Boehner: I'm Quitting For the Good of the Country

Outgoing House Speaker John Boehner said Friday that his decision to resign didn't come because he feared the outcome of a vote to oust him, but that he made his decision for the good of the country.

"It was never about the vote, and it was not a doubt of whether or not I can survive a vote," he told reporters at a press conference Friday afternoon, just hours after he made his unexpected announcement. "I don't want the members or institution to go through this."

He said he is proud of the achievements that have been made, including "making the first real entitlement reform in two decades," said Boehner. "Over the five years, our majority advanced conservative reforms to help our children and their children, and we are now on track to cut government by $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years. We've done all of this with a Democrat in the White House."

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But at the end of the day, Boehner said, the job of the speaker is to "protect the institution."

Boehner said his initial plan was to step down as speaker at the end of last year, as he'd decided in November of 2010 that when he was elected speaker, two years would have been plenty of time.

"But in June of last year, when it became clear that the majority leader lost his election, I frankly didn't believe it was right for me to leave at the end of last year," Boehner said.

"My goal was to leave at the end of this year and I planned on my birthday Nov. 17th, to announce I was leaving at the end of the year."

However, he said that it has become clear to him that to stay amid prolonged turmoil "would do irreparable harm to the institution."

He noted that on Thursday, after Pope Francis spoke to Congress, he started to think about his decision to step down.

"This morning, I woke up and said my prayers as I always do and I decided, today is the day I will do this," said Boehner. "As simple as that. That is the code I have lived by. If you do the right things for the right reason, right [things] will happen."

Boehner said he knows that there are good things lying ahead for the House and the United States, and he is proud after serving in the House for 25 years.

"I have succeeded in large part because I put a staff and team together many of which have been with me a long time," he said. "And without a great staff, you can't be a great member and certainly not a great speaker."

He also thanked his family for "putting up with this all of these years. My poor girls, now 37 and 35, their first campaign photo was in July of 1981. And so they've had to endure all of this."

Boehner said he has met tens of thousands of people across the country, rich and poor, and he can say that "99.9 percent of the people I meet on the road anywhere could not be nicer than they've been," and that it's been an honor to serve them.

But he did not say fully that the grace of the pope led him to make his decision, although he readily admitted that he was emotional.

"I was really emotional in a moment no one saw," he said. "The pope and I were getting ready to exit the building, we found ourselves alone, and the pope grabbed my left arm and said kind words to me about my commitment to kids and education. And the pope puts his arm around me and pulls me to him and said 'please pray for me.' Well, who am I to pray for the pope? But I did."

Boehner said he will continue to work hard for the next 30 days, including for the upcoming continuing resolution appropriations vote, over which a government shutdown is being threatened unless funding for Planned Parenthood is discontinued.

"This is a lot of work to be done, and I plan on getting it done before I exit," he said. "I will make the same decisions I would have made regardless of it."

But he said he would not describe his decision on having "had enough."

"When you are the speaker of the House, your number one responsibility is to the institution," he said. "Having votes like this in the institution is not very healthy. And I have done everything I can over my term of speaker for the institution and my move today is another step in that effort to strengthen the institution."

He said if Congress stays focused on priorities, there should be no problem in moving on.

"We have differences between the Democrats and Republicans, and the goal of one of the leaders is to find the common ground," he said.

Boehner said the legislative leadership was surprised, including House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., a key contender to become the next speaker, who he told just two minutes before making his announcement.

He does not have an opinion on who should succeed him, but he thinks McCarthy would make "an excellent speaker."

Boehner told the reporters that the first people he told were his wife and chief of staff.

"This morning, I woke up and walked up to Starbucks and got my coffee and walked up to Pete's Diner and said yeah, today is the day," he told the reporters.

"And my senior staff was having a meeting at 8:45 and walked in and told them, this is the day. It's going to happen some day and why not today."

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