Comedian Joy Behar says Americans can largely blame former President Bill Clinton for today’s jaded political discourse.
One of the most ardent liberals on ABC’s “The View” told her audience on Wednesday that the 42nd president of the United States bears “tremendous responsibility” for 2018 attitudes toward President Trump. Ms. Behar said voters have an apathetic attitude toward Mr. Trump’s past due to the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
The discussion was prompted by a recent interview on NBC’s “Today” show between Mr. Clinton and reporter Craig Melvin.
“A lot of the facts [regarding the impeachment scandal] have been conveniently omitted to make the story work,” Mr. Clinton said of renewed interest in his scandal in the wake of the #MeToo movement. “I think partly because they’re frustrated that they got all these serious allegations against the current occupant of the Oval Office and his voters don’t seem to care. I think I did the right thing. I defended the Constitution.”
The former president appeared on CBS’ “The Late Show” Tuesday night with comedian Stephen Colbert and said he understood why critics called his previous interview “tone deaf.”
“People need to know I apologized,” Mr. Clinton said. “I meant it then. I mean it now. … And I still support Me Too. And I think we all need to keep trying to be doing better. And I would never dispute that.”
Ms. Behar told her co-hosts that when news broke in 1998 of Mr. Clinton’s affair, it was “the most shocking thing we had ever heard.”
“I believe that that set the bar very low,” she said. “When we hear that Trump is grabbing women … everyone is like, ’oh, we heard this before.’ Clinton bears a tremendous responsibility for a lot of what we were talking about in the first segment, in my opinion. Saying that, I still voted for him.”
Ms. Behar’s comment was in reference to a 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape in which Mr. Trump lewdly joked off camera about groping women’s genitals and what women will allow celebrities to do to them.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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