John Boehner calls Trump 'a guy who's unemployed' and 'has nothing else to do but cause trouble'
- During an interview on ABC's "The View," John Boehner called out Trump's post-presidential behavior.
- "Here's a guy who's unemployed, has nothing else to do but cause trouble," he said.
- Boehner expressed disappointment that Trump has misled his supporters about the election results.
Former GOP House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio on Monday blasted former President Donald Trump as an "unemployed" individual who is out to "cause trouble" after losing his reelection bid last year.
During an appearance on ABC's "The View," Boehner, who is promoting his forthcoming book, "On the House: A Washington Memoir," was asked by co-host Sara Haines when the GOP would have a "wake-up call" regarding the former president's continued false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election.
At the Republican National Committee's donor summit in Florida last weekend, Trump reportedly repeated the claim that the election was "stolen" from him.
"Here's a guy who's unemployed, has nothing else to do but cause trouble," Boehner said. "Clearly, it's obvious to me that he's not going away."
After the November general election and even after President Joe Biden was officially declared the winner, the Trump campaign unsuccessfully sought to overturn the election results in a range of swing states.
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Boehner criticized Trump for continuing to push the false narrative that voter fraud cost him the election - even in the aftermath of the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot prompted by his repeated lies.
"The president abused the loyalty and the trust that voters had placed in him by perpetuating this noise," he said. "It was really one of the sadder things I've seen in the last 40 years in politics."
When Haines asked Boehner why current Republican officeholders couldn't be straightforward with Americans about Trump's rhetoric, the former speaker didn't have a clear answer.
"I don't know," he said. "I'm not in the political world these days. I try to, frankly, stay as far away from it as I can."
However, Boehner stressed that the party needed to return to its core principles.
"I think what Republicans need to do is act like Republicans," he said. "I'm a conservative Republican, but I'm not crazy. I believe in fiscal responsibility and a strong national defense. We need to rally the party around what being a Republican means."