WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.140 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today is February 00:00:02.140 --> 00:00:05.139 2nd, 2026. And if you've been keeping your ear 00:00:05.139 --> 00:00:07.780 to the ground, or I guess your earbuds in... 00:00:08.199 --> 00:00:10.599 you probably know that we just passed a pretty 00:00:10.599 --> 00:00:13.060 significant anniversary in the audio world. That's 00:00:13.060 --> 00:00:15.500 right. It has been exactly one year since Monica 00:00:15.500 --> 00:00:17.719 Lewinsky launched her podcast, Reclaiming with 00:00:17.719 --> 00:00:20.920 Monica Lewinsky, back in February of 2025. And 00:00:20.920 --> 00:00:23.460 it really feels like that podcast was the final 00:00:23.460 --> 00:00:26.339 piece of a puzzle. A puzzle that's been, what, 00:00:26.420 --> 00:00:28.579 almost 30 years in the making? At least, for 00:00:28.579 --> 00:00:31.160 the longest time, Monica Lewinsky wasn't a person's 00:00:31.160 --> 00:00:34.100 name. It was a punchline. It was. It was cultural 00:00:34.100 --> 00:00:37.520 shorthand for scandal, for a certain kind of 00:00:37.520 --> 00:00:39.740 joke on late night TV. But if you look at where 00:00:39.740 --> 00:00:42.600 she is now today, it's a completely different 00:00:42.600 --> 00:00:45.179 reality. She's a producer, an activist, a media 00:00:45.179 --> 00:00:47.759 creator with, you know, real institutional backing. 00:00:47.859 --> 00:00:50.299 It's a full 180. She's no longer a historical 00:00:50.299 --> 00:00:52.320 footnote that you read about in a chapter on 00:00:52.320 --> 00:00:54.799 the Clinton presidency. She's a current active 00:00:54.799 --> 00:00:58.579 media figure with genuine clout. She is. But 00:00:58.579 --> 00:01:00.780 the thing with these redemption arcs, the danger 00:01:00.780 --> 00:01:02.899 is that we tend to fast forward through the really 00:01:02.899 --> 00:01:06.420 messy parts. You know, we see the before, which 00:01:06.420 --> 00:01:08.579 was the scandal, and we see the after, which 00:01:08.579 --> 00:01:11.500 is today. And we kind of just skip over the decades 00:01:11.500 --> 00:01:14.540 of pure survival in between. Exactly. And that 00:01:14.540 --> 00:01:16.620 is our mission for this deep dive. We are not 00:01:16.620 --> 00:01:19.299 here to just rehash the 1998 scandal for the 00:01:19.299 --> 00:01:22.359 gossip of it all. We've got a massive stack of 00:01:22.359 --> 00:01:24.980 source material here. We really do. We have biographical 00:01:24.980 --> 00:01:27.420 records, actual legal filings from the Starr 00:01:27.420 --> 00:01:29.620 investigation, which are just fascinating to 00:01:29.620 --> 00:01:32.120 read. Unbelievable. We have details on her so 00:01:32.120 --> 00:01:35.140 -called wilderness years in London, which people 00:01:35.140 --> 00:01:38.780 rarely talk about. And we've mapped out the very 00:01:38.780 --> 00:01:41.060 strategic roadmap of her public reemergence. 00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:43.540 We really want to study the mechanics of survival. 00:01:44.120 --> 00:01:46.359 How does a person reclaim their own narrative 00:01:46.359 --> 00:01:49.099 after the entire globe has decided on one for 00:01:49.099 --> 00:01:52.659 you? A single story that defines you. And beyond 00:01:52.659 --> 00:01:55.280 that, how has our own collective definition of 00:01:55.280 --> 00:01:58.420 things like scandal and victimhood shifted? I 00:01:58.420 --> 00:02:00.719 mean, the lens we'd use in the late 90s versus 00:02:00.719 --> 00:02:03.400 the one we use now in the post hashtag Me Too 00:02:03.400 --> 00:02:06.079 era, they're just worlds apart. It's a study 00:02:06.079 --> 00:02:08.860 of her, but it's also a study of us, how we shame 00:02:08.860 --> 00:02:11.879 people, how that's evolved. It's fascinating. 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:15.240 So let's rewind the tape. Way, way back. Because 00:02:15.240 --> 00:02:17.240 before the blue dress, before the beret, before 00:02:17.240 --> 00:02:20.400 the Oval Office, she was just a person. Who was 00:02:20.400 --> 00:02:22.520 Monica Lewinsky before the world decided who 00:02:22.520 --> 00:02:24.520 she was? Well, if we look at the biographical 00:02:24.520 --> 00:02:26.580 data, the first thing that just jumps out at 00:02:26.580 --> 00:02:29.039 you is the environment. She was born in San Francisco 00:02:29.039 --> 00:02:33.860 in 1973. But she is a creature of affluent Los 00:02:33.860 --> 00:02:35.659 Angeles. Is that what we're talking about? We're 00:02:35.659 --> 00:02:38.800 talking Brentwood, Beverly Hills. This is high 00:02:38.800 --> 00:02:42.020 society, top tier L .A. life. OK, so wealthy, 00:02:42.219 --> 00:02:44.740 probably very connected. And I imagine maybe 00:02:44.740 --> 00:02:47.479 a bit sheltered from the real world. Very much 00:02:47.479 --> 00:02:50.039 so. Her father, Bernard Lewinsky, was a prominent 00:02:50.039 --> 00:02:52.360 oncologist. His backstory is actually quite intense. 00:02:52.520 --> 00:02:55.120 He was the son of German Jewish refugees who 00:02:55.120 --> 00:02:57.759 escaped the Nazis. Wow. Yeah, they fled to El 00:02:57.759 --> 00:02:59.800 Salvador first and then eventually made it to 00:02:59.800 --> 00:03:03.020 the U .S. So there is this, you know, this thread 00:03:03.020 --> 00:03:06.219 of deep survival and resilience in her DNA generations 00:03:06.219 --> 00:03:08.659 back. That's a heavy legacy to carry. And her 00:03:08.659 --> 00:03:11.300 mother, what was her story? Her mother was Marcy 00:03:11.300 --> 00:03:15.500 Lewis. And she was an author. Now, this is one 00:03:15.500 --> 00:03:17.400 of those details from the source material that 00:03:17.400 --> 00:03:20.719 feels almost too written to be true. I think 00:03:20.719 --> 00:03:21.979 I know what you're talking about. Her mother 00:03:21.979 --> 00:03:24.020 wrote a book called The Private Lives of the 00:03:24.020 --> 00:03:28.060 Three Tenors. Wait, like the opera singers? Pavarotti 00:03:28.060 --> 00:03:30.759 and company? The very same. And it was described 00:03:30.759 --> 00:03:34.139 explicitly in reviews as... a gossip biography 00:03:34.139 --> 00:03:36.979 it was meant to be sensational that is i mean 00:03:36.979 --> 00:03:39.120 you cannot make this up it's undeniably ironic 00:03:39.120 --> 00:03:42.879 her mother literally made a living writing gossipy 00:03:42.879 --> 00:03:46.159 books about famous powerful men and then her 00:03:46.159 --> 00:03:48.520 daughter becomes the subject of the biggest gossip 00:03:48.520 --> 00:03:51.280 story of the century involving the most powerful 00:03:51.280 --> 00:03:53.300 man in the world it's unbelievable it definitely 00:03:53.300 --> 00:03:55.719 adds a really complex layer to that whole family 00:03:55.719 --> 00:03:59.009 dynamic it really does but On paper, Monica's 00:03:59.009 --> 00:04:01.490 path was the classic L .A. trajectory for someone 00:04:01.490 --> 00:04:03.750 from that background. She went to the John Thomas 00:04:03.750 --> 00:04:06.009 Dye School, which is a very exclusive prep school, 00:04:06.150 --> 00:04:08.789 then Beverly Hills High, and she graduated from 00:04:08.789 --> 00:04:11.409 another private school, Bel Air Prep, in 1991. 00:04:11.629 --> 00:04:15.219 So a very polished, privileged education. Absolutely. 00:04:15.460 --> 00:04:18.240 But beneath that shiny surface, there was a lot 00:04:18.240 --> 00:04:20.939 of turbulence. Her parents divorced in 1988. 00:04:21.160 --> 00:04:24.139 And by all accounts, it was a really messy, contentious, 00:04:24.139 --> 00:04:26.980 drawn out split that was very hard on the children. 00:04:27.139 --> 00:04:29.360 Right. So you have this young woman. product 00:04:29.360 --> 00:04:31.459 of a broken home, even if it's a wealthy one, 00:04:31.579 --> 00:04:34.139 growing up in a culture that is just completely 00:04:34.139 --> 00:04:36.920 obsessed with image and celebrity. Precisely. 00:04:36.920 --> 00:04:39.439 And in our research stack, there's a specific 00:04:39.439 --> 00:04:41.480 relationship that happens before she ever sets 00:04:41.480 --> 00:04:43.920 foot in D .C. that I think is the real key. It's 00:04:43.920 --> 00:04:46.060 the Rosetta Stone to understanding what happens 00:04:46.060 --> 00:04:48.120 later. You're talking about the Andy Blyler affair. 00:04:48.339 --> 00:04:50.459 I'm so glad you pulled that out because it is 00:04:50.459 --> 00:04:52.800 so often glossed over or just mentioned as a 00:04:52.800 --> 00:04:55.139 footnote. But it's critical. This started back 00:04:55.139 --> 00:04:58.610 in 1992. Monica is attending Santa Monica College, 00:04:58.649 --> 00:05:00.470 and she's also working in the drama department 00:05:00.470 --> 00:05:03.189 at her old high school, Beverly Hills High. And 00:05:03.189 --> 00:05:05.290 she enters into a five -year relationship with 00:05:05.290 --> 00:05:07.689 Andy Blyler. But let's be very clear about who 00:05:07.689 --> 00:05:11.490 he was. Right. For context, Blyler was not a 00:05:11.490 --> 00:05:13.990 classmate. He wasn't a peer. He was her former 00:05:13.990 --> 00:05:16.509 high school drama instructor, who's married, 00:05:16.730 --> 00:05:19.149 and he was significantly older than she was. 00:05:19.449 --> 00:05:20.970 Okay, let's just pause on this for a second. 00:05:21.370 --> 00:05:23.910 We have an older man, an authority figure, a 00:05:23.910 --> 00:05:26.569 teacher engaging in a multi -year relationship 00:05:26.569 --> 00:05:29.389 with a former student who is just barely out 00:05:29.389 --> 00:05:33.410 of her teens. Yes. In 2026, we look at that and 00:05:33.410 --> 00:05:36.329 the alarm bells are just deafening. We have a 00:05:36.329 --> 00:05:38.189 vocabulary for that now. We call that grooming 00:05:38.189 --> 00:05:40.870 or at the very least a severe, unethical, abusive 00:05:40.870 --> 00:05:44.699 power dynamics. Precisely. But in the early 90s, 00:05:44.699 --> 00:05:47.639 the lens was very, very different. To Monica, 00:05:47.800 --> 00:05:50.100 this was a secret romance. And it lasted for 00:05:50.100 --> 00:05:52.360 five years, even overlapping with her eventual 00:05:52.360 --> 00:05:54.699 move to Washington. But the reason this is so 00:05:54.699 --> 00:05:57.019 significant for our deep dive isn't just the 00:05:57.019 --> 00:05:59.439 psychological setup, is it? It's what happens 00:05:59.439 --> 00:06:01.800 later. It's the betrayal. It's the ultimate betrayal. 00:06:01.939 --> 00:06:03.639 Because when the Clinton scandal breaks years 00:06:03.639 --> 00:06:06.720 later, Andy Blyler doesn't just, you know, quietly 00:06:06.720 --> 00:06:08.740 disappear and hope no one finds out about his 00:06:08.740 --> 00:06:10.560 own affair. He does the complete opposite. The 00:06:10.560 --> 00:06:13.120 complete opposite. He goes to the press. And 00:06:13.120 --> 00:06:15.879 more importantly, he goes directly to Kenneth 00:06:15.879 --> 00:06:17.779 Starr, the independent counsel investigating 00:06:17.779 --> 00:06:20.060 the president. And what did he do? He didn't 00:06:20.060 --> 00:06:22.459 just talk, right? No, he turned over physical 00:06:22.459 --> 00:06:25.980 items, souvenirs, photographs, personal letters, 00:06:26.060 --> 00:06:28.800 documents that Monica had sent him over the five 00:06:28.800 --> 00:06:31.300 years of their relationship. He handed over her 00:06:31.300 --> 00:06:33.920 private intimate correspondence to be used as 00:06:33.920 --> 00:06:36.300 evidence against her. That is just brutal. I 00:06:36.300 --> 00:06:39.279 mean, think about that. The first major authority 00:06:39.279 --> 00:06:42.560 figure, romantic partner in her life. ends up 00:06:42.560 --> 00:06:44.759 selling her out, handing over evidence to help 00:06:44.759 --> 00:06:47.779 destroy her. It establishes this horrifying pattern. 00:06:47.920 --> 00:06:51.199 What pattern is that? That trust, for her, is 00:06:51.199 --> 00:06:53.060 something that gets weaponized against her. That 00:06:53.060 --> 00:06:55.060 her intimacy will be used as a public weapon. 00:06:55.300 --> 00:06:57.160 It's a recurring theme, absolutely. The private 00:06:57.160 --> 00:06:59.480 becomes public ammunition. But okay, let's get 00:06:59.480 --> 00:07:02.120 her to D .C. She eventually transfers from Santa 00:07:02.120 --> 00:07:04.139 Monica to Lewis and Clark College in Portland, 00:07:04.259 --> 00:07:06.720 Oregon. She graduates with a psychology degree 00:07:06.720 --> 00:07:10.920 in 1995 and pretty quickly lands a major internship. 00:07:11.389 --> 00:07:13.550 And not just any internship. This wasn't fetching 00:07:13.550 --> 00:07:15.750 coffee for some backbencher congressman. She 00:07:15.750 --> 00:07:18.149 gets into the White House, the West Wing, and 00:07:18.149 --> 00:07:20.230 the office of the chief of staff, Leon Panetta. 00:07:20.509 --> 00:07:23.610 Which is the absolute nerve center of any administration. 00:07:23.949 --> 00:07:26.389 And she got the position, our sources say, through 00:07:26.389 --> 00:07:28.990 a family connection, which again speaks to that 00:07:28.990 --> 00:07:31.110 affluent, well -connected background we talked 00:07:31.110 --> 00:07:32.870 about. But she must have been good at the job. 00:07:33.050 --> 00:07:35.750 Oh, she clearly was capable because by December 00:07:35.750 --> 00:07:39.430 of 1995, just a few months in, she moves from 00:07:39.430 --> 00:07:42.550 being an unpaid summer intern to a full -time 00:07:42.550 --> 00:07:45.329 paid position in the Office of Legislative Affairs. 00:07:45.589 --> 00:07:47.629 And she's still only 22. She's inside the machine. 00:07:47.870 --> 00:07:49.769 And this, of course, brings us to the event. 00:07:49.839 --> 00:07:53.519 horizon, the scandal. But I want to be really 00:07:53.519 --> 00:07:56.199 specific here because the popular memory is just 00:07:56.199 --> 00:07:59.439 this blurry montage of headlines and jokes. What 00:07:59.439 --> 00:08:01.800 does the actual record the testimony say about 00:08:01.800 --> 00:08:04.459 the timeline of the affair itself? It's surprisingly 00:08:04.459 --> 00:08:06.860 contained. According to the grand jury testimony 00:08:06.860 --> 00:08:09.339 from both of them, there were nine specific sexual 00:08:09.339 --> 00:08:12.050 encounters. Only nine. That's it. I feel like 00:08:12.050 --> 00:08:14.149 the cultural memory, the narrative that was built, 00:08:14.250 --> 00:08:17.250 assumes it was this daily, ongoing thing that 00:08:17.250 --> 00:08:20.910 lasted for years. No. It was nine specific encounters 00:08:20.910 --> 00:08:25.529 between November of 1995 and March of 1997. And 00:08:25.529 --> 00:08:27.889 the nature of these encounters is legally critical 00:08:27.889 --> 00:08:30.470 to everything that follows. Right. The testimony 00:08:30.470 --> 00:08:32.730 stated they involved oral sex and other physical 00:08:32.730 --> 00:08:35.850 acts, but, and this is the legal firewall that 00:08:35.850 --> 00:08:38.350 was built, they did not include sexual intercourse. 00:08:38.840 --> 00:08:41.440 Which to a normal person just sounds like a distinction 00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:43.980 without a difference. I mean, sex is sex. But 00:08:43.980 --> 00:08:46.899 in the very specific high stakes legal world 00:08:46.899 --> 00:08:49.259 that Clinton was operating in, that distinction 00:08:49.259 --> 00:08:52.539 was the entire bowl game. It was the entire foundation 00:08:52.539 --> 00:08:55.220 of his defense. It was everything. But before 00:08:55.220 --> 00:08:57.580 we even get to the legal parsing of words, we 00:08:57.580 --> 00:08:59.980 have to look at the immediate workplace fallout. 00:09:01.039 --> 00:09:04.580 By April of 1996, Monica is transferred out of 00:09:04.580 --> 00:09:06.580 the White House. Why? What was the official reason? 00:09:06.919 --> 00:09:09.200 The official reason, according to her superiors, 00:09:09.320 --> 00:09:11.539 was that she was spending too much time around 00:09:11.539 --> 00:09:14.139 the president. Which is the most polite, bureaucratic, 00:09:14.200 --> 00:09:16.779 HR -speak way of saying, we see what's happening 00:09:16.779 --> 00:09:18.559 here and we need to separate them immediately. 00:09:19.059 --> 00:09:20.879 Exactly. They see it as a potential problem. 00:09:21.039 --> 00:09:23.580 So they exile her to the Pentagon. Exile is the 00:09:23.580 --> 00:09:26.580 right word. It is. She becomes an assistant to 00:09:26.580 --> 00:09:29.200 Kenneth Bacon, who was the chief Pentagon spokesman 00:09:29.200 --> 00:09:32.720 at the time. And for Monica, based on her own 00:09:32.720 --> 00:09:35.279 accounts, this was a devastation. She viewed 00:09:35.279 --> 00:09:37.200 it as being cut off from the man she thought 00:09:37.200 --> 00:09:39.899 she loved. She was isolated. And in that professional 00:09:39.899 --> 00:09:42.220 and emotional isolation, she found a friend. 00:09:42.500 --> 00:09:45.419 Or so she thought. Linda Tripp. Linda Tripp, 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:48.500 a career civil servant, much older, who presented 00:09:48.500 --> 00:09:51.080 herself as a sympathetic ear, a shoulder to cry 00:09:51.080 --> 00:09:54.820 on. And in September of 1997. Lewinsky starts 00:09:54.820 --> 00:09:57.019 confiding in her. She's got to tell someone, 00:09:57.059 --> 00:09:58.940 right? She's carrying the biggest secret in the 00:09:58.940 --> 00:10:00.919 world. She needs an outlet. She's overwhelmed. 00:10:01.159 --> 00:10:03.340 And this is where the betrayal that we saw with 00:10:03.340 --> 00:10:06.059 Andy Blyler repeats itself, but on just a nuclear 00:10:06.059 --> 00:10:08.700 scale. Because Tripp isn't just listening sympathetically. 00:10:08.740 --> 00:10:11.019 She's not just being a friend. She's producing. 00:10:11.179 --> 00:10:14.059 She's operating. She starts, without Monica's 00:10:14.059 --> 00:10:16.519 knowledge or consent, secretly recording their 00:10:16.519 --> 00:10:19.120 phone calls. Hours and hours of them. She's taking 00:10:19.120 --> 00:10:21.539 detailed notes. And who is she feeding this information 00:10:21.539 --> 00:10:24.230 to? She's reporting the contents of these conversations 00:10:24.230 --> 00:10:27.750 to a woman named Lucianne Goldberg, a literary 00:10:27.750 --> 00:10:30.809 agent with deep ties to Clinton's political enemies. 00:10:31.129 --> 00:10:34.450 So we need to be clear. This was not just office 00:10:34.450 --> 00:10:37.370 gossip. This was a political intelligence gathering 00:10:37.370 --> 00:10:39.889 operation from the very beginning. And the advice 00:10:39.889 --> 00:10:43.129 that Tripp gave Monica. Yeah. Looking back on 00:10:43.129 --> 00:10:46.350 it, it's just chilling. It's so calculated. She 00:10:46.350 --> 00:10:48.870 specifically advised Lewinsky to keep all the 00:10:48.870 --> 00:10:50.730 gifts the president had given her. Don't throw 00:10:50.730 --> 00:10:54.049 them out. Right. And then famously, she told 00:10:54.049 --> 00:10:56.370 her not to dry clean the blue gap dress that 00:10:56.370 --> 00:10:58.450 had been stained with semen during one of their 00:10:58.450 --> 00:11:00.690 encounters in the Oval Office. It's pure manipulation. 00:11:00.789 --> 00:11:03.350 Keep the evidence, dear. You might need it one 00:11:03.350 --> 00:11:07.610 day. It's so sinister. It was a trap, a very 00:11:07.610 --> 00:11:10.009 carefully laid trap. And that trap was finally 00:11:10.009 --> 00:11:13.590 sprung by a completely separate legal case that 00:11:13.590 --> 00:11:15.809 on the surface had nothing to do with Monica 00:11:15.809 --> 00:11:18.269 Lewinsky. The Paula Jones sexual harassment suit. 00:11:18.330 --> 00:11:20.500 Exactly. We have to connect these dots. Because 00:11:20.500 --> 00:11:22.220 it's easy to get lost in the legal weeds here. 00:11:23.159 --> 00:11:25.759 Paula Jones was suing President Clinton for an 00:11:25.759 --> 00:11:28.320 incident of alleged sexual harassment that happened 00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:30.139 years before he was president, back when he was 00:11:30.139 --> 00:11:32.980 governor of Arkansas. So what on earth does that 00:11:32.980 --> 00:11:37.200 have to do with a White House intern? It's a 00:11:37.200 --> 00:11:39.620 phase in a lawsuit where both sides get to gather 00:11:39.620 --> 00:11:42.519 evidence. Jones's lawyers were trying to establish 00:11:42.519 --> 00:11:45.240 a pattern of behavior. They wanted to prove to 00:11:45.240 --> 00:11:48.000 a jury that Clinton had a habit of sexual misconduct 00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:50.539 with employees or subordinate women. So they 00:11:50.539 --> 00:11:52.649 were looking for other women. They cast a very 00:11:52.649 --> 00:11:55.490 wide net, asking for testimony from anyone who 00:11:55.490 --> 00:11:57.309 might have had a sexual relationship with him. 00:11:57.470 --> 00:11:59.970 And through the D .C. rumor mill, Lewinsky's 00:11:59.970 --> 00:12:02.129 name came up. And when she's approached, initially, 00:12:02.350 --> 00:12:05.190 Monica tries to protect him. She does. In January 00:12:05.190 --> 00:12:08.250 of 1998, she signs a sworn affidavit in the Paula 00:12:08.250 --> 00:12:10.610 Jones case. And in it, she denies under oath 00:12:10.610 --> 00:12:12.289 that she had a sexual relationship with the president. 00:12:12.350 --> 00:12:15.090 And that, that is the moment the legal jeopardy 00:12:15.090 --> 00:12:17.610 becomes real for her. Because lying in the sworn 00:12:17.610 --> 00:12:20.450 affidavit isn't just a lie. It's the crime of 00:12:20.450 --> 00:12:23.360 perjury. It's a felony. And at the exact same 00:12:23.360 --> 00:12:25.620 time this is happening, Kenneth Starr, the independent 00:12:25.620 --> 00:12:27.620 counsel who was appointed to investigate the 00:12:27.620 --> 00:12:30.100 Whitewater land deal, something totally unrelated 00:12:30.100 --> 00:12:33.960 from years ago, gets wind of the tapes from Linda 00:12:33.960 --> 00:12:36.059 Tripp. The secret recording. The secret recordings. 00:12:36.340 --> 00:12:38.600 And he immediately goes to the attorney general, 00:12:38.740 --> 00:12:41.720 Janet Reno, and gets his investigative mandate 00:12:41.720 --> 00:12:44.899 expanded. He essentially says, forget Whitewater 00:12:44.899 --> 00:12:47.330 for a second. I am now investigating whether 00:12:47.330 --> 00:12:49.470 the president of the United States and his friend 00:12:49.470 --> 00:12:52.330 Vernon Jordan encouraged this young woman to 00:12:52.330 --> 00:12:55.950 lie under oath. So the investigation shifts from 00:12:55.950 --> 00:12:59.210 a decade old complicated real estate deal into 00:12:59.210 --> 00:13:02.309 a very current, very explosive investigation 00:13:02.309 --> 00:13:04.870 into perjury and obstruction of justice. And 00:13:04.870 --> 00:13:07.919 that is what leads us to the semantics. The word 00:13:07.919 --> 00:13:11.259 games and probably the most parsed, debated and 00:13:11.259 --> 00:13:13.799 ridiculed sentence in modern American history. 00:13:13.940 --> 00:13:16.100 I did not have sexual relations with that woman, 00:13:16.179 --> 00:13:18.539 Ms. Lewinsky. We really need to unpack the definition 00:13:18.539 --> 00:13:21.259 defense because in Clinton's mind and in his 00:13:21.259 --> 00:13:23.039 lawyer's minds, this wasn't just a simple lie. 00:13:23.240 --> 00:13:26.059 It was a carefully constructed legal argument. 00:13:26.509 --> 00:13:29.009 OK, so lay it out for us. How on earth do you 00:13:29.009 --> 00:13:31.590 stand in front of the world and argue that what 00:13:31.590 --> 00:13:34.570 happened wasn't sexual relations? It relied entirely 00:13:34.570 --> 00:13:37.710 on a very specific, very convoluted definition 00:13:37.710 --> 00:13:40.990 of sexual relations that had been provided by 00:13:40.990 --> 00:13:43.490 the prosecution and agreed to by the judge in 00:13:43.490 --> 00:13:45.769 the Paula Jones case. It wasn't the dictionary 00:13:45.769 --> 00:13:48.529 definition. It was a very particular legal one. 00:13:48.690 --> 00:13:51.399 And what was it? It was complex and multi -part. 00:13:51.580 --> 00:13:54.480 But Clinton's lawyers seized on one aspect of 00:13:54.480 --> 00:13:56.580 it. They argued that the definition required 00:13:56.580 --> 00:13:59.200 the person being accused to be the active participant, 00:13:59.440 --> 00:14:01.480 to be the one touching certain body parts of 00:14:01.480 --> 00:14:03.960 the other person, for the act to legally count 00:14:03.960 --> 00:14:06.940 as sexual relations under that specific paragraph 00:14:06.940 --> 00:14:10.419 of text. So wait. His argument was, essentially, 00:14:10.659 --> 00:14:13.580 she performed acts on me, I was passive, therefore 00:14:13.580 --> 00:14:15.840 I did not technically engage in sexual relations 00:14:15.840 --> 00:14:18.779 under this very specific, agreed -upon definition. 00:14:19.200 --> 00:14:21.279 That is exactly the argument. It was a hyper 00:14:21.279 --> 00:14:24.019 -technical, almost Talmudic reading of a legal 00:14:24.019 --> 00:14:26.159 document. He was answering the question according 00:14:26.159 --> 00:14:28.659 to a strict legal definition that he believed 00:14:28.659 --> 00:14:30.980 he hadn't violated, not according to common sense 00:14:30.980 --> 00:14:33.080 or what any normal person would think. That is, 00:14:33.159 --> 00:14:35.519 I mean, the audacity of it is kind of breathtaking. 00:14:36.120 --> 00:14:38.419 It's the kind of argument that only a lawyer 00:14:38.419 --> 00:14:40.539 could come up with and think would actually work. 00:14:40.840 --> 00:14:43.320 And it extended to his other denials, too. Remember 00:14:43.320 --> 00:14:45.679 the famous line from his grand jury testimony? 00:14:46.340 --> 00:14:49.610 It depends on what the meaning of the word How 00:14:49.610 --> 00:14:51.870 could anyone forget? It became a punchline for 00:14:51.870 --> 00:14:54.950 years. But there was a logic to it in his mind. 00:14:55.090 --> 00:14:57.509 He had said to his aides earlier there is not 00:14:57.509 --> 00:15:00.009 a sexual relationship. And he argued that was 00:15:00.009 --> 00:15:02.250 a truthful statement because the affair had ended 00:15:02.250 --> 00:15:05.129 months prior. So in the present tense is, he 00:15:05.129 --> 00:15:07.330 was arguing that at that moment there was no 00:15:07.330 --> 00:15:09.470 ongoing relationship. It's maddening. It's like 00:15:09.470 --> 00:15:12.230 watching someone try to navigate a maze of their 00:15:12.230 --> 00:15:15.009 own creation. But while he was playing these 00:15:15.009 --> 00:15:18.009 word games, the physical evidence that Linda 00:15:18.009 --> 00:15:20.289 Tripp had coaxed Monica into preserving came 00:15:20.289 --> 00:15:23.309 back to end the entire debate. The blue dress. 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:26.379 The FBI's crime lab got a sample of Clinton's 00:15:26.379 --> 00:15:29.259 blood, they tested the stain on the dress, and 00:15:29.259 --> 00:15:32.000 the DNA match was irrefutable. It was a 1 in 00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:35.899 7 .87 trillion match. It's about as conclusive 00:15:35.899 --> 00:15:38.799 as science gets. It forced a total pivot in the 00:15:38.799 --> 00:15:41.840 investigation. And to get Monica's side of the 00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:44.720 story without her facing prison, Kenneth Starr 00:15:44.720 --> 00:15:48.639 offered her transactional immunity. Can you explain 00:15:48.639 --> 00:15:50.879 that term for us? Transactional immunity. What 00:15:50.879 --> 00:15:53.379 does that mean in practice? Sure. It's basically 00:15:53.379 --> 00:15:55.779 the highest level of protection a witness can 00:15:55.779 --> 00:15:58.080 get. It's a legally binding agreement from the 00:15:58.080 --> 00:16:00.379 government that they will not prosecute you for 00:16:00.379 --> 00:16:02.480 any of the offenses related to the subject you're 00:16:02.480 --> 00:16:05.039 testifying about, provided you testify completely 00:16:05.039 --> 00:16:07.539 and truthfully. So it protected her from being 00:16:07.539 --> 00:16:10.080 charged with perjury for that earlier false affidavit 00:16:10.080 --> 00:16:12.399 she signed. Exactly. It was the only way to get 00:16:12.399 --> 00:16:14.879 her to talk without her facing serious jail time. 00:16:15.019 --> 00:16:17.950 It was her only way out. So she testifies. The 00:16:17.950 --> 00:16:19.850 president testifies via closed circuit television 00:16:19.850 --> 00:16:22.049 from the White House, but she has to do it in 00:16:22.049 --> 00:16:24.870 person in front of the grand jury. The Star Report 00:16:24.870 --> 00:16:27.710 comes out full of excruciatingly personal details. 00:16:27.889 --> 00:16:30.710 The House impeaches him. The Senate acquits him. 00:16:30.789 --> 00:16:33.570 And for Bill Clinton, the crisis eventually ends. 00:16:33.970 --> 00:16:36.909 But for Monica Lewinsky, the trial is over and 00:16:36.909 --> 00:16:39.309 the real punishment is just beginning. Which 00:16:39.309 --> 00:16:41.490 brings us to the immediate aftermath. We're in 00:16:41.490 --> 00:16:44.580 1999 now. The legal threat is technically gone, 00:16:44.740 --> 00:16:47.120 but she is, and this is without any exaggeration, 00:16:47.240 --> 00:16:50.179 the most famous woman in the world and possibly 00:16:50.179 --> 00:16:52.820 the most ridiculed and shamed person on the planet. 00:16:52.919 --> 00:16:55.500 And she's broke. She has to survive. She has 00:16:55.500 --> 00:16:58.220 massive, crippling legal bills from a team of 00:16:58.220 --> 00:17:00.759 world -class attorneys. So she decides to do 00:17:00.759 --> 00:17:03.379 the only thing she can. tells her own story. 00:17:03.539 --> 00:17:06.019 She cooperates with the biographer Andrew Morton, 00:17:06.039 --> 00:17:08.160 who famously wrote the Princess Diana book, for 00:17:08.160 --> 00:17:10.859 a biography called Monica's Story. And then on 00:17:10.859 --> 00:17:13.819 March 3, 1999, she sits for the big interview 00:17:13.819 --> 00:17:16.029 with Barbara Walters. I looked up the numbers 00:17:16.029 --> 00:17:17.710 on this again because they're just staggering. 00:17:18.089 --> 00:17:21.349 That interview on 2020 drew 70 million American 00:17:21.349 --> 00:17:23.569 viewers. Let's put that in perspective. That 00:17:23.569 --> 00:17:25.829 is more than most Super Bowls. It was a genuine 00:17:25.829 --> 00:17:28.650 monocultural event. Practically every household 00:17:28.650 --> 00:17:31.009 in America with a television was tuned in to 00:17:31.009 --> 00:17:33.309 watch this 25 -year -old woman explain her sex 00:17:33.309 --> 00:17:35.269 life to the nation. And the narrative at the 00:17:35.269 --> 00:17:37.690 time, the one pushed by the media, was that she 00:17:37.690 --> 00:17:40.559 was cashing in. Oh, absolutely. The sources say 00:17:40.559 --> 00:17:43.220 she made about $500 ,000 for the book rights 00:17:43.220 --> 00:17:46.039 and another million for the international rights 00:17:46.039 --> 00:17:48.480 to the Walters interview. So a total of about 00:17:48.480 --> 00:17:52.079 $1 .5 million. And the public sentiment was very 00:17:52.079 --> 00:17:54.960 much, look at her getting rich off her sin. But 00:17:54.960 --> 00:17:57.099 the math on that narrative doesn't really hold 00:17:57.099 --> 00:17:59.339 up, does it, when you look at the reality of 00:17:59.339 --> 00:18:01.500 her situation? Not at all. It falls apart immediately. 00:18:02.410 --> 00:18:04.849 Her legal defense team, people like Plato Kacheris 00:18:04.849 --> 00:18:07.349 and Jacob Stein, were among the best and most 00:18:07.349 --> 00:18:09.630 expensive in the world. She had round -the -clock 00:18:09.630 --> 00:18:12.609 security costs. She had basic living costs. That 00:18:12.609 --> 00:18:15.230 $1 .5 million was consumed almost immediately 00:18:15.230 --> 00:18:18.250 by debt and expenses. She wasn't buying yachts. 00:18:18.250 --> 00:18:20.009 She was literally paying to stay out of prison. 00:18:20.269 --> 00:18:22.349 And this financial pressure leads to what our 00:18:22.349 --> 00:18:24.990 outline calls the commercial venture era, or 00:18:24.990 --> 00:18:27.109 as I like to think of it, the handbag era, because 00:18:27.109 --> 00:18:28.710 she couldn't get a normal job, could she? No 00:18:28.710 --> 00:18:30.130 one would hire her. What would you put on your 00:18:30.130 --> 00:18:33.279 resume? She was completely radioactive to any 00:18:33.279 --> 00:18:36.160 mainstream employer. So she tried to lean into 00:18:36.160 --> 00:18:40.019 the only asset she had, her fame, her notoriety. 00:18:40.099 --> 00:18:42.640 In September of 1999, she launches a company 00:18:42.640 --> 00:18:46.000 called The Real Monica Inc. And she literally 00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:48.539 starts designing and selling handbags. She did. 00:18:48.700 --> 00:18:50.799 And according to the reports from the time, she 00:18:50.799 --> 00:18:53.359 took it quite seriously. These were described 00:18:53.359 --> 00:18:57.759 as hippie -ish reversible totes. She was personally 00:18:57.759 --> 00:19:00.759 flying down to Louisiana to supervise the manufacturing. 00:19:01.380 --> 00:19:04.160 She was trying to be a real entrepreneur. And 00:19:04.160 --> 00:19:06.420 she had some success, right? I mean, these weren't 00:19:06.420 --> 00:19:07.880 just being sold out of the trunk of her car. 00:19:08.200 --> 00:19:10.619 No, she got them into high -end boutiques. Henri 00:19:10.619 --> 00:19:13.619 Bendel in New York, Fred Seagal in Los Angeles. 00:19:13.680 --> 00:19:15.680 She had an online store. She was making a real 00:19:15.680 --> 00:19:17.779 go of it. It's almost heartbreaking when you 00:19:17.779 --> 00:19:19.900 think about it. It's like she's saying to the 00:19:19.900 --> 00:19:22.599 world, if you're going to consume my life as 00:19:22.599 --> 00:19:24.829 a product, I might as well sell you a bag to 00:19:24.829 --> 00:19:27.450 carry it in. It was a very public attempt at 00:19:27.450 --> 00:19:29.650 reclaiming her identity through commerce. But 00:19:29.650 --> 00:19:32.470 then came the Jenny Craig disaster in 2000, which 00:19:32.470 --> 00:19:35.529 was just a whole new level of public humiliation. 00:19:35.690 --> 00:19:37.930 This one really makes me wince every time I read 00:19:37.930 --> 00:19:40.289 about it. So Jenny Craig, the weight loss company, 00:19:40.490 --> 00:19:43.990 signs her to a $1 million endorsement deal. But 00:19:43.990 --> 00:19:46.730 the terms of the contract were just draconian. 00:19:46.730 --> 00:19:48.569 What were they? A huge chunk of that million 00:19:48.569 --> 00:19:51.089 dollars was contingent on her losing 40 pounds 00:19:51.089 --> 00:19:53.849 or more in a specific time frame. The payment 00:19:53.849 --> 00:19:56.269 was literally tied to her shrinking her body 00:19:56.269 --> 00:19:59.710 for them. We will pay you, but only if you physically 00:19:59.710 --> 00:20:03.619 diminish yourself. The subtext is just screaming. 00:20:03.920 --> 00:20:06.799 It's not even subtext. A spokesperson for the 00:20:06.799 --> 00:20:08.599 company actually went on the record and said 00:20:08.599 --> 00:20:11.940 she represents a busy, active woman and she has 00:20:11.940 --> 00:20:14.500 had weight issues. That represents a lot of women 00:20:14.500 --> 00:20:17.259 in America. They were trying to pivot her political 00:20:17.259 --> 00:20:19.700 scandal into a relatable weight loss journey. 00:20:19.960 --> 00:20:22.500 But the public, and more importantly, the company's 00:20:22.500 --> 00:20:25.819 own people, were not having it. The franchisees 00:20:25.819 --> 00:20:28.779 revolted. The people who own the individual Jenny 00:20:28.779 --> 00:20:30.799 Craig centers across the country basically said, 00:20:30.839 --> 00:20:32.980 absolutely not. We do not want this woman as 00:20:32.980 --> 00:20:35.279 the face of our brand. They were terrified it 00:20:35.279 --> 00:20:37.720 would alienate their core customer base. So what 00:20:37.720 --> 00:20:39.559 happened to the campaign? It was pulled almost 00:20:39.559 --> 00:20:42.259 immediately. The commercials barely aired. She 00:20:42.259 --> 00:20:45.000 only ever received $300 ,000 of the promised 00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:47.880 million dollar contract. So it's just one rejection 00:20:47.880 --> 00:20:50.319 after another. She tries entrepreneurship. She 00:20:50.319 --> 00:20:52.960 tries endorsements. She even tries to lean into 00:20:52.960 --> 00:20:55.640 the absurdity of it all. She has a cameo on Saturday 00:20:55.640 --> 00:20:58.900 Night Live. She does in May 1999. She appears 00:20:58.900 --> 00:21:00.880 in a couple of sketches basically lampooning 00:21:00.880 --> 00:21:02.900 her own situation. She also had a stint as a 00:21:02.900 --> 00:21:05.160 TV personality, right? To brief one. She was 00:21:05.160 --> 00:21:07.279 a correspondent for a UK channel in a segment 00:21:07.279 --> 00:21:10.619 called Monica's Postcards. And then in 2003, 00:21:10.779 --> 00:21:13.740 she hosts a reality dating show on Fox called 00:21:13.740 --> 00:21:16.960 Mr. Personality. Oh, this one was something else. 00:21:17.019 --> 00:21:19.759 The premise was that the male contestants all 00:21:19.759 --> 00:21:22.619 wore masks to hide their faces the symbolism 00:21:22.619 --> 00:21:25.799 is just too much isn't it a woman who was judged 00:21:25.799 --> 00:21:28.859 almost entirely on her looks and her past is 00:21:28.859 --> 00:21:31.500 hosting a show where men have to hide their faces 00:21:31.500 --> 00:21:33.759 to be judged on their personality and how was 00:21:33.759 --> 00:21:35.779 it received it was panned critics absolutely 00:21:35.779 --> 00:21:38.579 destroyed it it was seen as the height of trash 00:21:38.579 --> 00:21:42.160 television and around the same time in 2004 a 00:21:42.160 --> 00:21:45.119 major event happens that seems to be a real turning 00:21:45.119 --> 00:21:48.160 point for her bill clinton releases his autobiography 00:21:49.109 --> 00:21:51.549 And for her, this was a massive blow, emotionally 00:21:51.549 --> 00:21:54.109 and psychologically. It really was. She later 00:21:54.109 --> 00:21:56.650 said she felt he desecrated her character all 00:21:56.650 --> 00:21:59.849 over again. In the book, he maintained the narrative 00:21:59.849 --> 00:22:02.609 that he was passive in the affair, that he tried 00:22:02.609 --> 00:22:05.410 to stop it, that she was essentially the aggressor. 00:22:05.609 --> 00:22:08.309 He revised history in a way that protected himself 00:22:08.309 --> 00:22:10.789 and threw her under the bus one more time. And 00:22:10.789 --> 00:22:13.000 what did she realize from that? I think she realized 00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:14.319 that as long as she was in the United States, 00:22:14.500 --> 00:22:16.220 she would never be her own person. She would 00:22:16.220 --> 00:22:18.500 always just be a character in his story, a footnote 00:22:18.500 --> 00:22:21.180 in his biography. So she does something incredibly 00:22:21.180 --> 00:22:24.319 radical. She just leaves. She disappears. And 00:22:24.319 --> 00:22:26.559 this begins what I think is the most fascinating 00:22:26.559 --> 00:22:28.880 and critically overlooked chapter of her entire 00:22:28.880 --> 00:22:32.680 life. The quiet years. In 2005, she packs her 00:22:32.680 --> 00:22:35.180 bags and moves to London. And she doesn't go 00:22:35.180 --> 00:22:36.880 there to hide in a flat and lick her wounds. 00:22:37.019 --> 00:22:39.359 She applies to the London School of Economics, 00:22:39.579 --> 00:22:42.130 the LSE. Which is not exactly a community college. 00:22:42.349 --> 00:22:45.769 No. This is one of the most rigorous elite academic 00:22:45.769 --> 00:22:49.170 institutions on the entire planet. And she gets 00:22:49.170 --> 00:22:51.609 in. I just love this move. It's the ultimate 00:22:51.609 --> 00:22:54.470 clapback. The entire world calls you a bimbo 00:22:54.470 --> 00:22:58.130 and a ditz for a decade. So you go get a master's 00:22:58.130 --> 00:23:00.769 of science in social psychology from the London 00:23:00.769 --> 00:23:03.809 School of Economics. She fully immersed herself 00:23:03.809 --> 00:23:05.750 in her studies. And if you really want to understand 00:23:05.750 --> 00:23:07.970 her mindset at the time, you have to look at 00:23:07.970 --> 00:23:11.490 her master's thesis. It is a brilliant and stunning 00:23:11.490 --> 00:23:13.910 piece of meta -analysis. What was the title? 00:23:14.069 --> 00:23:16.869 The title was In Search of the Impartial Juror, 00:23:16.869 --> 00:23:19.490 An Exploration of the Third -Person Effect and 00:23:19.490 --> 00:23:21.890 Pre -Trial Publicity. Okay, that's a mouthful. 00:23:21.910 --> 00:23:23.490 Let's break that down. The third -person effect. 00:23:23.670 --> 00:23:26.299 What does it mean in psychology? The third person 00:23:26.299 --> 00:23:28.920 effect is a well -established psychological theory. 00:23:29.299 --> 00:23:32.140 It posits that people tend to overestimate the 00:23:32.140 --> 00:23:34.759 influence of mass media messages on other people 00:23:34.759 --> 00:23:37.859 while simultaneously underestimating the media's 00:23:37.859 --> 00:23:40.240 influence on themselves. So it's basically the 00:23:40.240 --> 00:23:42.900 idea of I'm a smart, independent thinker and 00:23:42.900 --> 00:23:45.480 I'm not brainwashed by the news. But those people 00:23:45.480 --> 00:23:47.119 over there, they believe everything they see. 00:23:47.470 --> 00:23:49.509 That is it exactly. So she was writing an academic 00:23:49.509 --> 00:23:52.750 paper about how the relentless biased media coverage 00:23:52.750 --> 00:23:55.349 of her own case made it psychologically impossible 00:23:55.349 --> 00:23:58.269 for her to ever get a fair hearing in the court 00:23:58.269 --> 00:24:00.410 of public opinion. Everyone thought they knew 00:24:00.410 --> 00:24:02.430 the real story because they were immune to media 00:24:02.430 --> 00:24:04.769 influence. But in reality, they're all shaped 00:24:04.769 --> 00:24:07.869 by it. She was using the tools of high level 00:24:07.869 --> 00:24:11.210 academia to perform an autopsy on the mechanism 00:24:11.210 --> 00:24:13.509 of her own public trauma. That's incredible. 00:24:13.589 --> 00:24:16.930 It's incredibly intellectual and, frankly, incredibly 00:24:16.930 --> 00:24:20.309 brave. So she graduates in December 2006. She 00:24:20.309 --> 00:24:22.109 has the degree. She has the intelligence. She 00:24:22.109 --> 00:24:24.769 comes back to the States. Does the world finally 00:24:24.769 --> 00:24:27.390 let her move on and get a normal job? Not a chance. 00:24:27.470 --> 00:24:29.789 This begins what she later called her lost decade. 00:24:30.279 --> 00:24:33.519 From roughly 2006 to 2014, she tries repeatedly 00:24:33.519 --> 00:24:36.019 to get normal jobs, corporate jobs, marketing, 00:24:36.240 --> 00:24:39.160 communications, working for nonprofits, jobs 00:24:39.160 --> 00:24:42.099 she was perfectly, if not overqualified for with 00:24:42.099 --> 00:24:43.880 her new degree. And what would happen? How would 00:24:43.880 --> 00:24:46.470 the interviews go? The interviews, by her account, 00:24:46.690 --> 00:24:48.309 would go great. They'd be impressed with her, 00:24:48.329 --> 00:24:50.589 with her ideas. But then the hiring manager would 00:24:50.589 --> 00:24:52.950 have to go talk to the board or the PR department. 00:24:53.309 --> 00:24:55.490 And the answer that came back was always the 00:24:55.490 --> 00:24:58.069 same. We can't have Monica Lewinsky on the payroll. 00:24:58.190 --> 00:25:00.549 Think of the donors. Think of the press clippings. 00:25:00.569 --> 00:25:03.549 It's too much baggage. That is a terrifying kind 00:25:03.549 --> 00:25:05.549 of purgatory. You've done the work. You've gotten 00:25:05.549 --> 00:25:07.789 the education. You've paid your dues ten times 00:25:07.789 --> 00:25:10.509 over. But you are permanently branded. You're 00:25:10.509 --> 00:25:13.019 untouchable. She was completely stuck. And I 00:25:13.019 --> 00:25:15.579 think that decade of stagnation of being told 00:25:15.579 --> 00:25:19.059 no over and over again is what finally pushed 00:25:19.059 --> 00:25:21.059 her to stop running from her past and instead 00:25:21.059 --> 00:25:24.099 turn around and confront it. If the world wouldn't 00:25:24.099 --> 00:25:27.259 let her be normal. then she had to become exceptional. 00:25:27.519 --> 00:25:30.539 Which leads us directly to 2014, the reemergent. 00:25:30.579 --> 00:25:34.140 The comeback. She writes a powerful, long -form 00:25:34.140 --> 00:25:36.900 essay for Vanity Fair magazine titled Shame and 00:25:36.900 --> 00:25:39.599 Survival. And she uses this one phrase in it 00:25:39.599 --> 00:25:41.420 that has always stuck with me. She said, it was 00:25:41.420 --> 00:25:43.640 finally time to stick my head above the parapet. 00:25:43.880 --> 00:25:45.859 That's a military term, right? Looking over the 00:25:45.859 --> 00:25:47.980 wall of a trench, knowing you're completely exposed, 00:25:48.299 --> 00:25:50.819 knowing you might get shot at. It's the perfect 00:25:50.819 --> 00:25:53.680 metaphor. She knew the risks, but she decided 00:25:53.680 --> 00:25:55.019 it was time to take control of the narrative. 00:25:55.019 --> 00:25:57.819 narrative. She made a crucial brilliant strategic 00:25:57.819 --> 00:26:01.240 pivot. She stopped talking about scandal and 00:26:01.240 --> 00:26:04.599 started talking about bullying and harassment. 00:26:04.839 --> 00:26:06.759 And she gave herself a new title. She called 00:26:06.759 --> 00:26:09.890 herself Patient Zero. Patient zero of losing 00:26:09.890 --> 00:26:12.549 your personal reputation on a global scale almost 00:26:12.549 --> 00:26:15.730 instantaneously. And she's right. If you think 00:26:15.730 --> 00:26:17.890 about it, the Drudge Report broke the story online. 00:26:18.190 --> 00:26:21.150 She was arguably the first private citizen to 00:26:21.150 --> 00:26:24.329 be globally, publicly shamed and humiliated via 00:26:24.329 --> 00:26:26.349 the Internet. There was no playbook for it. No 00:26:26.349 --> 00:26:28.289 one had ever experienced that before. And she 00:26:28.289 --> 00:26:30.130 connected her own experience to a more recent 00:26:30.130 --> 00:26:33.430 tragedy, the suicide of Tyler Clemente. This 00:26:33.430 --> 00:26:36.190 was the catalyst for her activism. Tyler Clemente 00:26:36.190 --> 00:26:38.369 was a student at Rutgers University who died 00:26:38.369 --> 00:26:41.490 by suicide in 2010 after his roommate used webcam 00:26:41.490 --> 00:26:43.809 to secretly film him being intimate with another 00:26:43.809 --> 00:26:46.890 man and then posted about it online. He was outed 00:26:46.890 --> 00:26:50.710 and cyberbullied. And Monica saw a direct line 00:26:50.710 --> 00:26:53.990 from her experience to his. She saw the lethal 00:26:53.990 --> 00:26:56.609 endpoint of what she had gone through. She realized 00:26:56.609 --> 00:26:59.269 that public shaming wasn't just a political game 00:26:59.269 --> 00:27:02.450 or a media circus. It had real human and sometimes 00:27:02.450 --> 00:27:04.869 fatal consequences. It wasn't about Democrats 00:27:04.869 --> 00:27:06.690 and Republicans anymore. It was about survival. 00:27:07.230 --> 00:27:09.630 And this reframing culminates in her TED talk 00:27:09.630 --> 00:27:12.769 in March 2015. It was called The Price of Shame. 00:27:13.029 --> 00:27:15.589 It has been viewed millions and millions of times. 00:27:15.769 --> 00:27:18.450 In it, she called for a more compassionate Internet. 00:27:18.730 --> 00:27:21.410 She became a strategic advisor for the anti -bullying 00:27:21.410 --> 00:27:24.430 organization Bystander Revolution. She transformed 00:27:24.430 --> 00:27:27.559 herself from a punchline into a protector. But 00:27:27.559 --> 00:27:29.880 then just as she's establishing this new identity, 00:27:30.059 --> 00:27:31.900 the culture shifts under her feet again. It's 00:27:31.900 --> 00:27:34.519 2017. The Harvey Weinstein story breaks. The 00:27:34.519 --> 00:27:36.720 hashtag MeToo movement goes viral. And this was 00:27:36.720 --> 00:27:38.839 a really complicated moment for her because for 00:27:38.839 --> 00:27:41.859 two decades, Monica had fiercely, fiercely defended 00:27:41.859 --> 00:27:44.359 the idea that the affair with Clinton was consensual. 00:27:44.619 --> 00:27:47.019 She always insisted on her own agency in the 00:27:47.019 --> 00:27:49.519 situation. Her line was always, I made a choice. 00:27:49.640 --> 00:27:51.799 It was a mistake, but it was my choice. Right. 00:27:52.279 --> 00:27:54.920 She rejected the victim label, but hashtag me 00:27:54.920 --> 00:27:57.299 too introduced a whole new public vocabulary 00:27:57.299 --> 00:28:00.119 about power dynamics, about consent, about abuses 00:28:00.119 --> 00:28:02.259 of authority. And it forced her to look at her 00:28:02.259 --> 00:28:05.839 own story through this new lens. It did. In 2018, 00:28:06.019 --> 00:28:09.019 she wrote another powerful essay for Vanity Fair. 00:28:09.200 --> 00:28:12.640 And in it, she publicly reevaluated her own history. 00:28:12.819 --> 00:28:15.259 She looked at the massive power imbalance. He 00:28:15.259 --> 00:28:17.099 was the president of the United States, arguably 00:28:17.099 --> 00:28:19.799 the most powerful man on Earth. He was 27 years 00:28:19.799 --> 00:28:22.299 older than her. He was, for all intents and purposes, 00:28:22.579 --> 00:28:25.059 her boss's boss's boss. And she started asking 00:28:25.059 --> 00:28:29.119 the question, is true consent even possible in 00:28:29.119 --> 00:28:31.140 that kind of power vacuum? And she concluded 00:28:31.140 --> 00:28:33.339 that it really wasn't. She wrote, and this is 00:28:33.339 --> 00:28:35.700 a direct quote, I'm beginning to entertain the 00:28:35.700 --> 00:28:37.700 notion that in such a circumstance, the idea 00:28:37.700 --> 00:28:40.180 of consent might well be rendered moot. She called 00:28:40.180 --> 00:28:42.680 it a gross abuse of power. She also revealed 00:28:42.680 --> 00:28:44.799 she'd been diagnosed with PTSD from the whole 00:28:44.799 --> 00:28:46.980 experience, not from the affair itself, but from 00:28:46.980 --> 00:28:49.660 a public outing, the investigation, the global 00:28:49.660 --> 00:28:52.700 ostracism. Which gave a clinical medical framework 00:28:52.700 --> 00:28:55.019 to the suffering she'd endured. And with that 00:28:55.019 --> 00:28:57.240 new self -awareness came the setting of hard 00:28:57.240 --> 00:29:00.619 boundaries. She started saying no to a world 00:29:00.619 --> 00:29:03.299 that had consistently walked all over her. And 00:29:03.299 --> 00:29:05.200 the Town & Country incident really highlights 00:29:05.200 --> 00:29:07.660 this new strength. Tell us about that. In 2018, 00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:10.299 Town & Country magazine invited her to a major 00:29:10.299 --> 00:29:12.880 event celebrating philanthropy. She accepted 00:29:12.880 --> 00:29:15.480 the invitation. Then a short time later, Bill 00:29:15.480 --> 00:29:18.220 Clinton also accepted an invitation to the very 00:29:18.220 --> 00:29:21.329 same event. The magazine's response was to call 00:29:21.329 --> 00:29:24.529 Monica and rescind her invitation. They uninvited 00:29:24.529 --> 00:29:27.309 her. They chose the powerful man over the woman 00:29:27.309 --> 00:29:30.950 he had abused his power with. Again, the pattern 00:29:30.950 --> 00:29:33.089 repeats. But this time, Monica didn't just go 00:29:33.089 --> 00:29:35.210 away quietly. She went on Twitter and she called 00:29:35.210 --> 00:29:37.549 them out on it. She exposed the hypocrisy publicly. 00:29:38.049 --> 00:29:40.630 And then there was the even more public display 00:29:40.630 --> 00:29:42.950 of boundary setting at a conference in Jerusalem 00:29:42.950 --> 00:29:45.410 that same year. With the journalist Yanit Levi. 00:29:45.670 --> 00:29:48.490 Yanit Levi is a very prominent Israeli journalist. 00:29:49.180 --> 00:29:51.680 Before their onstage interview, Lewinsky's team 00:29:51.680 --> 00:29:54.099 had made it explicitly clear to the producers 00:29:54.099 --> 00:29:57.400 and to Levi. There's one question that is off 00:29:57.400 --> 00:30:00.599 limits. Do not ask her if she still expects a 00:30:00.599 --> 00:30:03.359 private personal apology from Bill Clinton. That 00:30:03.359 --> 00:30:05.220 was the boundary. And Levi asked it anyway. It 00:30:05.220 --> 00:30:07.180 was her very first question. Her first question. 00:30:07.319 --> 00:30:09.460 And Monica didn't debate her. She didn't get 00:30:09.460 --> 00:30:11.700 flustered. She didn't awkwardly laugh it off. 00:30:11.799 --> 00:30:14.559 She just calmly and firmly said, I'm so sorry. 00:30:14.640 --> 00:30:16.859 I'm not going to be able to do this. And she 00:30:16.859 --> 00:30:19.099 stood up, put the microphone down, and walked 00:30:19.099 --> 00:30:21.980 off the stage. That is just a master class in 00:30:21.980 --> 00:30:24.579 self -respect and reclaiming your power in the 00:30:24.579 --> 00:30:27.240 moment. It was the moment that the insecure 22 00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:29.339 -year -old girl in the beret finally left the 00:30:29.339 --> 00:30:31.710 building for good. She showed the world and probably 00:30:31.710 --> 00:30:34.410 herself that access to her, to her story, to 00:30:34.410 --> 00:30:37.109 her pain is a privilege, not a right. And from 00:30:37.109 --> 00:30:39.750 that point on, we enter the current era, the 00:30:39.750 --> 00:30:42.490 era of Monica, the producer. She's no longer 00:30:42.490 --> 00:30:45.250 just the subject of the story. She is the creator. 00:30:45.509 --> 00:30:48.190 She executive produced a documentary for HBO 00:30:48.190 --> 00:30:50.890 Max called 15 Minutes of Shame, which is all 00:30:50.890 --> 00:30:53.410 about the culture of public shaming. But the 00:30:53.410 --> 00:30:54.970 really big one, the one that brought everything 00:30:54.970 --> 00:30:59.140 full circle, was American Crime Story. Impeachment 00:30:59.140 --> 00:31:02.920 The Ryan Murphy FX Series She was a full producer 00:31:02.920 --> 00:31:05.720 on the show about her own life. She wasn't just 00:31:05.720 --> 00:31:08.099 a consultant. She had real input. She was in 00:31:08.099 --> 00:31:10.019 the writer's room. She gave notes on the scripts. 00:31:10.220 --> 00:31:12.480 She made sure that Linda Tripp wasn't portrayed 00:31:12.480 --> 00:31:15.440 as just some cartoon villain, but as a complex, 00:31:15.740 --> 00:31:19.319 wounded, and manipulative human being. She ensured 00:31:19.319 --> 00:31:21.400 that the terrifying FBI interrogation scene, 00:31:21.579 --> 00:31:24.099 where they held her in a hotel room for 12 hours 00:31:24.099 --> 00:31:26.480 and threatened her with decades in prison, was 00:31:26.480 --> 00:31:28.660 portrayed accurately and with all its horror. 00:31:28.900 --> 00:31:31.349 She forced the audience to sit in that room with 00:31:31.349 --> 00:31:33.910 her 22 year old self and experience the trauma 00:31:33.910 --> 00:31:37.170 and now she has her own production company the 00:31:37.170 --> 00:31:40.109 name is just perfect it's called alt ending productions 00:31:40.109 --> 00:31:42.930 she is literally writing an alternative ending 00:31:42.930 --> 00:31:45.609 to her own story She also signed a first look 00:31:45.609 --> 00:31:48.970 deal with 20th Television in 2021. This means 00:31:48.970 --> 00:31:51.809 a major studio is paying her to develop new projects. 00:31:52.390 --> 00:31:55.329 She has gone from unemployable to a power player 00:31:55.329 --> 00:31:58.009 in Hollywood. Which brings us right back to where 00:31:58.009 --> 00:32:00.890 we started today. Her podcast, Reclaiming, it's 00:32:00.890 --> 00:32:02.869 been out for a year now. She's the one asking 00:32:02.869 --> 00:32:04.809 the questions. She's the one guiding the conversation. 00:32:05.190 --> 00:32:07.829 She has successfully, against all odds, transitioned 00:32:07.829 --> 00:32:09.869 from being the object of the global conversation 00:32:09.869 --> 00:32:12.869 to being the subject of it. She is the one holding 00:32:12.869 --> 00:32:15.690 the microphone. So as we wrap this deep dive 00:32:15.690 --> 00:32:17.529 up, let's go back to that central question we 00:32:17.529 --> 00:32:20.230 started with. What does the survival and now 00:32:20.230 --> 00:32:23.529 the thriving of Monica Lewinsky teach us? I think 00:32:23.529 --> 00:32:25.789 it teaches us that the word scandal is often 00:32:25.789 --> 00:32:29.009 just a convenient dismissive cover for a gross 00:32:29.009 --> 00:32:32.190 abuse of power. It teaches us that the court 00:32:32.190 --> 00:32:34.630 of public opinion is a kangaroo court almost 00:32:34.630 --> 00:32:37.349 always. But mostly I think it teaches us about 00:32:37.349 --> 00:32:39.609 the sheer stubborn power of human resilience. 00:32:40.009 --> 00:32:42.269 She survived what she calls the House of Gaslight. 00:32:42.619 --> 00:32:44.720 And here is a thought I want to leave you, the 00:32:44.720 --> 00:32:47.640 listener, with. We often hear people say, thank 00:32:47.640 --> 00:32:51.140 God social media didn't exist back in 1998. It 00:32:51.140 --> 00:32:53.099 would have been so much worse for her. I hear 00:32:53.099 --> 00:32:55.660 that all the time. It's the common wisdom. But 00:32:55.660 --> 00:32:57.460 I want to challenge that just for a minute. How 00:32:57.460 --> 00:33:00.759 so? If Twitter or Instagram or TikTok had existed 00:33:00.759 --> 00:33:04.180 in 1998, yes, the harassment and the trolling 00:33:04.180 --> 00:33:06.720 would have been louder, more vicious, more direct. 00:33:06.880 --> 00:33:10.259 No question. But Monica would have had a handle. 00:33:10.670 --> 00:33:12.430 She would have had a platform. She would have 00:33:12.430 --> 00:33:14.670 had a voice. You would have been silenced. Exactly. 00:33:15.029 --> 00:33:17.869 In 1998, she had to wait for Barbara Walters 00:33:17.869 --> 00:33:20.130 to give her permission to speak. She had to wait 00:33:20.130 --> 00:33:22.970 16 years for a legacy magazine like Vanity Fair 00:33:22.970 --> 00:33:25.569 to give her the space to write her own story. 00:33:26.210 --> 00:33:29.109 If social media had existed, she could have posted 00:33:29.109 --> 00:33:31.730 a video explaining her side of the story on day 00:33:31.730 --> 00:33:34.049 one. She could have fought back in real time. 00:33:34.369 --> 00:33:36.390 She could have countered the narrative as it 00:33:36.390 --> 00:33:39.180 was being built. Right. The gatekeepers in the 00:33:39.180 --> 00:33:41.420 mainstream media controlled her image completely 00:33:41.420 --> 00:33:44.240 for more than a decade. Social media, for all 00:33:44.240 --> 00:33:47.079 of its undeniable toxicity, it destroys those 00:33:47.079 --> 00:33:50.759 gatekeepers. So it's possible, just possible, 00:33:50.920 --> 00:33:53.359 that instead of being a pariah for 20 years, 00:33:53.480 --> 00:33:55.240 the public might have rallied around her much 00:33:55.240 --> 00:33:57.180 sooner. She could have been a hero for speaking 00:33:57.180 --> 00:34:00.019 out, not a villain for existing. That is a really 00:34:00.019 --> 00:34:03.160 fascinating what if. Would the whole slut versus 00:34:03.160 --> 00:34:06.589 predator narrative have survived? If the so -called 00:34:06.589 --> 00:34:09.010 slut could tweet back, we'll never know for sure. 00:34:09.210 --> 00:34:11.610 But what we do know is that today she has the 00:34:11.610 --> 00:34:14.070 mic. And she's clearly not giving it back. A 00:34:14.070 --> 00:34:15.750 lesson for us all, I think. Thanks for diving 00:34:15.750 --> 00:34:17.090 in with us. We'll see you next time.