On Saturday’s “MSNBC Live,” Zerlina Maxwell, who served as Director of Progressive Media for the Clinton campaign, reacted to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D-NY) comments about Bill Clinton and the Lewinsky scandal by saying Gillibrand is “in the right.”
After playing a clip of Gillibrand defending her earlier statement that Bill Clinton should have resigned over the Lewinsky scandal by saying that while Clinton did “very important things” for the country, elected officials need to be held to high standards, society needs to change, and people should be allowed to tell their stories, Host Alex Witt asked Maxwell if Gillibrand is “in the right here, or is she just angering Democrats?”
Maxwell answered, “I think she’s in the right. And I recently interviewed her about the topic of gender violence, specifically. So, this is an issue that she cares deeply about. She has spoken to a number of survivors over the past four-to-five years, and so, she understands this issue. And she’s right to say, times have changed since the ’90s. We understand this issue in an entirely different way then the ’90s, then the time when Anita Hill testified and Clarence Thomas went, and is still on the Supreme Court. And so, we’re at a moment now, where we believe women who come forward, and we try to hold men accountable, or at least attempt to. And I think that that’s what’s happening right now in this cultural shift, that’s happening in real time. It’s very accelerated. I mean, the Harvey Weinstein story broke less than two months ago. And so, this is a very accelerated moment, where we’re not really sure where to go from here in terms of public accountability for elected officials and politicians and people in Hollywood. But I think every single man listening to the sound of my voice should probably reflect on how they treat women, and how they’ve treated women in the past. This is not just a conversation for famous people.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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