Bill Clinton: I empowered women
Former President Bill Clinton says the #MeToo movement is overdue. Just don’t ask him about Monica Lewinsky.
In an interview with NBC’s Today Show released yesterday, Clinton bristled at questions over whether he should have resigned 20 years ago over his sexual relationship with a White House intern and whether the #MeToo movement has changed his perspective. The former Democratic President also claimed credit for empowering women in his orbit and disputed that he might owe Lewinsky a private apology, insisting his public televised apology was adequate.
Lewinsky wrote in March that their relationship “was not sexual assault” but “constituted a gross abuse of power”. “I dealt with it 20 years ago, plus,” said Clinton.
Clinton is promoting his new fictional thriller, The President Is Missing, with author James Patterson.
In clips released from the interview, Clinton was at times both vague and combative in his answers, repeatedly blaming his critics and even the NBC interviewer for “omitting facts” by trying to lump him in with other men who have abused their positions of power to leverage sexual relationships.
Clinton said he was right not to resign. And while he said he supports the #MeToo movement, “I still have questions about some of the decisions which have been made.”
On any parallels between him and Donald Trump, who has been accused by more than a dozen women of sexual misconduct and was caught on tape bragging about grabbing women’s crotches, Clinton said: “A lot of the facts have been conveniently omitted to make the story work.”
In March, Lewinsky wrote in Vanity Fair of Clinton: “He was my boss. He was the most powerful man on the planet. He was 27 years my senior, with enough life experience to know better. He was, at the time, at the pinnacle of his career, while I was in my first job out of college. (Note to the trolls, both Democratic and Republican: none of the above excuses me for my responsibility for what happened. I meet Regret every day.)”