Radio host Rita Cosby grilled Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee for president, over the sexual assault allegations against her husband Former President Bill Clinton in the 90s and the way the women who made the accusations were treated by her. Clinton told the weekend WABC-AM radio host "we have a man who is accused of sexual assault sitting in the Oval Office." Clinton said women who have spoken out against Trump should not be "overlooked or forgotten."



"We have a man who is accused of sexual assault sitting in the Oval Office, don't we? And the very credible accusations against him have not been taken seriously," the former Secretary of State said.



Cosby asked Clinton about her own husband's infidelities. Clinton said that is "not a distraction we should fall for."











"The Republicans are led by a man who admitted to sexually assaulting women," Clinton said. "He bragged about it. And if we're going to encourage women to have the courage to be heard we can't excuse the president from this debate."



"But how is that different than the allegations against your husband?" Cosby asked.



"If the Justice Department wants to assign a special counsel to investigate President Trump that's the parallel. If they want to spend $70 million investigating every allegation anyone might have made against him that would be in line with what happened in the 90s," Clinton said.



"Do you regret not saying something in support of the women? Because you've always said that women should be believed and yet George Stephanopoulos and others said that you were part of the attacking the victims, the women who were making the allegations against your husband. Do you regret that?" Cosby pressed.



"Look, I think every situation has to be judged on its own merits," Clinton responded. "And there were allegations that were disproved. There were allegations that were absolutely contradicted under sworn testimony. So, of course, you should give people who make such allegations the benefit of the doubt, that's what our system does, but then you have to investigate them, and that fully happened in the late 90s."



Transcript:





RITA COSBY, HOST: Do you think that given the fact that it's been 9 women that have made various allegations against Roy Moore should he drop out of the race?



HILLARY CLINTON: Well I'm going to leave that to the Republican party because they're the ones that have to deal with this. And, look, we have a man who is accused of sexual assault sitting in the Oval Office, don't we? And the very credible accusations against him have not been taken seriously. So, I think that the Republicans have a big problem that they are going to have to address and it's not just confined to what's happening in Alabama...



People seemed to think he didn't have to be held accountable for it. And now we're seeing other accusations against other people but that doesn't mean what we learned in the [2016] campaign and what we can see in terms of the women who are still speaking out about their experiences with [Donald Trump] should be overlooked or forgotten.



COSBY: Now you talk about women and that they should be believed. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, your longtime friend, and political ally said in an interview this week that your husband should have resigned after his affair with Monica Lewinsky. What do you say to that?



CLINTON: Well I'm not exactly sure what she was trying to say. There has been some confusion about it. But, look, this was a painful time not only in our marriage but in our country as I've written about. But it was investigated fully. It was addressed at the time. He was held accountable. That is very different than what people seem to be remembering from that period because you can go back and look at the history. But right now this is not a distraction we should fall for. The Republicans are led by a man who admitted to sexually assaulting women. He bragged about it. And if we're going to encourage women to have the courage to be heard we can't excuse the president from this debate.



And, look, the Right and the Republican party need to answer for their own acts and tell America that what Roy Moore and the president did will not be tolerated.



COSBY: But how is that different than the allegations against your husband? Because do you concede that your husband might not have lasted in office if that happened today?



CLINTON: Well I don't know if we can rewrite and revise history. But look if the Justice Department wants to assign a special counsel to investigate President Trump that's the parallel. If they want to spend $70 million investigating every allegation anyone might have made against him that would be in line with what happened in the 90s.



So, if we want to hold people accountable, that happened in the 90s, and I think that's the parallel. If people want to look back in history and say what was done then should be done now then they should go forward and do that.



COSBY: But shouldn't they then look at allegations against your husband and others because some feel that it's a double standard.



CLINTON: I don't think so, Rita. I mean everything was investigating. Everything. I think that's the big difference. When somebody else is investigated to the tune of $70 million and a special prosecutor who wants to prosecute and a partisan Republican party that wants to impeach, that's the parallel. And the people of the United States rejected it, the Senate rejected it, but he was held accountable and he paid a price for it as was appropriate.



COSBY: Do you regret not saying something in support of the women? Because you've always said that women should be believed and yet George Stephanopoulos and others said that you were part of the attacking the victims, the women who were making the allegations against your husband. Do you regret that?



CLINTON: Look, I think every situation has to be judged on its own merits. And there were allegations that were disproved. There were allegations that were absolutely contradicted under sworn testimony. So, of course, you should give people who make such allegations the benefit of the doubt, that's what our system does, but then you have to investigate them, and that fully happened in the late 90s.



And what we've got here is something very different. You know, there's been no commitment to investigate the more than a dozen women who have made charges against President Trump and there's been no effort to really go into and understand what he was talking about in his Hollywood Access tape. So I just say they are not parallel and I think it's unfortunate that people are either misremembering or misinterpreting history. The country remembers it. The country went through it. And it was a painful period. The Republicans spent tens of millions of dollars looking at every part of our lives and we all know what they found. And that was based on those allegations that were provable and the many that were not and this is a distraction that we shouldn't fall for. Because if you're going to hold people to the same standard there's a lot of parallels that are not being followed in recent times.