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Boehner: Conservative Outside Groups ‘Have Lost All Credibility’

(Douglas Graham/CQ Roll Call)
(Douglas Graham/CQ Roll Call)

Speaker John A. Boehner for the second day in a row used a news conference to air grievances against the conservative outside groups who have sought to strong-arm House Republicans into moving further to the right.

“Frankly, I think they are misleading their followers,” the Ohio Republican told reporters on Thursday morning. “I think they’re pushing our members in places where they don’t want to be, and frankly I just think they’ve lost all credibility.

“You know, they pushed us into this fight to defund Obamacare,” Boehner continued, in the lead-up to the government shutdown in October — which, Boehner added, “wasn’t the strategy I had in mind. The day before the government reopened, one of these groups stood up and said, ‘Well, we never really thought it would work.’

“Are you kidding me?” he said, his voice rising to an all-out bellow.

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