Meghan McCain pushes Kirsten Gillibrand to explain her change of heart about Bill Clinton

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand
and host Meghan McCain
Screenshot/The
View

• 
  "The View" host Meghan McCain pressed Democratic Sen.
  Kirsten Gillibrand to explain her recent change of heart
  concerning former President Bill Clinton's fitness to serve
  following his affair with White House intern Monica
  Lewinsky. 
  


• 
  McCain implied that Gillibrand, a longtime advocate for
  victims of sexual abuse, maintained a politically convenient
  double-standard by allying herself closely with Clinton for
  years. 
  


• 
  Gillibrand argued that the #MeToo movement has shifted
  the conversation and changed her perspective on the
  issue. 
  

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Meghan McCain, the sole conservative member of ABC's talk show
"The View," pressed Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand to explain
her recent change of heart concerning former President Bill
Clinton's fitness to serve following his affair with White House
intern Monica Lewinsky. 

Last November, Gillibrand said that, in retrospect, Clinton —
a longtime supporter of Gillibrand's — should have resigned over
his affair. And in December, the senator led her
caucus in pressuring
Democratic Sen. Al Franken, a close friend and ally, to
leave office amid mounting allegations of sexual misconduct. In
Congress, the senator has long fought for victims of sexual abuse
in the military and on college campuses. 

"Senator, you have dedicated your political career to this fight,
obviously," McCain said during
Gillibrand's Monday interview on "The View." "That's why a
lot of people were really surprised that it took you 20 years to
say that Bill Clinton should have resigned over the Lewinsky
scandal."

Gillibrand credited the #MeToo movement, which has brought
new attention to sexual misconduct and workplace harassment, with
her change of heart. (She remains the only prominent elected
Democrat to argue that Clinton should have resigned.)

"I think this moment of time we're in is very different," the
senator responded. "I don't think we had the same conversation
back then, the same lens, we didn't hold people accountable in
the same way that this moment is demanding today. And I think all
of us — or many of us — didn't have that same lens, myself
included." 

McCain cut in to ask whether Gillibrand regrets having campaigned
with Clinton. But the senator did not answer the question
directly, and instead argued that focusing on one perpetrator's
wrongdoing detracts from the broader movement. 

"It's not about any one president and it's not about any one
industry," Gillibrand said. "And if we reduce it to that, we are
missing the opportunity to allow women to be heard, to allow
women to have accountability and transparency, and to allow women
to have justice." 

McCain also asked Gillibrand whether Hillary Clinton dealt
appropriately with her former faith adviser, Burns Strider, who
was
accused by a female subordinate of sexual harassment on
Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, according to
a Friday New York Times report. Clinton's former campaign
manager said the candidate overruled her recommendation to fire
Strider, who remained on the campaign and was later fired from a
Clinton-aligned super PAC for sexual harassment. 

Gillibrand declined the opportunity to condemn Clinton's decision
to keep Strider on, arguing that she didn't know "all the
details" about the allegations against him. 

"I don't know if the punishment she chose was the right
punishment," the senator said of her longtime ally, pivoting away
from the question, "But what it does bring us to talk about is
this issue of workplace harassment." 

Watch the full interview below: 

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