Mike Pence said he could remember debating during the Bill Clinton years "whether character mattered to the presidency." | Getty Pence targets Bill Clinton's character

MESA, Ariz. -- Mike Pence took aim at Bill Clinton on Thursday, saying “character matters to the presidency.”

"I’m old enough to remember back in the last Clinton administration where America really had a debate over whether character mattered to the presidency," the Republican vice presidential nominee told a few hundred people at Living World Bible Church. "We don’t need to have that debate again. Character matters to the presidency and Donald Trump will bring the highest level of integrity to the highest office in the land. You can count on it."


Pence has frequently hit Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for what he calls a lack of integrity, but Thursday marked the first time he implicated Bill Clinton in the argument. He avoided his typical indictment of Hillary Clinton's use of private email server while secretary of state, instead focusing his attack on her husband.

Pence’s running mate, Republican nominee Donald Trump, has not shown a similar reticence in attacking Bill Clinton over the sex scandal that led to Clinton's impeachment in the House but an ultimate acquittal in the Senate.

"I'm so glad they kept that dress," Trump said a rally in August, in reference to an infamous blue dress that implicated the former president in the affair.

Hillary Clinton, for her part, is preparing for Trump to raise the scandal in the upcoming presidential debate. Trump has also gone further in attacking Bill Clinton, accusing the former president of rape.