Monica Lewinsky says the “right way” for former President Clinton to have handled the fallout from their affair when she was a 22-year-old White House intern would have been either “to resign” or to have found a way to not throw a young person “under the bus.”
Monica Lewinsky talks Bill Clinton affair on ‘Call Her Daddy’ podcast
“I think that the right way to handle a situation like that would have been to probably say it was nobody’s business and to resign,” Lewinsky said during an interview on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast released Tuesday.
“Or to find a way of staying in office that was not lying and not throwing a young person who was just starting out in the world under the bus,” she added.
“And at the same time, I’m hearing myself say that, and it’s like, OK we’re also talking about the most powerful office in the world. I don’t want to be naive either,” Lewinsky, 51, said.
Bill Clinton – Monica Lewinsky scandal
Her remarks came in response to a question from “Call Her Daddy” host Alex Cooper asking her to reflect on the 1990s scandal and how both the press and the White House should have navigated the situation once it came to light.
“It’s really complicated because you are talking about issues and situations where so many people are impacted,” Lewinsky said.
Clinton initially denied that he engaged in a sexual relationship with Lewinsky, a White House intern at the time, between 1995 and 1996. He later admitted it occurred and stayed in office. News of the affair ignited a media firestorm in 1998 and Clinton’s eventual impeachment, though the Senate voted to acquit him.
Monica Lewinsky hosts new podcast
“Maybe this is a reflection of my generation or my age, but I don’t know where the right balance is — because there was damage no matter what,” Lewinsky, promoting her new “Reclaiming” podcast, told Cooper.
“I think there was so much collateral damage for women of my generation to watch a young woman to be pilloried on the world stage, to be torn apart for my sexuality, for my mistakes, for my everything,” she said.
“I was lucky enough to hold onto a strand of my true self, but I lost my future,” Lewinsky said.
“I’m so grateful for how my life has changed in the last 10 years… but that certainly was not a given.”
