damaging. of course that kicked off the impeachment drama with clinton. clinton survived. how did he survive, why did he survive and what does that tell us about trump's situation now? number one, there's this, when the lewinsky story broke he was very popular, already at 60% in the polls. and the numbers didn't crash. they kept going up. clinton was forced in the summer of '98 to admit to the affair. his popularity got higher. september '98, almost exactly 20 years ago ken starr came out with a report that formally accused the president of the a imcro crime, committing perjury. the white house party, we tell you every time we're on this doing election previews this year, the white house party always loses seats. they gained seats. that told folks there was a backlash against the idea of impeaching clinton. this is the bottom line story of 1998. by the end of that year when impeachment was being pushed by republicans the question was asked, did the president of the united states commit a crime. the vast majority of americans said yes.