What is John Boehner thinking on his way out of Congress?
John Boehner will return to Ohio on Friday and officially resign from Congress a day later after serving 24 years in the House and the last five years as its speaker.
Boehner sat down with reporters for a wide-ranging exit interview. Excerpts were published by Time magazine.
Before Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, was elected to succeed Boehner on Thursday morning, Boehner delivered a farewell speech from the House floor.
"I leave with no regrets, no burdens. If anything, I leave the way I started. I'm just a regular guy humbled by the chance to do a big job," Boehner said.
The Ohio Republican was first elected to the House in 1990 after serving in his state legislature. In 2011, after Republicans took back the House, Boehner was elected speaker. Over the last few years, conservatives within his caucus repeatedly threatened to oust him. In September, a day after Pope Francis addressed Congress, Boehner announced he would step down.
On Thursday, he said under his leadership, the House passed major entitlement reforms, cut spending and banned earmarks.
Click through to learn what's going through Boehner's mind as he departs Capitol Hill.
What does Boehner want to do first?
At the moment, he has no major plans. He said in his exit interview that he'd like to buy a car to drive himself around for the first time in a while and teach his infant grandson golf.
"I think I was eight or nine years old the last time I didn't have a job. I was delivering newspapers back then," Boehner said, according to Time.
"Not one day without a job. And the last 40 years I've been working 50 to 100 hours a week," he added. "At some point you've got to slow down. So that's part of the goal. I'm not sure I'm going to know how to do that, but I'm going to have to learn."
The 65-year-old spent the last five years traveling extensively, fundraising on behalf of Republicans.
What advice did he give to Speaker Ryan?
"This is the loneliest place in the world," Boehner said.
He explained it's "almost as lonely" as being president.
"And what makes it even lonelier is what you realize is at the end of the day you've got to make decisions, and those decisions have consequences, and the consequences fall back on one person. So, it's something that takes a little getting used to."
The House elected Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, as the speaker of the House on Thursday morning. He received 236 votes.
Would he ever consider running for president?
He immediately ruled it out.
"Stick me in the eye with a dull stick. I've never been afflicted with that disease," he said.
As speaker of the House, Boehner was third in line to the presidency.
Does Boehner think Ryan still has a chance to run for president?
Boehner suggested it could be tough, saying he thinks Ryan recognizes being speaker could ruin his White House ambitions.
"I'll let you ask him about it, but not since [President James] Polk has anyone left this office and became president," he said.
Ryan was Mitt Romney's vice presidential nominee during the 2012 presidential campaign. Since January, he served as chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee and previously served as chairman of the House Budget Committee.
What is Boehner’s biggest regret?
"Not getting the budget deal with President Obama in 2011 still stings," he said.
Negotiations between congressional Republicans and the White House over the debt, spending, tax reform and the debt ceiling collapsed that summer.
"We had an agreement, we looked each other in the eye with Eric Cantor and I and the president in the Oval Office," he said.
"It would've really helped our economy; it would've helped our deficit. It would've meant a lot of things long term, really trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars in savings over the course of 20 to 30 years."
Instead, Congress was stuck with a 2011 deal that set limits on government spending over a decade.