Kerry, who formerly served as a senator in Massachusetts, appeared on CNN's "The Lead," where he discussed his new book, Every Day is Extra, and pushed back against host Jake Tapper's question about whether Democrats have held people like Kennedy and former Democratic President Bill Clinton accountable for their actions.
Following an exchange about sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who has denied all claims, Tapper asked Kerry about Kennedy and Clinton.
"I've heard Ted Kennedy's name invoked in the last week or two and Bill Clinton's name invoked in the last week or two by conservatives saying Democrats seeded the moral high ground on a lot of these sexual assault and sexual harassment issues by standing by people like Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy because of the good things in their view that they did," Tapper said.
Kerry pushed back by saying that "many of us were critical" of Clinton and then pivoted to talk about how he personally did not believe Clinton's actions were impeachable. Clinton's sexual relationship in the 1990s with Monica Lewinsky, who was a young White House intern at the time, led to impeachment proceedings against the 42nd president when he was caught lying under oath.