In the video, an adorable gaggle of little girls giggles at the monkey as it chatters and clangs. "That's what I do all day," Boehner, R-West Chester Twp., tells them.
“My staff – every 15 to 20 minutes they come in and wind me up and I do my thing,” he said.
The monkey has sat on the coffee table of his immaculate Capitol Hill office since 2011. According to his office, it’s the second-most photographed subject in Boehner’s office, beside Boehner himself. Boehner’s staff got him the monkey after he joked that some days he feels like a windup toy because of his busy schedule. Now, it photo-bombs pictures of Boehner meeting with his caucus and with international dignitaries, a constant presence on the coffee table.
In a January 2012 profile, Boehner compared the monkey to his own job trying to please his caucus.
“I’m one who believes that you catch more bees with honey than you do with vinegar,” Boehner said then. “And we’ve been able to pass everything we’ve wanted to pass. Sometimes it took a little longer than we’d like, but it’s about bringing people together.”
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