Ted Cruz has hit out at John Boehner's 'drunken, bloviated scorn' and mockingly told him 'don't cry' after the fo...
Ted Cruz has hit out at John Boehner's 'drunken, bloviated scorn' and mockingly told him 'don't cry' after the former House Speaker branded him a 'jerk' who just 'makes a lot of noise'.
Texas Senator Cruz took to social media Friday to lambast his longtime foe in the latest spat between the two Republicans.
'The Swamp is unhappy. I wear with pride his drunken, bloviated scorn,' Cruz tweeted.
'Please don't cry,' he added, taking a jibe at Boehner's reputation for becoming emotional during his tenure in DC.
Ted Cruz (left) has hit out at John Boehner's (right) 'drunken, bloviated scorn' and mockingly told him 'don't cry' after the former House Speaker branded him a 'jerk' who just 'makes a lot of noise'
Texas Senator Cruz took to social media Friday to lambast his longtime foe in the latest spat between the two Republicans
Cruz's comments came in response to the release of a clip from a CBS News interview, airing Sunday, which the Texas lawmaker shared alongside his scathing tweet.
In it, Boehner is seen telling CBS's John Dickerson he doesn't like to 'beat anyone up' but makes an exception for 'that jerk' Cruz.
'I don't beat anybody up, it's not really my style, except for that jerk,' says Boehner.
'Perfect symbol, you know, of getting elected, making a lot of noise, draw a lot of attention to yourself, raise a lot of money, which means you're gonna go make more noise, raise more money.'
Boehner, who served as the Representative for Ohio's 8th congressional district from 1991 to 2015 and House Speaker from 2011 to 2015, also takes aim at Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan saying he 'never saw a guy who spent more time tearing things apart'.
'Jim Jordan especially, my colleague from Ohio. I just never saw a guy who spent more time tearing things apart - never building anything, never puttin' anything together,' he said.
Boehner accuses the two Republican lawmakers, who are both staunch Donald Trump allies, of being 'political terrorists' who shoulder some of the blame for the January 6 Capitol riot that left five - including a Capitol cop - dead.
He made the blistering comments during an interview ahead of the release of his memoir 'On The House: A Washington Memoir'.
This week's spat marks just the latest war of words between Boehner and Cruz who have long locked horns within the Republican party.
In a clip from a CBS News interview, airing Sunday, (above) Boehner says he doesn't like to 'beat anyone up' but makes an exception for 'that jerk' Cruz
Back in February, two sources told Axios that Boehner had gone off script while recording the audio version of his book, at one point reportedly saying: 'Oh, and Ted Cruz, go f**k yourself.'
Cruz fired back at Boehner the following day at Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida, saying: 'John Boehner made some news. He suggested that I do something that was anatomically impossible.
'To which my response was, 'Who's John Boehner?'' Cruz told the crowd at the right-wing political event.
The two men's rivalry goes back further, with Boehner calling Cruz 'Lucifer in the flesh' and saying he had 'never worked with a more miserable son of a b**ch in my life' back in 2016.
Cruz responded by claiming he doesn't 'know the man' but that Boehner had shown his 'inner-Trump' in his comments.
Boehner made the blistering comments ahead of the release of his memoir 'On The House: A Washington Memoir', out Tuesday
'I've never worked with John Boehner. The truth of the matter is I don't know the man,' he said.
But it hasn't always been frosty between the two men as they once worked closely together with the then-congressman Boehner hiring the then-attorney Cruz to represent him in a legal battle more than two decades ago.
In 1998, Boehner filed a lawsuit against Democratic Rep. Jim McDermott accusing him of violating wiretapping laws when he allegedly obtained a secretly recorded phone call between Boehner and then-Speaker Newt Gingrich.
The legal battle rumbled on for years with a judge eventually siding with Boehner in 2004 and awarding him more than $1 million in legal fees four years later.
But their relationship later soured after Cruz entered Congress and Boehner became speaker of the House.
Boehner also takes aim at Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan (above) and calls both men 'political terrorists'
Boehner has said on multiple times that Cruz made his job difficult, especially as one of the driving forces behind the government shutdown in October 2013 in an effort to disrupt Obamacare.
Cruz later said he reached out to Boehner to work together during that time but the speaker rebuked his offer.
When Boehner announced he was stepping down from his role as speaker in 2015, Cruz welcomed the news as it was revealed to a crowd of conservatives at the Values Voter Summit in September 2015.
'You want to know how much each of you terrify Washington?' he said.
'Y'all come to town, and somehow that changes.'
Boehner's book, out on Tuesday, promises to reveal 'colorful tales from the halls of power, the smoke-filled rooms around the halls of power and his fabled tour bus.'
Fox News' host Sean Hannity is also a target of the book, with Boehner revealing how their relationship broke down.
'We used to have a good relationship,' Boehner wrote in an essay adapted from his memoir for Politico.
'But then he decided he felt like busting my ass every night on his show. So one day, in January of 2015, I finally called him and asked: 'What the hell?'
'I wanted to know why he kept bashing House Republicans when we were actually trying to stand up to Obama.'
Hannity hit back calling Boehner 'weak' and 'timid' and 'one of the worst Republican Speakers in history' on Twitter.
No comments