The government shutdown, which lasted 16 days and left 800,000 government employees temporarily without a job, was a "predicable disaster," House Speaker John A. Boehner told Jay Leno on the "Tonight Show."
In a rare TV appearance, the Republican speaker opened up about the October 2013 shutdown of the federal government that was brought about by a disagreement between Republicans and Democrats on President Barack Obama's healthcare bill. The last time the government shutdown was in late 1995.
Boehner told Leno on Thursday that he sometimes has trouble keeping the House Republicans in check, the Los Angeles Times reported. He said he warned his colleagues not to go ahead with the deadlock, but they were too eager to oppose Obamacare.
"When I looked up, I saw my colleagues going this way. And you learn that a leader without followers is simply a man taking a walk," Boehner told Leno, according to the LA Times. "So I said, 'You want to fight this fight? I'll go fight the fight with you.' But it was a very predictable disaster."
The speaker's appearance was his first time on the "Tonight Show." Leno said he tried several times to get Boehner on the show, the LA Times reported.
Boehner said he especially faces challenges from outside influences who claimed to belong to the Tea Party and instigated the shutdown.
"There's nothing I could do that was ever conservative enough for them," Boehner told Leno.
Boehner further explained that it's part of his job to sometimes play the role of enforcer and treat his fellow Republicans like children.
"Some members, I have to be the big brother figure," Boehner told Leno, the LA Times reported. "Some, I have to be the father figure. Others, I have to be the dean of students or the principle. Some of them, I have to be the Gestapo.
"I like to describe my job as trying to get 218 frogs in a wheelbarrow long enough to pas a bill," Boehner told Leno. "Its hard to do."
