Excerpts From Tripp-Lewinsky Tapes
Excerpts from more than 20 hours of tape recordings that Linda Tripp made of conversations with Monica Lewinsky, released Oct. 2 as part of evidence referred to the House Judiciary Committee by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. The tapes were made between Oct. 3 and Dec. 22, 1997; the date of each conversation was not apparent in the transcripts.
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TRIPP: I mean, I believe things happen for a reason, although I have yet to figure out why this happened.
LEWINSKY: I can’t figure it out. Nothing really good has come of it.
TRIPP: Maybe it’s so that you can tell your grandchildren you had an affair with the you-know-what of the you-know-what.
LEWINSKY: I don’t think so. ... What if your grandma right now told you she had an affair with the president? How vastly would that change your grandma’s life? ...
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LEWINSKY: You know what’s sad? Is it’s just I’m leaving, and there is nothing I gained from this experience. He _ his behavior in the past few months has really _ really just eroded any _ any notion I ever had of _ like a pleasant memory, you know.
TRIPP: Well, time has a real strange way of coloring things different ways, so maybe in a _ in a few years, you’ll see this differently. And it also depends on whether you continue to have any kind of relationship with him down the road.
LEWINSKY: Which I doubt.
TRIPP: You know. A friendship, a romantic _ who knows? I mean, all of that will play into how your memory serves you.
LEWINSKY: I just wish I could do something_ I wish I could just do something that would make him go, ‘Gee, I was stupid,’ you know? Like, ‘Boy, it was really dumb to let her go’ _ or something.
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TRIPP: This navy blue dress. Now all I would say to you is: I know how you feel today ... but you have a very long life ahead of you. ... I would rather you had that in your possession if you need it years from now. ...
LEWINSKY: Well, I’ll think about it. ...
TRIPP: ... It could be your only insurance policy down the road. Or it could never be needed and you can throw it away. ... Maybe I’m being paranoid. ...
LEWINSKY: You are being paranoid. Because I’m never going to come forward with this. So as far as I know _
TRIPP: I know that. ... I’m not saying you would ever come forward with this. I’m just saying _
LEWINSKY: And if someone else did, I would deny, deny, deny.
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LEWINSKY: I got ... the creep a tie.
TRIPP: Oh, please.
LEWINSKY: I know. It was 20 bucks at Marshalls.
TRIPP: Oh, good. Who makes it?
LEWINSKY: Calvin Klein. ... Yeah. It’s gorgeous.
TRIPP: Yeah, Marshalls generally _ every now and then you can hit.
LEWINSKY: I know. It’s really nice. ... So I put a really funny note with it. I’m going to send it with the book. ... But with the tie I wrote such a funny card, Linda. ... and I’m like, ‘And just think now you can pay homage to me if you want by having a work week in which you wear one of my ties every day.’ (laughter)
TRIPP: (laughter) ’Cause this will be the fifth one, right?
LEWINSKY: (laughter) Now there are five. It’s the fifth one. ...
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LEWINSKY: Linda, I can’t take it anymore.
TRIPP: I know. I know.
LEWINSKY: (crying) It’s just too _ it’s too much for one person. (crying)
TRIPP: Oh, it is too much for one person. ...
LEWINSKY: I go to work every day (crying) and I just (crying), I’m trying to keep it together and I just can’t.
TRIPP: You’ve been a trouper through this, Monica. ...
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LEWINSKY: I miss him. You’ll get mad at me. You know what I said at the end?
TRIPP: What?
LEWINSKY: The worst I could say.
TRIPP: ‘Do you love me?’
LEWINSKY: No.
TRIPP: ‘I love you.’
LEWINSKY: Yep.
TRIPP: You didn’t.
LEWINSKY: I did. We’re getting off, and I’m like, all right, ‘I love you, butthead.’ I called him butthead.
TRIPP: You didn’t.
LEWINSKY: I did.
TRIPP: And what’d he say?
LEWINSKY: Just nothing. He just kind of hung up. Or I hung up. I was like, oh, my God, what the hell just came out of my mouth?