Former President Bill Clinton was asked in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on Thursday whether he had any advice for President Donald Trump as he faces an impeachment inquiry.

"My message was — would be: Look, you got hired to do a job," Clinton said. "You don't get the days back you blow off. Every day's an opportunity to make something good happen."

Clinton was the last president to face impeachment following his affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. He was acquitted of charges of perjury and obstruction following a five-week Senate trial in 1999.

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Former President Bill Clinton, the last president to face impeachment, has some advice for President Donald Trump as he faces his own impeachment battle: Get on with your day job.

"My message was — would be: Look, you got hired to do a job," Clinton told CNN's Jake Tapper in a phone interview that aired Thursday. "You don't get the days back you blow off. Every day is an opportunity to make something good happen.

"And I would say, 'I've got lawyers and staff people handling this impeachment inquiry, and they should just have at it. Meanwhile, I'm going to work for the American people,'" he continued. "That's what I would do."

Clinton is in a unique position to offer insights to the incumbent, having been only the second president in US history to be impeached.

In 1999, after a five-week Senate trial, Clinton was acquitted of charges of perjury and obstruction relating to his affair with a 21-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.

On Wednesday, the first House impeachment hearings since Clinton's opened in the Capitol, when two senior State Department officials testified about Trump's attempts to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rival Joe Biden.

Trump has been accused of abusing his power in seeking the investigations and withholding military aid as leverage.

Trump won the presidency in 2016 after a bruising contest with Clinton's wife, Hillary Clinton, the former first lady and secretary of state.

So far, Trump does not appear to be taking the route advocated by Bill Clinton. He has refused to work with congressional Democrats leading the impeachment inquiry and launched social-media attacks on key witnesses and Democrats.

Clinton, who phoned in to CNN to discuss the shooting at a high school in Santa Clarita, California, on Thursday, criticized Attorney General William Barr's claim that the impeachment inquiry was stalling attempts to pass bipartisan legislation on things like gun control.

"Well, my answer is: Look at how much we got done in 1998 to 1999, and even in 1997. We had very productive actions in all three years," Clinton said, adding that government shutdowns in 1995 and 1996 after Republican congressional gains were the only real points where legislative pushes stalled.