Cable news may adore the “breaking news” banner, but it rarely gets a chance to truly break news that hasn’t already appeared on social media. Case in point: the announcement Friday morning that House Speaker John Boehner resigned from Congress, which broke on Twitter shortly before 9:30 a.m. ET. (TVNewser)
Boehner’s announcement came one day after a high point of his congressional career: a historic speech by Pope Francis to Congress at the speaker’s request. It also came before what would have been a new low: a potential floor vote to oust him as speaker, pushed by Republican tea partyers convinced he was capitulating in a struggle over Planned Parenthood funding that threatened a government shutdown next Thursday. Such a formal challenge against a speaker has not been used in the House for more than 100 years. On Friday, an upbeat Boehner declared that he’d decided to spare the House, and himself, the chaos such a vote would bring. (AP / The Big Story)
“It’s become clear to me that this prolonged leadership turmoil would do irreparable harm to the institution,” Boehner told a news conference several hours after announcing his plans to his staff. “There was never any doubt I could survive the vote, but I didn’t want my members to go through this, I didn’t want this institution to go through this.” (THR)
It was a bit of serendipity that led to CBS’ Boehner get Sunday. The house speaker was already scheduled to appear on the show in a pretaped segment to discuss the Pope’s visit and (possible) impending government shutdown. (FishbowlDC)
Boehner spoke out on Face The Nation Sunday about why he’s stepping down, and he pulled no punches in decrying “false prophets” on the Republican side. Boehner told John Dickerson he’s confident about preventing a government shutdown in the final few weeks of his speakership. He said it wasn’t so much “dysfunction” in Congress that he didn’t like, but some of the disagreement. He brought up plenty conservative ideas he pushed that were “all voted against by my most conservative members because it wasn’t good enough.” Boehner said that plenty of Republicans are “unrealistic” about government and recalled how the Bible warns of “false prophets” as he decried Republicans “spreading noise about how much can get done.” (Mediaite)