Former House Speaker John Boehner today said he believed current Speaker Paul Ryan stepped down after achieving his dream of passing a comprehensive tax bill and dismissed the notion that far-right conservatives will replace Ryan as speaker, saying “they can’t win.”
“They know they can’t win,” he said, referring to a group that includes Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana. “So I’m sure that’s not going to happen.”
He said while Republicans will decide who will replace Ryan, “I think Kevin McCarthy did a good job as Majority Leader for me and he’s done a good job for Paul and clealry I think he’s in the number one spot.”
Boehner, a West Chester Republican who served as speaker from 2011 until he retired in 2015, pushed Ryan into taking the job. . In his press conference announcing his imminent retirement Wednesday, Ryan admitted he took the job “reluctantly.”
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Boehner Wednesday dismissed the notion that Ryan left because he feared the GOP would lose the House majority, saying instead Ryan chose to left because he achieved a goal he has worked on for roughly a decade.
“He accepted the fact that he had to do this job and I think he did it well, but tax reform was always his baby and he got his job done,” he said.
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