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And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Axe Files, with your host, David Axelrod.

I first met John Boehner when I was the senior advisor to President Barack Obama, and Boehner was the House Republican leader, way back in the turbulent teens.

Now Boehner is retired from politics and has plenty to say in his new book, On the House, A Washington Memoir.

I cut up with him last week to speak to him about his life and career and his Republican party's journey from Reagan to Trump.

Here's that conversation.

Speaker John Boehner, good to see you again.

David, good to see you.

Author John Boehner, I should say.

Great new bestselling book.

Number one, I'm told on the House, A Washington Memoir, very Boehner-esque effort on your part.

You kind of let it rip, and it's a really good read.

Well, I wanted it to sound like me. I wanted it to be me, and it turned out to be me.

I thought I had a pretty interesting life, very interesting career, and I thought I could tell a pretty good story, and it worked out pretty well.

Yeah, well, you certainly can.

So I want to start at, there's a lot of great stuff in here, but you just have to explain to me, 12 kids, two bedrooms, one bathroom.

How does that work? That was you growing up.

The boys were in one room, the girls and the other, and my parents, for about 15 years, slept on a pull-out couch at the living room.

And then finally, it just wasn't enough room, and my parents added three bedrooms.

And my grandmother moved in.

So my parents had a bedroom, my grandmother had a bedroom, the girls had a bedroom.

The older boys, the one bedroom, the younger boys in the next bedroom.

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