Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, said on Thursday that she believes President Bill Clinton should have stepped down from the presidency when it was learned he had had an extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
“Yes, I think that is the appropriate response,” Gillibrand, who holds the Senate seat previously occupied by Hillary Clinton, told the New York Times when asked.
Gillibrand, who backed Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election, was emphasizing that the tenor of the national conversation around sexual conduct and misconduct has changed drastically in the twenty years that have passed.
“And I think in light of this conversation, we should have a very different conversation about President Trump, and a very different conversation about allegations against him,” she told the Times.
Her conversation with the Times took place just hours after a California radio host publicly accused Gillibrand’s colleague, Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota, of forcibly kissing and groping her in 2006.
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