Monica Lewinsky is revisiting the scandal that put her in the media spotlight over 25 years ago, asserting that former President Bill Clinton should have resigned from office at the time.
Speaking with "Call Her Daddy" podcast host Alex Cooper, Lewinsky was asked how she believed the media and the White House should have handled the revelation of her affair with Clinton while she was a White House intern.
"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 told Cooper. "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."
In a clip of the episode, first released by CNN, Lewinsky expressed concern that other young women suffered as a result of how she was treated during the scandal.
"I think there was so much collateral damage for women of my generation to watch a young woman to be pilloried on a world stage – to be torn apart for my sexuality, for my mistakes, for my everything."
Lewinsky appeared on the podcast for a wide-ranging discussion to promote her own new podcast, "Reclaiming," which launched earlier this month. So far, her guests have included Olivia Munn and Alan Cumming.
In recent years, Lewinsky has been outspoken about the power imbalance between her and Clinton, as well as the misogyny she faced in media coverage. In a 2021 interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, she described Clinton's role in the affair as "wholly inappropriate."
"I think what's really important to remember in today's world is that we never should have even gotten to a place where consent was a question," Lewinsky told Tapper. "So it was wholly inappropriate as the most powerful man, my boss, 49 years old. I was 22, literally just out of college. And I think that the power differentials there are something that I couldn't ever fathom consequences at 22 that I understand obviously so differently at 48."
Also in 2021, Lewinsky told Variety that she hoped the post-#MeToo era would bring a shift in how young women in similar situations are judged by the media and society.
"I would hope that we would be having a different kind of conversation," she said. "I would hope that most of the blame would not have rested on my shoulders, and most of the consequences."
Bill Clinton previously addressed the impact of the affair in the 2020 documentary "Hillary," saying he felt "terrible about the fact that Monica Lewinsky's life was defined" by it. "Over the years I have watched her trying to get a normal life back again," he said. However, he has also stated that he "disagreed" with the idea that he should have resigned over the scandal.
Cooper, the most listened-to female podcaster in the world, signed a $125 million deal with SiriusXM last year for "Call Her Daddy."
