Do we like Bill Clinton?
Our score: 5 out of 10. Signing anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the 90s (since disowned), a contempt finding and a denied allegation sit against real health work, so it lands in the middle.
Bill Clinton is the former president who just won't leave the stage. This October he was set to make his first campaign appearance of the 2026 midterms, travelling to Florida to back Democrat David Jolly's run for governor. That is a long way from the reputation he carried out of the White House, but the reputation is still the thing people ask about.
The Lewinsky saga is the scandal everyone remembers. In April 1999 a federal judge found him in civil contempt over his testimony in the Paula Jones case. She said he had deliberately violated the court's discovery orders and found his answers about being alone with Monica Lewinsky were “intentionally false”. It was a civil finding, not a criminal one, but it is a judge saying it about a sitting president.
Then there is the allegation he has always rejected. In 1999 Juanita Broaddrick alleged that Clinton forced himself on her in 1978, when he was Arkansas attorney general. His personal lawyer called it “absolutely false”. No court has ruled on it, so it stays an allegation, and you can weigh it however you like.
Epstein is the fresh mess. Clinton was dragged in front of the House Oversight Committee in February, the first former president compelled to testify to Congress, after the Clintons had initially refused subpoenas. His opening statement was “I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong.” He has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but he did fly on Epstein's plane and says he would not have if he had known.
On the harm test, the big stain is from the 90s. He signed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, and the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, which saw almost 14,000 service members discharged. In 2013 he wrote that DOMA is discriminatory and “It should be overturned.” He says he signed it to head off something worse, and defenders buy that while critics don't. His acts changed afterwards, and nothing harmful in his recent words or company turned up.
The good stuff is real. In September 2025 he opened the Clinton Global Initiative warning about the dismantling of foreign aid and “the war on science and public health”. The Clinton Health Access Initiative is part of a plan to supply the HIV prevention drug lenacapavir in 120 low- and middle-income countries at $40 per person per year from 2027.