From the Washington Post - excerpt from Boehner's new book coming out on Tuesday.

Mark Meadows on his knees

Before he was Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows was a thorn in Boehner’s side while serving as a Republican congressman from North Carolina.

As founder of the Freedom Caucus, a group of far-right Republicans, Meadows was often in Boehner’s way.

Boehner had campaigned for Meadows in his first election, but in one of Meadows’s first actions as a freshman congressman, he voted against Boehner for speaker — “a vote that like many of the Freedom Caucus’s efforts ended in abject failure,” Boehner writes.

Soon after, Meadows asked for a private meeting. Within a few minutes in Boehner’s office, the congressman “dropped off the couch and was on his knees. Right there on my rug. That was a first. His hands came together in front of him as if he were about to pray,” Boehner recalls. He asked Boehner to forgive him.

“I was so startled I can’t remember exactly what the hell he was saying. For a moment, I wondered what his elite and uncompromising band of Freedom Caucus warriors would have made of their star organizer on the verge of tears, but that wasn’t my problem,” Boehner writes.

So Boehner took a “long, slow draw” of his cigarette and left Meadows there on his knees waiting. Then, after an extended silence, Boehner looked down at him asked, “For what?”

Boehner said he forgave him, but knew Meadows wouldn’t hesitate to cross him again.