Boehner Decries Shutdown, Says Unwilling to Quit Golf, Cigarettes to Run for Prez in Leno Appearance

Boehner Decries Shutdown, Says Unwilling to Quit Golf, Cigarettes to Run for Prez in Leno Appearance

On Thursday, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) made his first-ever appearance on NBC’s “The Tonight Show” in which he discussed his background and some of the issues of the day.

The House Speaker admitted he had qualms with groups that purport to represent the Tea Party, but mislead their followers at his expense.

“I don’t have any problem with the Tea Party,” Boehner said. “Those people have brought great energy to the political process. Most of them have never been involved before. You know, when you agree with someone 90 percent of the time, they’re not your enemy. My problem was with some Washington organizations who purport to represent the Tea Party who I think mislead them. There’s nothing I could ever do that was conservative enough for them.”

Watch (Part 2):

In the second segment, Boehner conceded the Republicans were to blame for last fall’s federal government shutdown. He then went on to say despite his warnings months beforehand, he was forced to go along with what he thought was an ill-advised strategy to take on ObamaCare.

“Listen, I told my colleagues in July I didn’t think shutting down the government over ObamaCare would work because the president said, ‘I’m not going to negotiate.’ So I told them in August, probably not a good idea. Told them in early September. You know, in my job there’s something you have to learn – when I looked up, I saw my colleagues going this way and you learn a leader without followers is simply a man taking a walk. So I said, ‘You want to fight this fight, I’ll go fight the fight with you.’ But it was a very predictable disaster and so the sooner we got it over with, the better.”

Leno also asked Boehner about the possibility of him running for president one day, to which Boehner said there would be too much for him to give up to do so.

“Listen, I like to play golf, I like to cut my own grass,” he said. “You know I do drink red wine, smoke cigarettes and I’m not giving that up to be president of the United States.”

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