Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) turned on his most powerful patron Monday, telling MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that former President Bill Clinton should have personally apologized to White House intern Monica Lewinsky following their affair during his Oval Office tenure.

Clinton and Lewinsky infamously engaged in an affair during Clinton’s first term in office and into the beginning of his second. The news of the affair first broke in January 1998, and the resulting scandal led to Clinton’s impeachment by the House of Representatives in December 1998 for perjury and obstruction of justice. The Senate, also controlled by Republicans, declined to convict Clinton.

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Many in the nation’s media and political circles are now revisiting Clinton’s treatment of the former intern in the era of the #MeToo movement — which highlights women’s stories of abuse by powerful men in superior/subordinate relationships.

McAuliffe, the longtime personal and professional ally of the Clintons who backed their purchase of a New York mansion after Bill Clinton left office, addressed the controversy Monday following the former president’s emphatic defense of himself during an interview with NBC News’ Craig Melvin on the “Today” show.

“Of course, you were closely identified with the Clintons as an ally,” Mitchell noted to McAuliffe. “Does President Clinton need to rethink his responses — given that things have changed and that power relationships between men and women, mostly men and women who are less powerful — are very much, very different than they were 20 years ago, I’d say?”

McAuliffe replied, “I wish he had said today, that he had said many times, ‘I apologize,’ publicly apologized, felt horrible for the actions that he did and moved on,” McAuliffe admitted.

Noting that he is a “very close” friend of the Clintons, McAuliffe said it was a “terrible time for the country. The moral standards haven’t changed, but the standards about how we now talk about what happens in the workplace have, and that’s a good thing.”

It is noteworthy that McAuliffe, a prolific Democratic fundraiser, turned on Clinton in such a fashion because of his long history with the former president and his wife, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

McAuliffe raised $275 million to support Clinton’s causes during the 1990s. In a controversial move, he also secured a $1.35 million mortgage for the Clinton’s post-presidency residence in Chappaqua, New York. What’s more, McAuliffe co-chaired Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

But Clinton, who has been accused of sexual assault and harassment on multiple occasions by numerous women since he was first elected governor of Arkansas in 1978, faces an increasingly negative spotlight in the #MeToo era.

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Clinton defended himself in his interview with Melvin and portrayed himself as a victim. He even claimed, “I like the #MeToo movement,” saying that “it’s way overdue,” but “it doesn’t mean I agree with everything.”

Clinton repeated a claim he and his wife, Hillary, have made repeatedly since 2001, saying, “I left the White House $16 million in debt.”

Clinton then attacked his interviewer, arguing that he “typically have ignored gaping facts. And I bet you don’t even know them. This was litigated 20 years ago, two-thirds of the American people sided with me.”

When Melvin asked Clinton if he’d ever apologized, the former president said he had “apologized to everybody in the world.” But when Melvin asked if Clinton had ever personally apologized to Lewinsky, he said, “I have not talked to her.”

“Do you feel like you owe her an apology?” Melvin asked. Clinton replied, “No. I have not talked to her, but I did say publicly on more than one occasion that I was sorry,” Clinton insisted.

Related: Town & Country Nailed for Disinviting ‘Humiliated’ Lewinsky

Clinton also insisted that he would not have approached the Lewinsky scandal differently if it occurred today in light of the #MeToo movement, saying, “I don’t think it would be an issue.”

“Because people would be using the facts instead of the imagined facts. If the facts were the same today, I wouldn’t,” Clinton said.

Lewinsky, now an anti-bullying activist, tweeted Monday following Clinton’s interview:

“Grateful to the myriad people who have helped me evolve + gain perspective in the past 20 years,” Lewinsky said as she reposted a Vanity Fair article from March 2018 called, “Monica Lewinsky: Emerging from ‘The House of Gaslight’ in the Age of #MeToo.”

Clinton’s interview also came a month after Town & Country magazine apologized to Lewinsky for disinviting her to its social change summit after learning Clinton would be attending.

PoliZette writer Kathryn Blackhurst can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter.

(photo credit, homepage images: Bill Clinton, CC BY 2.0, by Hayden Schiff)