The Democrats should consider keeping the Clintons on the sidelines during the election campaign, TV host Bill Maher said on his talk show “Real Time” on Friday.
“I know in your book you say you got 2016 wrong because you forgot Bill Clinton’s first rule of politics, which is make it about them,” Maher told Paul Begala, who was a close advisor to President Bill Clinton.
He went on to say that the question “what do we do with the Clintons now” always bubbles up during the elections.
Maher recalled that Epstein’s accusers have testified they saw Bill Clinton on Jeffrey Epstein's private island where scores of minors were allegedly abused.
After Begala reacted with disbelief, Maher said: “You shake your head like, ‘Oh that’s impossible! Bill Clinton, a horny guy, on sex island? Ridiculous!”
“Look, it’s possible,” he continued, adding that the Clintons are “huge distractions”.
Begala avoided directly addressing the concerns about the Epstein-Clinton connection, saying that the fact Bill Clinton won two presidential elections and Hillary Clinton won a popular vote in 2016 means they are “pretty talented politicians”.
He suggested that the Democrats should deploy Bill Clinton to rally voters for Joe Biden because of his record on the economy.
“Bill Clinton has credibility on the economy, which is the one issue holding Trump up right now,” Begala said. “I guess people saw him portray a CEO on a cardboard set for 14 years on NBC because they feel like he’s a businessman.”
Bill Maher last year urged Bill and Hillary Clinton to skip the Democratic National Convention this summer due to their controversial brand. Both are slated to get speaking roles at the event, which is scheduled for 17-20 August.
Clinton-Epstein ties
The former president is known to have been close with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who died by a reported suicide last year while awaiting trial on new charges of child sex abuse.
Bill Clinton gladly posed with Epstein’s presumed “madam”, Ghislaine Maxwell, aboard the financier’s private jet dubbed “The Lolita Express”. The two once had a secret affair, according to an account by investigative reporters, which Clinton has denied. He was also photographed with a woman who later accused Epstein of raping her when she worked as his personal masseuse.
Epstein’s co-pilot told investigators that Clinton was on that jet “numerous times”, a claim backed by flight logs. The same man revealed that Epstein had “underage” stewardesses dressed as “sexy nurses”.
Clinton acknowledged having flown on the plane but insisted he had never visited Epstein’s island in the Caribbean. This contradicts the newly-unsealed court documents by one of Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Giuffre, who alleged that she once saw the former president on the island with “two young girls” from New York.
Moreover, there have been reports that Clinton had visited that Manhattan home of Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
The British media heiress attended Chelsea Clinton’s July 2010 private wedding and attended the events of the Clinton Foundation’s Global Initiative as recently as 2013.
Bill Clinton denies ever knowing about any of Epstein’s wrongdoings; none of Epstein accusers have implicated Clinton in the sex crimes.