Bill Clinton is not the subject of any single episode in the excerpts; he surfaces as a reference point in arguments about taxation, impeachment, internet regulation and inequality. The treatments are brief and, on fiscal matters, contested.
The surplus and the 39% rate
In the 2011 episode on whether the United States is the next Enron, a caller identified as Jeff asked whether Bill Clinton had paid down part of the deficit and had a surplus when he came into office, and had raised the top rate to 39 percent, asking why the same could not be done now. Peter Suderman answered that the caller’s numbers were wrong, and that ending the Bush tax cuts would save two and a half trillion over 10 years rather than a trillion; he said ending the cuts on the top two brackets was what Democrats had proposed, and that Democrats had repeatedly said they did not want to raise taxes on people making less than $250,000 a year. Suderman added that even letting the entire Bush tax cuts expire would bring in 2.1 trillion dollars while projections for the next decade still showed a seven-trillion-dollar deficit, and probably more like 12 trillion, with entitlements the biggest long-term drivers. Bob Zadek’s contribution to the exchange was about the older tax code rather than about Clinton: he said the very high marginal rates of the past came with so many deductions and exceptions that people effectively paid the same rate anyway, describing a skewed system that benefits subsets of taxpayers, and noting agreement across the political spectrum on lowering marginal rates and eliminating deductions, with the fight being over whose deduction is lost. Suderman named the employer health insurance deduction and the mortgage deduction as the biggest and hardest to remove because the middle class values them. Is the US the Next Enron? (2011)
Impeachment as precedent
Clinton’s impeachment functions in the excerpts as the standard precedent for the argument that an offense need not end a presidency. In the December 2019 episode on which impeachment movie one is watching, Gene Healy said impeachment is part legal and part political: the Constitution sets out in Article II, Section 4 the standard of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, so a theory of that phrase is needed, but once an offense is judged impeachable that does not settle whether removal is necessary, prudent or a good idea. He said Richard Nixon had articles of impeachment about obstruction of justice and was driven from office, and that Bill Clinton was impeached for obstruction of justice, but that in the Clinton case the Senate decided removal was not warranted. He also said impeachment is not a criminal process and does not require a crime. Which Impeachment Movie Are You Watching? (2019)
The January 2020 episode with John Rothmann makes the same precedent do different work. Rothmann said Bill Clinton obstructed justice and committed perjury, that the Lewinsky case was well known, and that even though Clinton did something terribly egregious the Democrats argued it did not rise to the level for which he should be removed — which, he said, is what Republicans were then saying about Donald Trump, whose defense he described as never denying his actions but arguing they did not rise to the level for removal. Zadek put the question in hypothetical form, asking whether impeachment should be used to remove a generally good president who committed an impeachable act, calling Clinton an example of a generally good president with whom he disagreed on a lot, and asking whether impeachment corrects a voting error or is event-specific. Rothmann answered by way of Nixon, for whom he had worked: he called Nixon in many ways an exemplary president in foreign policy and certain aspects of domestic policy, but said Nixon broke trust and got caught in a lie, and that Republicans in Congress condemned the action rather than the presidency. Rothmann also said Nixon did not order the Watergate break-in — his crime was the cover-up, and had he remained silent he would not have been removed. Withholding Judgment on Impeachment with John Rothmann (2020)
A third episode, from April 2012, gives the impeachment a different character again. Larry Klayman said the disputes between the parties are for political purposes, that even the impeachment of Bill Clinton was used politically just to weaken the Democratic Party rather than to knock Clinton out, and that he was instrumental in helping to start that impeachment process. Who’s Looking Out for Us? (2012)
Commercial traffic on the internet
The 2015 episode with Bill Frezza credits Clinton with a specific deregulatory step. Frezza said that under the acceptable use doctrine it was illegal to put commercial traffic on the internet, that one had to be associated with a university to get an email account, and that this changed in 1992 when the question of allowing commercial traffic came to a head. He said he would give Bill Clinton credit for that, recalled going to hearings in Washington and sitting next to Bill Shrader, founder of PSINet, and described fighting against Ralph Nader and his organizations, whose view via the Taxpayer Assets Project was that the internet should be like a public library and that people should not profit from, shop on, or advertise on it. Frezza said Congress was looking the other way and Clinton had bigger fish to fry, and that in 1992 or 1993 commercial traffic was allowed for the first time, a year or two before the first browser was invented. Bill Frezza’s History of Telecom Innovation (and Not) (2015)
Bush v. Gore and the 2014 London conference
Two further episodes mention Clinton in passing. In the 2019 episode on demystifying the Supreme Court, David Kaplan discussed Bush v. Gore as the Court’s most open wound, said the Constitution and a federal statute both provide that Congress should decide a disputed presidential election, and criticized Justice Scalia’s explanation that the Court had to step in because the country was becoming the laughingstock of the world; in the course of describing what might have happened had resolution run past inauguration day, Kaplan said he was pretty sure Bill Clinton would have been happy to stick around for a few extra weeks. Demystifying the Supreme Court (2019)
In the 2015 episode on inclusive capitalism, Zadek said Bill Clinton was the keynote speaker at the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism held in London on May 27, 2014, attended by over 220 leaders from business and finance, and that the Duke of Wales was there; Zadek characterized the attendees as anybody who was anybody in the world of anti-capitalism and said they were plotting to change the system. Inclusive Capitalism: Economic Savior or Socialism in Disguise? (2015)
Welfare reform as a template
The 2013 episode on war and extra-constitutional power closes with Zadek praising the Obama administration for taking steps to make housing subsidies like welfare after Clinton and the Republicans reformed welfare: subsidies limited to a period such as three years rather than open-ended, after which the recipient is expected to support himself and the subsidy passes to the next person who deserves housing. War – A Rationale For Extra-Constitutional Power? (2013)
Across episodes
The excerpts show no development in the treatment of Clinton across episodes. The fiscal claim is raised by a caller and disputed by a guest in 2011; the impeachment precedent is invoked by Klayman in 2012, by Healy in 2019 and by Rothmann in 2020, each for a different argument; the internet credit is Frezza’s in 2015; the conference appearance is Zadek’s in 2015; and the welfare-reform comparison is Zadek’s in 2013. No guest or host revisits and revises an earlier assessment.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts contain no episode devoted to Clinton’s presidency, no discussion of his earlier political career, and no treatment of his post-presidential activity beyond the 2014 keynote. The caller’s claim about a surplus and a 39 percent rate is reported only as a claim that Suderman rejects, and the excerpts do not establish what the actual figures were. The impeachment references assume familiarity with the underlying conduct and do not describe the articles or the Senate vote beyond Rothmann’s statement that the Senate decided removal was not warranted. Nothing in the excerpts states Clinton’s dates in office or the outcome of any election he contested.