in asbestos free schools for our kids
that's investing in infrastructure
building a
support system to take care of our
elderly parents and our kids with
disabilities at home we need to build
the infrastructure
of today not repair the one of yesterday
all right let's bring in john boehner
former speaker of the house on this
worked his way up
uh from a lawmaker in ohio all the way
up to the most powerful position in
congress
his book is out today it's called on the
house a washington memoir has been just
camped as number one on amazon
mr speaker welcome well good morning
boys
nice to be with you hey i want to get
into details of the book so to steve but
i do want to ask you about this new
definition of infrastructure
i know you've been out of this for a
while but is eldercare and healthcare
and child care
part of infrastructure well this is uh
apparently a new word for the green new
deal
because if you look at the bill that
they've put forward
uh it covers everything that the the far
left has ever wanted
uh listen if we're gonna do
infrastructure why don't we talk about
traditional
infrastructure roads bridges
uh dams locks transit systems
those are the things that were typically
in an infrastructure build
exactly but then again now they're
trying to get
they're trying to use what's going on as
you know mr speaker right now to
pay for and fund this gigantic 2.2
trillion dollar infrastructure thing
that is not completely
uh infrastructure as you point out but
then again at the same time the
administration says we're going to do it
in a bipartisan way and anita dunn is
quoted in the washington post as saying
if you looked up the word bipartisan in
the dictionary i think it would say
support from republicans and democrats
it doesn't say the republicans have to
be
in congress which is a new way to
describe it because usually
when you're talking about bipartisanship
in congress you're talking about people
from both
parties in congress not just a person on
the street as a republican
who likes your policies well there's
been a lot of talk uh and a lot
written about the the uh the schism in
the republican party
but what you haven't seen a whole lot
written about is this giant schism in
the democrat party
that joe biden being a traditional
democrat uh he's got these far left wing
of progressives uh that he's catered to
ever since he was sworn in
and uh at the expense frankly of working
in a bipartisan manner yeah but this uh
this little fight between uh the
traditional democrats in the far left
is about to come into full view for all
americans because
when it comes to this infrastructure
bill and the so-called pay fors
increasing taxes they're going to have a
long road to hoe
uh because what bernie sanders and
elizabeth warren want
is not what joe manchin and the democrat
senators from
arizona want right now it's going to be
interesting to see this play out in
franklin
i think you have the same problem in the
house speaker pelosi is a very narrow
majority
and uh and they're going to have their
challenges as well
yep are they going to lose the how are
we probably going to win back the house
is that almost uh
that i've been cast being that they have
so many state houses
i don't know that to die has been cast
but i expect that republicans will gain
seats as a result of redistricting
uh historically after uh the president
of
the one party uh is in there two years
the next uh election the party out of
power gained seats
and so it's pretty clear to me that
republicans have a very good shot at
winning the majority in the beginning of
your book
you talk about how in 2010 barack obama
took a shellacking
as that's his word uh from the voters
uh because of his policies and whatnot
and then
a bunch of republicans wound up in the
house you were the speaker of the house
and in the beginning because nobody the
incoming class didn't know how to govern
so you tried to
show them how to do it uh but they
weren't really
interested in that you right they were
interested
in essentially blowing up washington
they felt like
they were sent to washington to just
completely change it
and they saw you as a sellout a liberal
collaborator
you're right well it was really
pretty interesting when all of a sudden
i was the establishment
i mean i had spent my whole career uh
working
outside of the establishment and here i
was the establishment
it was really quite a shock now most of
those members who got elected in 2010
turned out to be good solid republicans
but there are a handful of uh
of knuckleheads in that class you could
talk to them
day in and day out and never make any
sense with them
you kind of feel as though you want to
get things done and ideology doesn't
have a place you got to be more
pragmatic but more practical
you talk about compromise and common
ground
you felt as though the incoming class of
republicans
they gave you the speakership did not
have that concept in mind
but without them you're probably not the
speaker don't you agree
i agree i agree but if you can get uh 75
of what you're looking for from the
other side uh finding common ground
well that was a pretty good deal but
with this
crowd it was either all or nothing 100
of what they wanted or nothing yeah i
never saw so many people vote know so
many times in my life
mr speaker i i have not quite finished
the book either but
it is it's a great read uh you're a good
writer
or a dictator however you might have
dictated it to somebody and they've
typed it out
but what is interesting about it is
you're not afraid to
name names you you are very honest with
your feelings about
what different people did and you you
explained the back story and a lot of
people have not heard for instance
about the time you were given a speech
on the
uh floor of the house about earmarks and
afterwards a guy
who had uh you know sent a lot of
earmarks back to his state
he came up to you and you didn't know he
was gonna pull a knife on you did you
i sure didn't but next thing i knew
there was a 10 inch knife right at my
throat and trust me it was sharp because
i felt it
and uh i looked at him and i went screw
you uh 25 years later that same member
don young
uh i was the best man at his wedding
right
you can't make this stuff up no right
you know what i was surprised at mr
speaker
you call out sean hannity and mark levin
you said too many of these
uh lawmakers or rather be on hannity
than maybe
voting the way you wanted them to is
that sean's fault is that mark levin's
fault
well listen those are the guys that
started with all the outrage the louder
the noise the crazier
of the story uh the more audience they
picked up and frankly they were trying
to grow their audience
uh listen i have my differences
with hannity over the years his style
does not lead to governing and at one
time hannity and i were
frankly pretty close but we know a lot
of time on the air together
but uh outrage uh isn't governing
quite frankly i just the speaker and i'm
trying to govern trying to get things
done
on behalf of the country understood and
that comes across in your book
but sean hannity is not trying to govern
mark levin's not trying to govern
they're saying what they think
and if their audience comes it comes
what makes you think they're saying
things they don't believe just to get
audience
well all i can tell you is that uh i
watched some of this and some of the
people they put on there
now i mean listen putting louie gohmert
on tv uh
it isn't uh it may be great for tv but
everybody in the congress is shaking our
heads wondering why louie gorman would
be on tv because
the guy never made any sense when he was
in the congress
uh or at least when we were in the
majority and so uh
listen they can see what they anything
they want to say
my point is is that i'm trying to govern
i'm trying to get things done on these
guys or making it more difficult
sure right but what i don't understand
is why is it their fault
uh they're they have a show that's like
me blaming broadway
i don't see that like to reach out and
take shots at them
i think it diminishes the credibility of
your book you should focus on what you
were doing
not on what somebody's doing behind the
microphone well
my only point was what they were doing
was making governing
far more difficult simple as that it's
not their fault
and that is uh how you lay out the
beginning of the book
uh ultimately you do talk about how you
were
sent to washington you felt to govern
and to serve
you also say that you wrote the book to
show
people during this time of polarization
to be hopeful because there are ways
to get stuff done in washington although
you'd never know it from today's
headlines
well there's a whole list of vaynerisms
in there one of them is real simple
you do the right things for the right
reasons the right things are likely to
happen just don't worry about it
uh yeah another one that i've got in
there is
it does it doesn't cost anything to be
nice
and lastly i would say this uh people in
washington need to learn
the art of being able to disagree
without being
disagreeable something i learned growing
up on my dad's book
right and it's a great personal story i
love the jerry faust role in it uh the
the notre dame coach and the mueller
legend
uh where he shaped you as a football
player and as a person
uh thank you mr speaker thanks boys
all right the book is called on the
house comes out today