Hello and welcome to the psych legal pop podcast, a podcast about popular culture through the lens of an attorney and psychotherapist. I'm Tess Brigham. I'm the therapist and I'm here with my sister Brooke, who is the attorney. And we're so happy to be here today because we are going to talk about

Monica Lewinsky. And so for those of you who are maybe under the age of 30, 50, you probably

are like, I've heard of this. And, you know, Lewinsky is talked about in rap songs and we hear it in popular culture,

but if you've never quite understood the story, then we've got a really good juicy story for you,

because it is a good one. So we're going to give you a quick synopsis, as quick as we can,

because the thing about this particular affair is it is complicated. You know,

before we started recording, we were talking about how it is a bit of a domino effect that

this wouldn't have happened if one person, you know, if one person had made a different

decision or if these things weren't happening over here, then this wouldn't have happened

over here. And that's what makes the story so interesting is that each piece of it was vital to get to the next part.

Right. And it actually started with the government shutdown in 1995. All of the staff of the White House were sent home, and they elevated all these interns

to do the jobs of the staff.

And suddenly, Monica Lewinsky, who was a 21-year-old White House intern at the time,

found herself working in the chief of staff's office answering

phones right next door to the president's office. Yes, yes. So here she was with access to the

president. And so she and the president start a flirtation. We're not quite sure maybe it started

before the shutdown, but the shutdown really made things happen.

They really sped things up. Brought them together. Yeah. And plus, I guess also with the shutdown,

they were alone, so less people around. So it made it easier for them to sneak around. And so they

have this affair. They, um, uh, then Monica is transferred shortly after

the, was it the 96 election? He gets re-the 96 election. So he gets re-elected in 96. Um,

she then gets sent to the Pentagon. We believe because people were maybe seeing that there was

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