Bill Clinton who had an affair in office admits there were times he wanted to ban the press – but didn’t
Bill Clinton, whose presidency was thrown into turmoil over an affair with a young staffer, has admitted there were times he wanted to ban the press from the White House, as President Donald Trump recently did, but he refrained.
“There were lots of times when I wanted to ban the White House press corps,” the former president said to laughter at the Clinton Global Initiative summit earlier this week. “And there’s a reason we have a constitution. Because none of us are immune from being pissed off.”
Clinton was likely referring to his affair with Monica Lewinsky, which rocked Washington in the late 1990s and — following allegations of a cover-up by the then-president — led to his impeachment in December 1998. He was later acquitted by the Senate.
The Democrat’s comments came after Trump banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House because of unfavorable coverage.
“Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America,” the president wrote on Truth Social last Friday.
Lewinsky was a 22-year-old intern at the White House when she began an affair with Clinton, who was nearly 30 years her senior and married to Hillary Clinton.
Lewinsky recalled the moment the news of her clandestine relationship with the president broke during a February 2025 interview with Call Her Daddy podcast host Alex Cooper.
“I remember opening the door — and these were in the days where people would get a newspaper delivered and in D.C. it was always several like The [Washington] Post and The New York Times — I remember seeing my name above the fold…and looking down the hall and seeing the exact same newspaper outside everybody else’s door,” Lewinsky said.
“It was shocking, it was terrifying and I didn’t actually know how to process anything and really it was a moment where life as I knew it was over.”
Trump has faced his own fair share of scandals that the media has covered, including two impeachments and multiple criminal indictments — one of which involved a hush money payment to a porn star.
His administration has also been criticized for its massive, hardline immigration crackdown and its war in Iran, which has caused gas prices to soar.
Unlike Clinton during the height of his sex scandal, when Trump faced scrutiny from the press, he decided to ban several outlets from covering his daily activities, calling them “fake news.”
CNN, MS NOW and Politico subsequently filed a lawsuit to regain access to the White House, arguing the ban violated their First Amendment rights.
In an early morning ruling Thursday, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered the Trump administration to temporarily reinstate the outlets’ press badges.
