LINDA TRIPP'S UP

04/26/1999 at 12:00 AM EDT

Linda Tripp, whose secret tape recordings spurred the impeachment crisis, said she'd "do it all again" and expose a relationship in which President Clinton "abused, used, discarded" former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. In her first TV interview since the scandal broke more than a year ago, Tripp told NBC (which aired the interview on Friday's "Today" show) that "the public has no clue ... absolutely no idea what Monica endured ... the histrionics, the hysteria, the throwing of lamps, the damage to herself" and that Clinton "emotionally abused Monica. People think this" relationship was "consensual and that I inserted myself somehow," but "it was not." Tripp, who has emerged as one of the most unpopular figures in the Presidential scandal, was accused of betraying her friendship with the younger Lewinsky by secretly taping the telephone calls in which the intern talked about her affair with the President.

• Tripp insisted that she would want someone to expose an improper relationship if it involved her daughter, just as she did for Lewinsky. "I would thank them," Tripp said. "If my daughter found herself in a situation such as this where she was being abused, used, discarded, I would hope someone would come in and help her."
  
  
• Tripp also said she didn't mind John Goodman's impersonation of her on "Saturday Night Live." She said she's a big fan of the actor-comedian, though "no one likes to be the butt of a joke."