Clinton, Lewinsky, FOX & Drudge [Part 1]
This Day (An America 250 History Show)
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.5 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 March 2026
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on “50 Weeks That Shaped America” series, we go to fairly recent history — and the rise of the modern media-driven political scandal. During the government shutdown of 1995, Bill Clinton started a sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. A couple years later, world of the relationship would begin to leak, leading to a massive scandal and, eventually, Clinton’s impeachment. Much of this was fueled by a new media environment — blogs, Drudge, talk radio, and an ascendent FOX News. We get into it all.
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to This Day, a history show from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan. |
| 0:12.8 | Welcome to 50 Weeks that shaped America, Week 10. This is our semi-Quincennial series, and this week's |
| 0:19.7 | installment is a doozy. |
| 0:21.7 | This week we will go to the winter and spring of 1998 when a scandal is exploding in Washington, D.C. |
| 0:28.1 | around the personal behavior of President Bill Clinton. |
| 0:31.4 | There were no shortage of stories about Bill Clinton's bad personal behavior, |
| 0:35.0 | but in this moment, attention was focusing on his sexual |
| 0:38.4 | relationship with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. Now, it's one thing to abuse your |
| 0:44.3 | power and behave inappropriately, and it's another for people to find out about it. And for |
| 0:49.3 | people to find out about it, you need a media environment built for scandal, intrigues, speed, and rumor. Well, |
| 0:56.3 | lucky for us, we were just starting to really get that in 1998. So I would say this is sort of a |
| 1:01.7 | two-in-one, 50 weeks shaped America that we have here on our hands because it's not just our |
| 1:06.3 | chance to talk about the Clinton Lewinsky affair, but also the radical shift in news and journalism |
| 1:11.9 | that was taking place right at the same time, the rise of the internet, and the real arrival |
| 1:16.9 | of cable news as a major force. So let's get into it, two parts on Clinton, Lewinsky, |
| 1:22.5 | Linda Tripp, The Judge Report, and yes, this is our first proper Fox News episode as well. |
| 1:28.5 | Maybe we'll even mention Saturday Night Live somewhere in here. But here, as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt |
| 1:33.2 | and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there. Hello, Jody. Hey there. Early core political |
| 1:39.2 | memories, I think, for many of us here. Oh, yeah. Yes. Yeah. But also a lot of stuff that I didn't know about and, you know, kind of didn't really, wasn't really tracking as a high schooler at the time. But look, I am looking at some of our prep materials for this conversation. And I found an article that was extremely useful. And it is called American Politics Came of Age with Monica Lewinsky. That's the |
| 2:02.3 | headline. And it is written by a historian who I had to look up a little bit more about, very intrigued |
| 2:05.9 | with us, but is it Dr. Nicole, Hammer, I think. Is it Hammer? I think it's made with an E. |
| 2:10.8 | Yeah. Oh, Hammer. Positive. It's Hammer. Possible. |
... |
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