In today’s political climate, it can feel like every disagreement is personal. But some of the most powerful partnerships in American politics were built between people who couldn’t have disagreed more — proving that respect and friendship can survive even the deepest ideological divides.
President Ronald Reagan and House Speaker Tip O’Neill
The former Republican president and Democratic house speaker from Massachusetts didn’t always see eye-to-eye on fundamental political questions, but respected each other as public servants and worked across the aisle to find common ground.
“Historic tax reforms, seven tax increases, a strong united front that brought down the Soviet Union — all came of a commitment to find common ground,” O’Neill’s son Thomas O’Neill wrote in the New York Times in 2012.
“While neither man embraced the other’s worldview, each respected the other’s right to hold it. Each respected the other as a man.”
When Reagan survived an assassination attempt in 1981, O’Neill went to the hospital to visit the president and pray at his bedside. And after O’Neill’s death, Reagan headlined fundraisers to raise the money to build the O’Neill Library at Boston College, O’Neill’s alma mater.
John Boehner and Barack Obama
The former Democratic president and Republican house speaker from Ohio often clashed on policy — famously so when the 2011 “grand bargain” budget deal fell apart — but still maintained a respectful working relationship while Boehner was speaker.
The two would famously discuss strategy and hash out disagreements in the Rose Garden outside the White House, during which Boehner would smoke cigarettes and Obama, a former smoker, would chew nicotine gum.
Boehner even recalled having to “sneak in” into the White House to meet with Obama to avoid the press from “going crazy.”
“We were having a nice conversation and finally the president says, ‘Boehner, man, I’m going to miss you,'” Boehner said of Obama’s phone call to him after he retired as Speaker of the House in 2015.
Boehner even made a cameo in a comedic video Obama showed at the 2016 White House Correspondents Dinner during which they joked around and watched “Toy Story.”
“I understand him, he understands me, and while we had big disagreements, we were able to get an awful lot of things done, somehow. Don’t ask me how,” he added.
