Filipino Strongman Uses Monica Lewinsky To Push Back Against Chelsea Clinton

Image by Wikipedia

By Daniel J. Solomon May 31, 2017

After Chelsea Clinton criticized him for making a rape joke, Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte hit back at her – with a riff about Monica Lewinsky.

“I will tell her, when your father, the President of the United States, was screwing Lewinsky… the girl there in White House, how did you feel? Did you slam your father?” he said.

The reference to ex-President Bill Clinton’s liaison with intern Monica Lewinsky came after Chelsea Clinton savaged Duterte on Twitter for making light of rape and embracing strongman tactics in his anti-drug efforts.

“Duterte is a murderous thug with no regard for human rights. It’s important to keep pointing that out & that rape is never a joke,” she wrote on Twitter last Friday.

The Filipino president, who has ordered the extralegal killings of thousands of alleged drug users and dealers, joked to troops in a speech last week that they could rape women with impunity under a new martial law provision.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO