Former House Speaker John Boehner blames the media, not politicians, for dividing the nation and he fingered popular radio and internet TV host Mark Levin as enemy No. 1.

In a long and entertaining Politico profile, Boehner said that conservative pundits are wrong in blaming the divide on former President Obama.



“It wasn’t him!” Boehner said. “It was modern-day media, and social media, that kept pushing people further right and further left. People started to figure out … they could choose where to get their news. And so what do people do? They choose places they agree with, reinforcing the divide,” added Boehner, who resigned in September 2015 after facing several GOP protests.

He then raised his accusing finger at Levin and said:

“I always liked Rush [Limbaugh]. When I went to Palm Beach I would always meet with Rush and we’d go play golf. But you know, who was that right-wing guy, [Mark] Levin? He went really crazy right and got a big audience, and he dragged [Sean] Hannity to the dark side. He dragged Rush to the dark side. And these guys—I used to talk to them all the time. And suddenly they’re beating the living shit out of me.”

He added, “I had a conversation with Hannity, probably about the beginning of 2015. I called him and said, ‘Listen, you’re nuts.’ We had this really blunt conversation. Things were better for a few months, and then it got back to being the same-old, same-old. Because I wasn’t going to be a right-wing idiot.”

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com