John Boehner: I’d Rather Smoke and Drink Red Wine Than Be President

On Thursday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) stopped by NBC’s The Tonight Show to chat with host and reviled coup d’état leader Jay Leno. They discussed Chris Christie, Edward Snowden, Boehner’s occasional role as House “Gestapo,” and the GOP-led government shutdown. (“So I said, ‘You wanna fight this fight, I’ll go fight the fight with you.’ But it was a very predictable disaster. And so the sooner we got it over with, the better.”)

But the most interesting quote Boehner had to offer Leno’s audience was fluffier in nature. It came when the comedian asked the politician if he had any plans to run for president. His response:

I like to play golf. I like to cut my own grass. I do drink red wine. I smoke cigarettes and I’m not giving that up to be President of the United States.

Boehner definitely enjoys his red wine and cigarettes (two things you are allowed to consume as commander in chief, but whatever). President Obama gifted Boehner a $110 bottle of Tuscan red wine for his 63rd birthday, and Boehner received positive coverage from The Daily Beast for bringing the “booze back to Washington.” Boehner is a Camel Ultra Lights smoker, and prior to the smoking ban in the Speaker’s Lobby, he took smoking breaks there so frequently that one of the benches was dubbed the “Boehner bench.”

You can watch longer clips of his Tonight Show interview here.

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