'The View' says media mistreated Monica Lewinsky in look back on Clinton affair on 27th anniversary

Yahoo

01-03-2025

"The View" weighed in on the media's treatment of Monica Lewinsky on the 27th anniversary of the White House scandal that rocked the nation.
The hosts argued there has been a cultural movement to reexamine Lewinsky's role as a young White House intern in her infamous affair with President Bill Clinton that ultimately led to his impeachment in 1998.
The hosts argued that Lewinsky's life was more harmed by the affair while Clinton returned to his life outside the White House relatively "unscathed."
Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin said she remembered the media's focus being negatively centered on Lewinsky.
Monica Lewinsky Says 'Right Way' For Bill Clinton To Handle Affair Would Have Been To 'Resign'
"I remember the headlines," she said. "It was criticizing her looks, her weight. 'The Lewinsky scandal,' not the man who is the person in a much greater position of power that also engaged in the affair."
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Farah Griffin said today, people are more ready to recognize the power dynamics at play in the affair and said Clinton should've borne "way more responsibility" than he did.
Co-host Sunny Hostin agreed that the situation had "terrible" power dynamics, and as a mother of a 22-year-old son, she sees the affair in a different light now. She decried cancel culture from keeping Lewinsky from moving on with her life.
"This is a woman who, 30 years later, is still somewhat defined by this," she said.
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"I absolutely think she was skewered," co-host Sara Haines agreed.
Haines explained how Lewinsky's name was tarnished by the media attention and cost her the ability to form romantic relationships.
"This isn't all on President Clinton, but President Clinton, between the two of them, went unscathed. He continued to have a life. He was able to restore his marriage, his family, all that mattered to him," Haines argued.
"When I think of Monica Lewinsky, I jump to the 'Lewinsky scandal'," she continued.
"Watching how Lewinsky was torn apart by the morality police of the times… It all fell on her and the media was a reflection of what society was okay with," Haines said.
The affair between Lewinsky and Clinton came to light during his second term in office.
He was impeached by the House of Representatives on Dec. 19, 1998, for committing perjury before a grand jury and obstructing justice.
Co-host Joy Behar pushed back on how her co-hosts were defending Lewinsky but agreed that there has been a cultural shift since the #MeToo Movement.
Behar said Lewinsky, who was 22 at the start of the affair, was "not a baby" at the time and should also have some "self-awareness" of what she learned from the incident, 27 years later.
"When I was 22, I was married," Behar said. "Twenty-two is not a baby."
The topic was broached because of remarks Lewinsky made during an appearance on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast on Wednesday.
"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 host Alex Cooper after revealing that she had never been asked about how the situation should have been handled. "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."
Lewinsky also said that while she felt Clinton's behavior was worse, she still made her own mistakes.
"Let's recognize that while there were so many ways that Bill's behavior was more reprehensible than mine, I did make mistakes," she said.
Fox News' Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.Original article source: 'The View' says media mistreated Monica Lewinsky in look back on Clinton affair on 27th anniversary