Narrator: Imagine you’re playing a round of golf with Donald Trump. It’s your first time, and you’re a bit surprised when he joins your foursome unannounced. He’s loud, direct, and a surprisingly good golfer. As the day ends, your two other partners, a pair of insurance executives, pull you aside. They confess that for the entire 18 holes, you and Trump have been calling them by the wrong names—Joe and Jeff, instead of Mike and David. You laugh it off, but when Trump finds out, he explodes. He turns not on you, but on your young staffer, screaming, "You want to know how to remember somebody’s name? You fucking LISTEN!" In that moment, you see that the brash, intense persona isn't an act. It’s real. And you realize that this man's anger, if ever unleashed from a position of great power, could be incredibly dangerous for the country.

This was the jarring experience of former Speaker of the House John Boehner. In his unfiltered memoir, On the House: A Washington Memoir, Boehner pulls back the curtain on the personalities, power plays, and political dysfunctions that have come to define modern American politics. It’s a story told from the inside, by a man who went from a bartender’s son to one of the most powerful figures in the nation, only to find himself presiding over what he calls "Crazytown."

Narrator: In Washington, power isn't just about titles; it’s about how you wield it. Boehner illustrates this by contrasting two fundamentally different styles: Nancy Pelosi’s and his own. He describes Pelosi as a master of power, someone who is ruthlessly effective and leaves no fingerprints. To show this, he recounts the political gutting of John Dingell, a legendary Democrat and the longest-serving member in House history.

Dingell was the powerful chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, but his moderate views on issues like climate change were out of step with the party's progressive wing. When the more liberal Henry Waxman challenged Dingell for the chairmanship, Pelosi remained officially neutral. But behind the scenes, her message was clear. She gave Waxman her tacit approval, and he won, stripping a titan of his power. To Boehner, this was a cold, calculated move—the work of a political butcher who knew how to make the tough cuts to maintain control.

Boehner, by contrast, saw himself as a bartender. His power came from listening, building relationships, and trying to get people to a place of agreement. He preferred persuasion over punishment, believing that you could get more done by bringing people along than by cutting them down. This approach, however, would be severely tested as his own party began to fracture, proving that in a divided Washington, the bartender’s friendly persuasion often struggles against the butcher’s sharp knife.

Narrator: Long before he was Speaker, Boehner arrived in Washington as a freshman reformer, shocked by the sense of entitlement he witnessed. The most glaring example was the House Bank scandal. He discovered that members of Congress were treating the House’s internal bank like a private slush fund, writing thousands of bad checks without any penalty. They were essentially giving themselves interest-free loans on the taxpayer's dime.

Outraged, Boehner and a small group of fellow freshmen, dubbed the "Gang of Seven," decided to expose it. They knew they were taking on the entire political establishment, including their own party’s leadership. They introduced a resolution demanding transparency, spoke to the press, and refused to back down. The scandal exploded. The public was furious to learn that their elected officials were playing by a different set of rules. The pressure became so immense that the House was forced to close the bank and release the names of the worst offenders.

This fight taught Boehner a crucial lesson: power, left unchecked, inevitably leads to abuse. It solidified his belief that transparency and accountability weren't just buzzwords; they were the only cure for the sickness of entitlement that permeated the halls of Congress.

Narrator: Boehner argues that the only legislation that truly lasts is bipartisan. When one party rams a bill through on a party-line vote, the other party will spend all its energy trying to repeal it. He experienced the pinnacle of bipartisan success with President George W. Bush on the No Child Left Behind Act.

Bush made education reform his top priority and knew he needed Democrats on board. He invited key players, including the liberal icon Senator Ted Kennedy, to his ranch in Texas to hash out a deal. Boehner, as chairman of the education committee, worked closely with his Democratic counterpart, George Miller. Despite fierce opposition from conservatives in his own party and the powerful teachers' unions, they built a coalition. Boehner personally called Kennedy to ensure the unions wouldn’t kill the bill. In the end, it passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. It was a massive achievement, born from trust and a shared goal.

Just a few years later, Boehner saw how easily that trust could shatter. In 2011, he entered into secret negotiations with President Obama to strike a "Grand Bargain" on the national debt. They were close to a historic deal that would have involved trillions in spending cuts and significant revenue increases. But at the last minute, Obama’s team moved the goalposts, demanding another $400 billion in tax revenue. For Boehner, the deal was dead. The trust was broken. The experience left him convinced that while bipartisanship is the ideal, it’s nearly impossible in an atmosphere of bad faith.

Narrator: By the time Boehner became Speaker, the political landscape had radically changed. He found himself as the "mayor of Crazytown," trying to govern a Republican conference increasingly dominated by what he calls the "chaos caucus." These were members, many from the Tea Party wave, who weren't interested in governing. Their goal was to burn the system down, and their primary tools were outrage, media appearances, and fundraising off of their own manufactured crises.

The ultimate example was the 2013 government shutdown. Senator Ted Cruz, whom Boehner describes as a "reckless asshole," convinced House Republicans that they could defund Obamacare by refusing to fund the government. Boehner knew it was a fool's errand. It was a political suicide mission that had zero chance of success and would only make the Republican party look feckless and incompetent.

But as he notes, "a leader without followers is just a guy taking a walk." His caucus was determined to drive off the cliff, and he was left with a terrible choice: either let them do it, or be cast aside for someone who would. He went along with the strategy, and the government shut down. The result was a political disaster for Republicans. They gained nothing and were blamed for the chaos. For Boehner, it was the moment he realized that the fringe had become the center of gravity in his party, making the basic act of responsible governance almost impossible.

Narrator: Throughout his chaotic career, Boehner was guided by the lessons from two key mentors: Gerry Faust and President Gerald Ford. Gerry Faust was his high school football coach, a man who instilled in him the values of discipline, faith, and doing the right thing, no matter how hard it was. Faust taught him to be a "Man of Moeller," a person of character who shows up and does the work. Years later, on the morning of his election to become Majority Leader, a nervous Boehner received a call from his old coach, who gave him a pep talk that calmed his nerves and reminded him of those core principles.

His other anchor was President Gerald "Jerry" Ford. Boehner developed a close friendship with the former president, who he saw as the ultimate "institutionalist"—a man who deeply loved the House of Representatives and embodied decency and integrity. Ford’s lifelong dream had been to become Speaker of the House, a dream he had to give up to lead the country after Nixon’s resignation. Boehner felt that in becoming Speaker, he was living out Ford's unfulfilled ambition, and he tried to lead with the same respect for the institution that Ford had shown. These two men, the coach and the president, provided a moral compass that helped him navigate the treacherous waters of Washington.

Narrator: Ultimately, On the House is a lament for a bygone era of American politics. Boehner’s central message is that the art of legislating has been replaced by the art of performance. The incentive structure in Washington, he argues, has been warped by a media ecosystem and a political base that reward outrage over results, and chaos over compromise. The system no longer encourages serious people to solve serious problems.

His story serves as both a warning and a challenge. It warns of the dangers when a political party loses its institutional moorings and falls prey to demagogues and media-driven hysterics. And it leaves us with a critical question: How can a democracy function when its leaders are more interested in being famous than in being effective? Boehner doesn't have all the answers, but his candid, often hilarious, and deeply troubling account forces us to confront the reality of the political world we now inhabit.