NBC News’ Meet the Press host Chuck Todd and CNN’s The Lead host Jake Tapper, both of whom started out as Democrat operatives in the 1990s before moving on to “reporting”, took a decades-late brave stand on Thursday against former President Bill Clinton on over his abuse of White House intern Monica Lewinsky in the 1990s.
Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office.
Jake Tapper and Chuck Todd, image via YouTube screengrab.
Todd and Tapper waited decades, until Bill and his wife Hillary Rodham Clinton were finally out of the possibility of holding high political office with Hillary losing her second and final presidential run in 2016, to boldly denounce Bill Clinton for ruining Lewinsky’s life by having a sexual affair with her in the White House when she was in her early twenties and not even having the decency to apologize to her.
News of the comments by Todd and Tapper were first reported by the Washington Free Beacon’s Conor Beck who transcribed part of the discussion from Todd’s 1947: The Meet the Press Podcast from Thursday. Beck also posted a video clip to YouTube.
Excerpt from Beck’s transcript:
…”From Monica Lewinsky’s public statements, you sense that she’s just now coming to grips with the relevance of her story to the #MeToo movement,” Tapper added.
“It galls me that the former president hasn’t even simply apologized to her for ruining her life,” Todd responded.
“It’s crazy, it’s crazy,” Tapper agreed.
“Her life is never the same,” Todd continued. “He ruined it. He got to move on. I’ve never understood why he couldn’t simply apologize to her.”…
End excerpt, please read Conor Beck’s complete report at the Free Beacon.
Note: Jake Tapper dated Monica Lewinsky before the Clinton scandal broke in early 1998. Tapper rose to prominence after writing about it in the Washington City Paper.
Clinton’s efforts to cover-up his affair with Lewinsky to keep it from being exposed during a sexual harassment lawsuit by Paula Jones accusing Clinton of similar ‘drop-trou’ in the workplace when he was Arkansas governor led to Clinton’s impeachment for perjury and obstruction of justice by the House of Representatives in late 1998. Clinton was not convicted by the Senate after a fixed trial in early 19999 and finished his second term. In the days before he left office, Clinton made a plea agreement with Independent Counsel Robert Ray that made Clinton, a lawyer, the first president to be suspended from practicing law while in office. Clinton later quit the Supreme Court bar in the face of a disbarment proceeding. Clinton also paid over $100,000 in various fines and paid Paula Jones $850,000.
