American activist and former White House intern Monica Lewinsky revealed on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast Tuesday how she believes President Bill Clinton should have reacted to their affair being made public in 1998.
When asked by host Alex Cooper about how she thinks the matter should have been handled, Lewinsky initially responded, “I don’t think I’ve answered this question before, but good question.” She then admitted, “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, or to find a way of staying in office that was not lying and not throwing a young person who is just starting out in the world under the bus.”
“At the same time, I’m hearing myself say that and it’s like, ‘OK, but we’re also talking about the most powerful office in the world,’” Lewinsky added. “I don’t want to be naive either.”
Clinton did not, of course, resign from the presidency in ’98. Instead, he stayed in office for the entirety of his second term through multiple controversies. He was even impeached based on the handling of his relationship with Lewinsky, though he was later acquitted. He remained president and was succeeded by George W. Bush in 2001.
Referencing Clinton’s infamous remark that he “did not have sexual relations with that woman,” Lewinsky said she felt “split” when she first heard the former president deny that they had been together. “I felt so guilty for everything. I felt like this having become public was my fault,” she reflected. “I didn’t want him to lose his job. So there was a part of me that felt good, ‘Deny it. This is what you should do.’ That sort of a thing.”
“And then there was a part of me that was so humiliated,” she continued. “To kind of have the most powerful man in the world saying that, you know, basically you’re damaged goods — it’s not something you want as a 51-year-old woman and not something you want as a 24-year-old woman.”
Lewinsky has spoken and written at great length about the pain, trauma and humiliation she experienced on a global scale as a result of her relationship with Clinton, which began when she was 22 and he was 49, becoming a point of national controversy. She has rarely spoken in such explicit terms about what she believes Clinton should have done, though.
In 1998 and for many years afterward, Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky was not widely framed as the massive imbalance of power between a young woman and a much older man that many now see it as now. Nearly 30 years later, Lewinsky says she has only received a “handful” of apologies over the way she was talked about and treated at the time. Fortunately, she revealed on “Call Her Daddy” that she also does not “need” any more apologies at this stage in her life.
“I have had a handful of people who were involved at the time that I’ve run into in different ways, who have acknowledged that they wish they had made different choices,” Lewinsky shared. “None of the people who were, you know, sort of the above-the-fold names involved in the investigation … and I’m really grateful that I’m at a place where I don’t need it anymore.”
