Harry Reid reacts to Boehner book excerpt: ‘We didn’t mince words’

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) responded to an anecdote in former House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) forthcoming book in which Boehner recalls calling Reid a “bastard” during an angry encounter.

Boehner in his book titled “On the House: A Washington Memoir” claimed that Reid called the House a “dictatorship of the Speaker” in 2013 amid tense fiscal negotiations during the Obama administration.

The former Speaker wrote, “If I were a dictator, do you think I’d let all these members get away with screwing me over all the time? Hell no! And Reid, who was a ruthless bastard, knew exactly what I was doing.”  

“So when I saw him at the White House the next day, talking quietly with Mitch McConnell before the meeting, I went over, got in Reid’s face, and said, ‘Do you even listen to all of the shit that comes out of your mouth? You can go f— yourself,” he continued.

Reid on Saturday responded to the excerpt, telling CNN’s Jim Acosta, “The deal is this: 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 had in his caucus, the better it was for us, and he knew what I was doing, and I wasn’t at all surprised that he came to me and gave me one of his underhanded blessings,” Reid said.

The former Nevada lawmaker recalled that he and Boehner would always meet in Boehner’s office “because I didn’t want anyone smoking in my office,” joking that he could then “smoke to his heart’s content.”

“I have a lot of respect for John Boehner. He, as far as I’m concerned, was a great patriot,” Reid told CNN. 

Boehner in the book, which is set to be released this week, pulls no punches about his time in the nation’s capital, going so far as to criticize several fellow Republicans, including former President Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.).