- President Clinton said today
he is very pleased with his first year in office,
but not a bit happy about how it's ending.
- Let 'em look into it-- I just want to go back to work.
- Whitewater is not going to go away.
- The Republicans smell blood.
- The seismic shift to the right
in the political landscape of America tonight.
- His re-election campaign is heating up.
- Clinton has won a second term
as President of the United States.
- Political trouble for the president.
- The possibility of impeaching the president
must now be addressed.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- ♪ Don't stop thinking about tomorrow ♪
♪ Don't stop, it'll soon be here ♪
♪ It'll be, better than before... ♪
- Bill Clinton was a president who was turning the corner
to a different time in American life.
That song, "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow"
became the theme of the Clinton presidency.
- 46-year-old Bill Clinton of Arkansas was sworn in today,
right back there at the Capitol building.
Bill Clinton, the first baby boomer president--
what he represented was a fresh start.
Hopes were high, very high.
- The office of President of the United States.
- Congratulations. [cheering and applause]
- Bill Clinton defeats the man with the best resume
in modern American political history, George Bush.
It seemed impossible.
- A new season of American renewal has begun.
[cheering and applause]
- He was like a meteor.
He came on the scene, smart, well-spoken, appealing,
and kind of fun.
- Now let's listen to President Bill Clinton
tear it up! [saxophone playing]
- Clinton comes to office brimming with energy,
enthusiasm, and self-confidence.
The first few months would be a real trial for him.
- President Clinton and his staff
are regrouping after an embarrassing political setback.
- His choice for Attorney General
was before the Senate Judiciary Committee today,
apologizing for hiring illegal immigrants.
- Well, we got off to a rocky start for a number of reasons.
There were hiccups... [chuckles]
in the appointment process, and there were policy hiccups.
- Senate critics bashed President Clinton's policy
on gays in the military, calling it very confusing.
- "It hasn't been easy,"
that's the way President Clinton described
the first three months of his administration.
- You dreamed of being here.
What's the difference between the dream and the reality?
- The reality is that from the day I got here,
we've had a world of work to do.
I enjoy coming to work here every day,
it's an enormous privilege.
Even the tough days are good days.
- You had an enormously charismatic and popular
president who didn't seem to understand
how to move the levers of government.
- Bill Clinton came into office with some bad news.
Turned out the deficit was much worse than they thought.
He had to figure out a way to get us out of a recession,
and the 1993 budget was an attempt to do that.
- I had hoped to invest in your future by creating jobs,
expanding education, reforming healthcare
and reducing the debt without asking more of you,
but I can't.
- When we finally put out a budget,
there was something for everyone to hate.
The Republicans hated it because it had tax hikes,
and it had program cuts,
so something for the Democrats to hate.
- The stakes seemed enormous.
There was a sense that if this didn't pass,
his first year might be a failure,
his whole presidency might be a failure.
- From the early, early morning to the early, early night,
the nation's first lobbyist was at it all day.
His morning run with Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman
was a way to pay him back for coming out
for the plan yesterday.
- Bill Clinton had total faith
in his ability to persuade.
He always thought that if he got anybody in a room,
one on one, he could change their minds.
- Most of the rest of the day was spent like this--
on the phone to Capitol Hill to so many members
that this afternoon Mr. Clinton said he lost count.
- It's close, this is the Clinton presidency.
All of the other stuff we want to do will not happen
unless we approve this plan.
- As majority leader, I was very much concerned, obviously,
about what the outcome was going to be.
We needed 50 votes and we were at 49.
Bob Kerrey, Senator from Nebraska, he had genuine doubts.
- Will you tell us what you plan to do, Senator?
- No.
- Until the time he got up to speak to the Senate,
I wasn't sure what he was gonna say.
- President Clinton, if you're watching now,
as I suspect you are, I tell you this,
I could not and should not cast the vote
that brings down your presidency.
- By the slimmest of all possible margins,
the president saved his budget bill and the political clout
of his administration.
[cheering and applause]
- After 12 long years we can say to the American people tonight,
we have laid the foundation for the renewal
of the American dream.
- Passing the budget was a victory
because we didn't lose,
but usually you could get one member from the other side.
- Every single Republican in the Congress voted against it.
- Republicans viewed Bill Clinton's presidency
as illegitimate.
They thought George H.W. Bush deserved a second term.
From the very beginning they were not going to work with him.
- President Clinton said today he is very pleased
with his first year in office,
but not a bit happy about how it's ending--
under a cloud of controversy
over his personal life and business dealings.
- The White House is anticipating
questions about Whitewater.
- The Whitewater controversy--
- Whitewater-- - Whitewater--
- The Whitewater Affair.
- The President, the First Lady, a bad real estate deal,
a failed S&L. - Whitewater...
Nobody knew what Whitewater was.
- The story begins in 1978.
- Hillary and Bill Clinton--
when Bill was governor of Arkansas,
invested in a land development project.
It was a fiasco.
- The Clintons say they lost almost $70,000.
Their partners are now the focus of widening
Federal and Congressional investigations.
- The press starts asking more and more questions--
who was involved? Where did the money go?
What happened to all the records?
- The more puzzling and pertinent questions may concern
whether the White House engaged in a cover-up.
- In Washington by the '90s,
there was a giant scandal machine.
I was part of the scandal machine.
And I remember kind of having this uneasy sensation that,
you know, what began with Watergate,
which was a noble crusade by the press--
out of that came this kind of scandal culture.
- This is one of those stories that, that, um,
has been fed, as such stories tend to be,
by the way the administration has handled it.
- The Whitewater development is not going to go away.
There are too many questions
and there are too many implications, frankly,
of breaking the law.
- Mr. President, do you support the idea of naming
a special prosecutor to investigate
the Whitewater affair?
- I have nothing to say about that.
I have said we turned the records over
and there's nothing else we need to say about that.
- Pressure was mounting in the media.
The more they resisted, the more suspicious people became.
There were now calls for the appointment
of an independent counsel, which was a really serious issue.
At this point he still thought,
you know, "This thing will go away."
And so he went along with it.
- I just want to do my job,
I don't want to be distracted by this anymore.
Let 'em look into it--I just want to go back to work.
[dramatic music]
[indistinct chatter]
- The President of the United States!
[cheering and applause]
- When he comes to office,
a few Democrats say, "Fix welfare first,"
but Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton
really want to do healthcare first.
You could say that the search for healthcare reform
was like the great Democratic Holy Grail.
- For 60 years this country has tried to reform healthcare.
President Roosevelt tried, President Truman tried,
President Nixon tried, President Carter tried.
Every time the special interests were powerful enough
to defeat them.
But not this time.
[cheering and applause]
- It was a masterful performance and I think the president
has re-engaged the Congress and the American public
on the issue of healthcare
and probably will have some success with it.
[upbeat music]
- If we do not guarantee
health insurance to every American,
then we have failed all Americans.
- Hillary Clinton was given enormous responsibility
by her husband to do this very hard thing,
to reform healthcare.
- In a hostile political environment,
you don't come up with something this complicated
and do it in public.
But the process always requires political input.
They didn't do it right.
And as a result, Congress got very defensive.
- Clearly the president is asking you
to trust the government
more than you trust your doctor and yourselves.
- Protestors have been trailing the president
around the country, and today he started debating them.
- You got people here, holding up signs saying,
"No socialized medicine."
Most of 'em have parents on Medicare.
You want to repeal Medicare, ma'am?
- Since last September,
when the president proposed his health plan,
the Clintons have campaigned endlessly for it.
The net result?
In almost every poll the plan's popularity has plummeted.
- Healthcare reform very quickly became a kind of smoking ruin.
It just crashed and burned.
- Administration officials acknowledge now it was a mistake
when Hillary Clinton's task force drafted a healthcare bill
in secret, then sprung it on Congress.
- This had been the major issue they wanted
to sell to the public, and the Clintons understand
that defeat is both policy, but it's also gonna be political.
- It was a really challenging time, and some of those events
were beyond President Clinton's control
and some of them he seemed to be right in the middle of.
There was Whitewater still ticking along in the background.
And then Paula Jones filed a sexual harassment lawsuit.
- A former Arkansas state worker, Paula Jones,
accused then Governor Bill Clinton
of sexually harassing her in 1991.
The White House is denying everything.
- It's just humiliating, what he did to me.
- True or not, this lawsuit is a major embarrassment
to President Clinton. and if his lawyers
can't get this suit dismissed,
he may be forced to answer these charges under oath.
- There was scandal, scandal, scandal, scandal.
It was a really concerted attempt
to eat away at his moral authority.
[cheering and applause]
- Well, the midterm election is just two weeks away
and the Republicans, to put it bluntly, smell blood.
- House Republicans are presenting
what they are calling a contract with America.
- As much as anything else,
this was a rally for Congressman Newt Gingrich,
possible Speaker of the House.
- We offer this contract as a first step
towards renewing American civilization.
- During the 1980s New Gingrich had gained this reputation
as someone who would investigate scandal,
who would use the media-- every tool available--
and that's the Gingrich who had his eyes set now
both on President Clinton,
but also on re-taking control of the House.
- Good evening. There is a seismic shift to the right
in the political landscape of America tonight.
- It doesn't take a genius to see
that it's going Republican, Republican, Republican.
- This is truly a wildly historic night.
- The Republican victory in '94 had a shocking effect
on Bill Clinton,
because the President of the United States
was suddenly marginalized and New Gingrich,
the Speaker of the House, was the big man in town.
[epic music]
♪ ♪
- Last September the House Republicans
signed a contract with America.
We signed this contract
and made some promises.
You elected us, and for the last 93 days
we have been keeping our word.
- President Clinton, Republicans have dominated political debate
in this country since they took over Congress in January.
Do you worry about making sure that your voice is heard
in the coming months? - No.
The Constitution gives me relevance,
the power of our ideas gives me relevance,
the record we have built up over the last two years
and the things we're trying to do to implement it
give it relevance.
The president is relevant.
- The press assumed, and I assumed,
that Clinton was toast,
that he was never going to be able to come back.
- Watch the electricity line!
[indistinct radio chatter]
We just had some kind of an explosion downtown.
- Here in Oklahoma City today a car bomb demolished
a Federal office building with hundreds of people inside.
- This occurs the day after a news conference
in which the president found himself
insisting that he is indeed relevant
to our nation and its agenda,
and here we are, the next day,
finding it in one of the first places we look,
is indeed the White House.
- The bombing in Oklahoma City
was an attack on innocent children
and defenseless citizens.
- I was on Air Force One that day going from Washington
to Oklahoma City, and the mood on the plane that morning
was very somber and very scared.
- In Oklahoma City today, President Clinton
spoke of the great grief and the spirit of healing.
- Your pain is unimaginable, and we know that.
- It was a moment that did play
to Bill Clinton's natural strengths--
to channel emotion and to connect
with people at the human level.
- You have lost too much,
but you have not lost everything.
And you have certainly not lost America.
[applause]
- Clinton's response I think
not only helped the country through a terrible,
terrible moment, incident,
but helped right his administration.
[dramatic music]
[band playing "The Army Goes Rolling Along"]
- The Commander in Chief, Bill Clinton.
This photo op had extra meaning on a day
when the president was considering the prospect
of sending American airmen into the Bosnia conflict.
- The end of the Cold War caused the world,
in many places, to unravel.
One of those places was the former Yugoslavia,
a country that is falling apart,
and people are dying by the thousands.
- [crying] - Americans are very generous
about putting their treasure and their lives on the line
around the world, but we have to be disciplined
and very careful where we do it.
- When President Clinton came into office,
there was a reluctance to get American forces involved.
We were trying to figure out
what is America's moral responsibility,
if, in fact, people are being killed and we know about it?
- Stunning news from Somalia.
The deadliest battle yet involving US forces.
- The battle began after this jeep
carrying Americans was blown up.
Two US helicopters were shot down.
- President George Bush, as his parting gesture,
sent in a humanitarian mission to rescue the Somalis
from this terrible famine.
It turned from a humanitarian mission
into a terrible military catastrophe.
- Twelve American soldiers killed.
- Why let the Somalis drag more dead GI's by ropes
through the streets of Mogadishu?
- We have gone way beyond what our original intention was
in Somalia, and it's time to get out.
- After two days of stinging criticism,
the president said today the US needs to, and I quote now,
"Conclude its role in Somalia."
- If the American people are to say yes to UN peacekeeping,
the United Nations must know when to say no.
- There was enormous pressure on the Clinton administration
not to commit the United States
to similar operations in the future.
Fast-forward-- Rwanda.
- Good evening. Fighting is going on tonight
in the small African nation of Rwanda.
- 20,000 are believed dead after five days of massacres.
- In this orgy of violence,
three women can be seen pleading for their lives.
They are first savagely beaten
and then hacked to death by soldiers.
- Village after entire village wiped out by Hutus
incited by extremists to kill their Tutsi neighbors.
- Because of the horror of Somalia,
there was no will whatsoever to intervene in Rwanda,
even though there were many early warning signals,
but a modicum of intervention
could have stopped that genocide.
- The savagery in Rwanda is turning out to be
far worse than anyone had imagined.
- 7 to 800,000 people
would be killed one at a time.
They weren't killed by bombs, they were killed by machetes.
And then the thought that we could've done
something about it.
As Clinton began to realize that,
it tortured him and it changed him, you know,
he said it's the biggest regret of his presidency.
- In eastern Bosnia this has been one of the darkest days
in the history of the United Nations.
The Bosnian Serbs have captured the town of Srebrenica.
- They had been made these safe zones
around eastern Bosnia, one of them was Srebrenica.
- Once again, Bosnian civilians
forced to flee their homes in terror
while the western European nations and the United States
do nothing about it.
- This is the tragedy of Srebrenica,
now overrun by Bosnian Serb forces.
The Bosnian Serb General Mladic
walked in as if a conquering hero.
- General Mladic came swaggering into Srebrenica,
and in some of the most chilling video
that will always remain with me, he said,
You know, "Don't be afraid, we're not going to hurt you."
And he instructed his soldiers to give them sweets,
candy and things like that.
As soon as the cameras were turned off,
the men were put on buses, taken out,
lined up, and machine-gunned to death.
And just because they were Muslim.
- Bosnian Serbs face new charges of genocide.
The US Ambassador to the UN, Madeline Albright,
displayed photographs of mass graves.
- There were terrible things going on in Bosnia,
but it took the visuals to prove it.
- The Sarajevo market was crowded
with Monday morning shoppers when death fell from the sky.
- Bill Clinton decided to use force.
The idea that he would be the American leader
who would get NATO to participate
in its first military campaign
was not something that was predictable.
- More than 60 NATO jets began pounding
Bosnian Serb positions around Sarajevo overnight.
- Allied fighters and bombers, most of them Americans,
swooped down on Bosnian Serb
military positions around Sarajevo.
Bosnian government troops are racking up stunning gains
in north and west Bosnia.
- A campaign will make clear to the Bosnian Serbs
that they have nothing to gain and everything to lose
by continuing to slaughter innocent civilians.
- President Clinton finally came to the right judgement.
We don't have to put a boot on the ground,
we don't have to send in our tanks.
We can just bomb those bullies, and it worked.
- Good evening from Paris.
This was an historic day for American diplomacy.
The Serbs and the Croats
and the largely Muslim Bosnian government
committed themselves to a lasting peace.
[applause]
This scene would not have been possible
without the United States
leading the Europeans on a peace offensive
that Europe was unable to pull off on its own.
- Seize this chance and make it work.
You can do nothing to erase the past,
but you can do everything to build a future.
- This was a major breakthrough for Clinton
in terms of foreign policy.
It was clear that he had begun to see himself
not just as a domestic figure, but as a world figure.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- The feeling grew pretty quickly
that an era of bipartisanship was through and finished.
The sense among Republicans
is that it's political trench warfare.
They're completely dedicated, hour by hour, day by day,
to trying to ensure that Bill Clinton
doesn't get a second term.
- This year the Republicans who now control
Congress are sending a budget to the president's desk
that is like nothing we have seen for decades.
- House Republicans emerge from a morning meeting
with outlines of the plan they're hoping will save
$270 billion over seven years.
- The big savings are the most politically dangerous ones,
from Medicare and Medicaid.
- If these healthcare cuts come to my desk
of this size, I would have no choice but to veto it.
- Clinton figured out a very clever bit of jujitsu.
The way to attack the Republicans
was to say that New Gingrich
wants to make your grandmother destitute.
- Think about a party whose last stand
is to frighten 85-year-olds,
and you'll understand how totally morally bankrupt
the modern Democratic party is.
- The Speaker of the House
has made an unprecedented threat.
Yesterday Mr. Gingrich told government securities dealers
that he was willing to let the United States
default on its debt.
- The Republicans decided to go to the wall
and to shut down the government.
- We're prepared to negotiate on the budget issues,
but let's not threaten the country with a shutdown.
The president said we really ought to meet
at the White House, in the Oval Office.
- Is the White House showing any progress?
- We'll work it out tonight.
- It came to whether or not
we were gonna cut Medicare deeper.
The president said something I'll never forget.
"It may cost me the election,
but I cannot do this."
The Washington Passport Agency is closed for lack of funding.
Due to the shutdown of the Federal government.
Social Security-- - The Library of Congress--
National Park service... - Is closed indefinitely.
- 800,000 Federal employees will be told
to go home today without pay.
- Republicans thought that the public
would rally to their side,
but actually shutting down the government
left a lot of Americans
with a really bad taste in their mouths,
and it ended up hurting the public.
[crowd chanting]
- The anger and resentment of Federal workers
is mounting with every passing day and every missed paycheck.
- Wake up, you bunch of dummies, and get with it.
- I'm a registered voter, I have friends
that are registered voters,
and we'll remember come November.
- Polls show most Americans blame Republicans
more than they do the president for the current stand-off.
- A three-week shutdown ended on Saturday.
Thousands of Federal workers across the country
were able to go back to their jobs today.
- The Republicans learned an important lesson,
that it would make a lot more sense for them to try to govern
with the president than to try to confront him.
- Here we go, heads up!
- The Whitewater investigation unfolds
and Hillary Clinton
becomes the focus of prosecutors' interests.
- The First Lady arrived to a crush of cameras.
There were vocal Hillary Rodham Clinton supports and detractors.
- It's the first time the wife of a sitting president
has ever been forced to appear before a grand jury
and testify under oath.
- She was subpoenaed by the independent counsel
Kenneth Starr, who wants to ask her
about those missing law firm billing records
that mysteriously appeared in the First Family quarters.
- You now have independent counsel, Kenneth Starr,
a prosecutor with unlimited financial resources
and unlimited time who is doing nothing
except investigating you.
If you have anything to hide,
that is not a situation you want to be in.
- These re-emerging issues add up to political trouble
for the president just as his re-election campaign
is heating up. [cheering and applause]
- The '96 campaign for re-election was underway.
Clinton started reaching out to an old advisor
from his days in Arkansas, a consultant, Dick Morris,
who by that point was mostly working for Republicans.
He established a plan with Dick Morris
to help him reposition himself.
- Morris calls his strategy triangulation,
an effort to position Clinton in the political middle.
- How could he come over here and say,
"Some days I'm a Republican"?
- No, no, you don't say some days you're a Republican.
You take the best from each party and you bring it together
in an amalgam of what the American people want.
- I have learned a lot about the good ideas
that each side has that we could all embrace.
- They are shifting to the right.
He campaigns by saying, you know, "I'm not gonna be soft.
I'm not gonna be one of these bleeding heart liberals."
- An officer killed in the line of duty.
A father gunned down at work.
A student shot at school.
- Deadly assault weapons off our streets.
100,000 more police on the streets.
Expand the death penalty.
That's how we'll protect America.
- From '93 up until '96, he enacts NAFTA,
he enacts crime bills, he enacts welfare reform--
almost all of that is coming out of Republican
and conservative policy circles.
- Liberal Democrats felt betrayed by Bill Clinton.
They believed that Clinton had sold out
to the right wingers and to the penny pinching conservatives.
- This bill is welfare fraud, not welfare reform.
- Despite the break in their own ranks over this welfare bill,
White House officials are still confident
that when the choice comes down to Bill Clinton or Bob Dole,
their fellow Democrats don't have anywhere else to go.
- What Clinton did, to steal away issues
from the Republicans, actually worked.
- President Clinton has won a second term
as President of the United States.
[cheering and applause]
- Can you imagine what this must feel like?
Particularly when you think how far down
Mr. Clinton seemed to be just two years ago,
for him to ascend to this pinnacle again
is the act of truly a master politician.
- Bill Clinton is christened the Comeback Kid
because he was resilient.
No matter what doubts you had about him,
no matter what charges you laid against him,
every day he walks into the White House
and with a laser focus he says,
"Let's focus on getting the job done."
- It is time to put politics aside,
join together and get the job done for America's future.
[cheering and applause]
- This has been Election '96, Bill Clinton
has been re-elected, and the country goes on.
[band playing "Hail to the Chief"]
[applause]
- You have a bipartisan group here
to come together and hail this agreement.
- 1997 was a happy time for Bill Clinton
and a happy time for America.
The budget was balanced-- think of that.
- By '97 there's a feeling that there can be some cooperation,
they were reaching across party lines, things were getting done.
[fanfare playing]
- We can say with pride and certainty
that those who saw the sun setting on America were wrong.
The sun is rising on America again, and I thank you all.
[applause]
- Today, as you may already have heard,
there are serious allegations about the president
having had a sexual relationship with a young White House aide.
Let's go to ABC's Jeff--No, let's go first to the president.
- Is that Kenneth Starr-- the independent counsel,
is investigating allegations that you suborn perjury
by encouraging a 24-year-old woman--
former White House intern, to lie under oath
about her having had an affair with you.
Mr. President, is that true? - That is not true.
That is not true.
[dramatic music]
[reporters shouting questions]
- In the course of an investigation
into the White[bleep] scandal,
special prosecutor Kenneth Starr would discover
that Clinton had had an affair with an intern
in the White House.
- Kenneth Starr opened a federal grand jury probe
into the allegations about the president's relationship
with Monica Lewinsky and whether there was a cover-up.
- What has all this got to do with Whitewater,
and what's Kenneth Starr doing in this business?
- Ken Starr was going to pursue Clinton
until they caught him doing something,
and the something was Monica Lewinsky.
- A couple of weeks ago a woman named Linda Tripp
walked into Ken Starr's office and said, "I have these tapes.
"I have about ten phone calls of a young woman
"named Monica Lewinsky, and in it she talks about
having had a sexual relationship with the president."
- So Monica Lewinsky bares her soul about her love
for Bill Clinton to her friend, Linda Tripp.
Linda Tripp gives those tapes to Paula Jones' lawyers
and Kenneth Starr's office.
Ken Starr knows that the president
has to give a deposition in the Jones case.
- Part of the danger for the president
lies in what he said under oath to lawyers for Paula Jones.
Mr. Clinton denied in his deposition
having a sexual relationship with Lewinsky.
- Did the president agree with Lewinsky
to deny their affair under oath?
- If the president, in fact, encouraged this woman
to lie under oath or ask someone else
to encourage her, that's a crime.
- It is a different order of magnitude
from many of the previous charges that the president's had
to put up with over the last several years.
- What the White House is in for
is another legal nightmare.
- [chanting] Hey, ho, Clinton's gotta go!
- There was a howl coming up from the media
and from Republicans.
People were horrified of this.
It was overpowering.
- I want you to listen to me, I'm gonna say this again.
I did not have sexual relations
with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.
I never told anybody to lie,
not a single time, never.
These allegations are false,
and I need to go back to work for the American people.
Thank you.
[applause]
- I think from the very beginning
the people who knew him the best,
if they were honest with themselves,
knew that something had happened.
- Why do you think that in the face of the president's
very strong denial, a lot of Americans
still apparently don't believe him?
- In part because of many of you, apparently don't.
- This theme, that the press and Mr. Clinton's political enemies
are responsible for any problems of credibility
is now being pressed vigorously
by some of the president's aides and friends.
- The great story here for anybody willing to find it
and write about it and explain it,
is this vast right wing conspiracy
that has been conspiring against my husband
since the day he announced for president.
- So when people say there's a lot of smoke here,
your message is, where there's smoke...
- There isn't any fire.
- Hillary Clinton was half-right.
It wasn't a vast conspiracy, it was a small conspiracy.
There were some Republican activists and lawyers
who did plug into the Lewinsky scandal,
helped feed it to "Newsweek" and to the special prosecutor--
they were Republicans conspiring together.
And maybe it wasn't the vast conspiracy
that Hillary talked about, but it was a conspiracy.
- The law is the law, the law is sacred,
the facts have integrity, and we're going to go about our job.
Thanks very much.
- This is not something we'd ever thought we would see.
The president ending up in that kind of a battle--
you couldn't take your eyes off it.
- Mr. President, Monica Lewinsky's life
has been changed forever,
her family's life has been changed forever.
I wonder how you feel about that and what, if anything,
you'd like to say to Monica Lewinsky at this minute?
[scattered chuckles]
- That's good.
[laughter]
That's good, but at this minute,
I'm gonna stick with my position and not comment.
- Bill Clinton is a fighter, but ultimately
there's a famous dress that has DNA evidence.
- At this point we believe that FBI technicians do know
whether there was a substance on that dress.
- It becomes clear he wasn't always telling the truth.
- Over the years there have been dramatic late night speeches
from the White House--
national tragedies and national triumphs.
But nothing like the speech that we're about to hear
from there tonight.
- Indeed I did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky
that was not appropriate.
In fact, it was wrong.
It constituted a critical lapse in judgement
and a personal failure on my part
for which I am solely and completely responsible.
I misled people,
including even my wife.
[crowd exclaims] I deeply regret that.
- That's where the '90s took us.
The President of the United States had to testify
under oath about a woman in the Oval Office.
This would have been inconceivable
in the time of John F. Kennedy.
But the '90s weren't the '60s.
mea culpa sparked a lot of reaction
from people who watched his speech, from New York...
- I still like him as the president.
- To California.
- He should've laid more of his cards on the table.
- There was skepticism in Houston.
- What else has he lied about?
- And cynicism in Minneapolis.
- If Hillary don't mind,
then it shouldn't be anyone else's business.
- It all came down to this-- some three dozen boxes
containing the case that independent counsel Ken Starr
has built against the president.
- The Office of Independent Counsel submitted a referral
to the House of Representatives
containing substantial and credible information
that may constitute grounds for impeachment
of the President of the United States.
[dramatic music]
- Tonight the independent counsel's report
has been delivered to the Congress.
The possibility of impeaching the president
must now be addressed.
- Bob Schieffer has his hands on the report now--Bob?
- Well, I've got it, Dan, we just got it here
and I'm going to skip some of the top of it here.
- Starr produces this very lengthy report
with all the minutiae of their sexual interaction.
- I'm going to read part of the heading
under "Physical Evidence" for you.
- Sharyl, if I may... - Yes.
- We want to be careful here,
this is daytime television and there are children
in the audience, so I do encourage you to paraphrase.
- Okay, I'll do my best.
- While the president was on the telephone, according to her,
he--let me just read this to make sure we don't--
- I remember reading it on an airplane,
and it was like reading the raciest novel
I'd ever read in my life.
It was almost too hot to handle.
- Ms. Lewinsky raised her jacket in the back
and showed him the straps of her revealing underwear.
- He unzipped his pants and exposed himself and--and, uh,
they had sex of a kind.
Again, he stopped her before, I would say, he was completed,
I guess a better way to put that.
- There was something icky about pursuing this.
And there was no dignity here from anybody.
- Prosecutors emphasize the real issue here is not sex,
but the president allegedly subverting the legal system
by getting others to lie and obstructing justice.
- The evidence suggests that the president repeatedly
tried to thwart the legal process in the Jones matter.
- The Constitution says that a president can be impeached
for high crimes and misdemeanors,
but the Constitution does not define what those terms mean.
So they're up to Congress to define.
- I do not think that unless this misconduct
raises to the level of an assault on our fundamental
political system, that they're impeachable,
even if every one of them is true.
- This was not an impeachable offense.
It's very painful, it's very embarrassing.
It has nothing to do with the running of the government.
There were a number of Republicans
who knew that this was all nonsense,
but they were going to go along
because they were being forced by the party.
- History unfolding in the nation's capitol today
as a somber House of Representatives voted
for only the second time in American history
to impeach a president of the United States.
- After a lifetime of striving for a celebrated rank
among American presidents, this diligent student of history
was handed his place today,
one he did not want but can never give back.
- I want the American people to know today
that I am still committed
to working with people of good faith
and good will of both parties
to do what's best for our country.
It's what I've tried to do for six years,
it's what I intend to do for two more until the last hour
of the last day of my term.
- It was up to the House to decide whether there was
grounds to impeach the president,
and then it is up to the Senate to conduct the trial and act as,
essentially, the jury.
- Said William Jefferson Clinton be and hereby is
acquitted of the charges in the said articles.
- The President of the United States found not guilty.
- Clinton lied under oath.
He did not challenge the Constitutional system
of the United States, so he's not removed from office.
- Three out of four Americans are saying,
we know Bill Clinton is a scoundrel,
and yet we think he's effective as president.
- The really amazing thing is how Bill Clinton
bounced back from that.
He just kept climbing in the polls, one...
notch, notch, notch, notch.
Incredible.
- By the end of the 1990s,
it looks like a different country for many Americans.
The economy is booming and our deficit is gone.
- 1999 was the longest peacetime economic expansion
in US history.
- Clinton was one of the greatest politicians
the White House has ever seen.
He was a great leader in the sense of being a--
a charismatic, well-intentioned, visionary president.
But he undermined himself with his personal foibles.
- As Mr. Clinton moves into his final year in office,
he's already sharing the spotlight with the candidacies
of his wife and Vice President.
- It's one of the tragedies of the Clinton years,
that this period of real prosperity and real peace
leads to a more polarized America.
Bill Clinton leaves a country more divided than he found it.
- He came with these enormous expectations,
the expectations of a generation behind him,
and although he had some big achievements,
he also had some enormous setbacks,
and that cycle of achievement and setback
came to define his presidency.
- We know the sun will always rise on America
as long as each new generation lights the fire of freedom.
Our children are ready.
- The thing about Bill Clinton was he never stopped trying
to find a sliver of ground on which you could build agreement
and move the country forward.
And I think that brand of politics, you know,
in spite of Clinton's flaws,
in spite of the things, you know,
we all wish he had done differently or not at all,
gosh, the country could use that.
[cheering and applause, fireworks exploding]
- Al Gore surprised no one
when he declared his candidacy in June.
On the GOP side, 1999 belonged to the man with the money,
Texas Governor George W. Bush.
Pat Buchanan left his Republican home for the Reform party
where none other than Donald Trump is threatening
to challenge him for the nomination.
And the story that rivaled the presidential race...
- So the answer is yes, I intend to run.
- Hillary Clinton made her Senate campaign official,
facing off with New York Mayor, Rudy Giuliani.
♪ ♪
[gentle music]
♪ ♪