Bill Clinton Says He Doesn't Still Owe Monica Lewinsky an Apology

With the emergence of the #MeToo movement, the TODAY show asked Bill Clinton if he is sorry for his handling of the Monica Lewinsky scandal twenty years ago? How you view his answer depends on what you think the meaning of the word “is” is.

The former President told NBC News that he would not have done anything differently abou the outing of his tryst with then-intern Lewinsky in 1998—doubling down on his refusal to resign after being impeached over the scandal. In September of 1998, the then-president did publicly apologize to Lewinsky and others hurt by his behavior, but he has never said he was sorry to Lewinsky personally.

“I think I did the right thing. I defended the Constitution,” Clinton told NBC News’ Craig Melvin in an interview that aired Monday on TODAY.

Clinton also maintained that in the aftermath of the high-profile sexual misconduct allegations that toppled Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, his scandal wouldn’t have transpired differently in 2018, “because people would be using the facts instead of the imagined facts. If the facts were the same today, I wouldn’t.”

Clinton seemed blindsided by the question, as he was appearing on the morning show with author James Patterson to promote their new novel, The President Is Missing.