John Boehner tells Ted Cruz to go ‘f*** himself’ in unscripted audiobook recording, report says

Former House speaker previously referred to Texas senator as ‘Lucifer in the flesh’

Former speaker of the House John Boehner reportedly told Texas senator Ted Cruz to “go f*** yourself” while recording the audio version of his upcoming memoir.

While recording the audio for his book, On The House: A Washington Memoir, Mr Boehner, 71, a former Ohio representative, took to Twitter to warn of some of the strong language included.

“Poured myself a glass of something nice to read my audiobook,” he captioned a photo of himself holding a glass of red wine on Thursday, adding: “You can blame the wine for the expletives.”

Axios reported later in day that some off-script moments were captured during the audiobook recording, with two sources saying that Mr Boehner stopped while reading the book to exclaim: “Oh, and Ted Cruz, go f*** yourself.”

The context of the comment is unclear, but Mr Boehner has previously criticised the Texas senator, referring to him as “Lucifer in the flesh” shortly after resigning from public office in 2015.

Mr Boehner made the comments during an address at Stanford University, adding in reference to Mr Cruz: “I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.”

In 1998, while still working as a lawyer, Mr Cruz represented Mr Boehner in court, but NBC News reported that the 71-year-old did not seek out the Texas senator when he joined Congress in 2013.

David Schnittger, Mr Boehner’s spokesperson, confirmed to Axios that “there were some off-script moments during his recording of the audiobook,” on Thursday.

“He pretty much just let it fly, as he did when he was working on the book itself. He’s not really interested in being anything other than himself these days. That is kind of the spirit of the entire project,” Mr Schnittger added.

The Axios report was published amid a period of controversy for Mr Cruz, who faced calls to resign from Congress last month for supporting efforts to overturn 3 November’s presidential election results.

He also caused outrage last week when he flew to Cancun with his family while around 2 million Texans were struggling with power outages and millions more were without access to clean water, amid freezing temperatures caused by the historic Winter Storm Uri.

Mr Cruz travelled back to the US just a day later amid the controversy and acknowledged late last week that he understood why people were “upset”, adding that the trip “was obviously a mistake and in hindsight I wouldn’t have done it.”

Mr Boehner’s memoir, which features the former house speaker on the cover wearing a suit and holding a glass of red wine, is scheduled to be released on 13 April.

A blurb for Mr Boehner’s memoir states that the book will share “colourful tales from the halls of power, the smoke-filled rooms around the halls of power and his fabled tour bus.”

The Independent has contacted Mr Cruz and Mr Boehner for comment.