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Quote:Former President Bill Clinton may have seen his wife’s Oval Office ambitions as a threat, a one-time top adviser said in a blistering new interview.

Longtime Bubba confidante Doug Band dished to Vanity Fair about Clinton’s oftentimes unhinged behavior on the 2008 primary campaign trail — saying he thinks the outbursts were caused by a desire for Hillary to lose.

“He was used to it being all about him, and if she won, it would be all about her,” Band said.

Band rose from being Clinton’s White House body man to his most trusted post-presidency aide — before being exiled after a falling out. He said his former boss wasn’t ready for such a big life change.

“That’s not how [Bill] lived his life for the four decades leading up to that election.”

The ex-president’s outbursts while he campaigned for his wife were so notable that top Democratic officials asked him to tone it down.

Some commentators even accused Clinton of “playing the race card” with his attacks on Barack Obama.

At the time, Band said he attributed his mentor’s erratic conduct to the lingering effects of Clinton’s 2004 heart attack, the fact that he hadn’t run a national campaign in more than 10 years — and a deep dislike of Hillary’s opponent.

“Obama drove him nuts,” Band told the magazine.

However, looking back, Band thinks Clinton could have simply been dabbling in sabotage, consciously or unconsciously, so his wife wouldn’t win.

“In her White House, he would be back under a microscope but without the benefit of being the one in charge,” Band said.

A Clinton family spokesperson shot down the suggestion as “ridiculous,” in a statement to the mag.

“President Clinton did more than 300 events on [Hillary’s] behalf, and very much wanted her to win,” the spokesperson said.

The rep accused Band of being self-serving and abusing the relationship with Clinton for his own financial gain.

Quote:The then-fledgling Obama administration endeavored to keep former President Bill Clinton from getting credit for freeing two hostages from North Korea in 2009, according to new interviews with a one-time top Clinton aide.

In a Vanity Fair piece published Wednesday, longtime Bubba confidante Doug Band said that as Clinton was returning to America with freed American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling, he learned that the Obama administration wanted the former president to deplane separately from the two women — depriving him of the positive publicity.

Band — who ascended from Clinton’s White House body man to his most trusted post-presidency aide — speculated that the petty move was residual bitterness over sniping comments Clinton made during the 2008 Democratic primary, which pitted his wife, Hillary, against Obama.

“It wasn’t lost on me what the moment would mean in terms of erasing all the dumb stuff Clinton did in the 2008 campaign,” Band recalled to Vanity Fair of the potential photo op with the hostages.

Band phoned then-National Security Council head Denis McDonough from the plane and said that, while ultimately Clinton would abide by the White House’s wishes, it would be a bad look for Clinton to be deprived the moment.

“I’m saving you from yourself here,” Band recalled telling McDonough. “People are going to be like, ‘How small are you guys?’”

The Obama administration acquiesced, and Clinton got his photo op.

The purported plane incident was just one instance of White House micromanagement that Band cited from the August 2009 trip, in which Clinton secured the release of Ling and Lee from the despotic Hermit Kingdom of since-deceased dictator Kim Jong-il.

Since the pair had been arrested months earlier for filming along North Korea’s Chinese border, the Obama administration had conducted back-channel discussions in an attempt to free them.

Kim, however, refused to meet with other US envoys including former president Jimmy Carter, insisting on Clinton.

As Band and Clinton prepared to fly out, there was still one hold-up: White House approval.

“It was still early on in the Obama administration and feelings were still quite raw,” Band told Vanity Fair. “The Obama folks were incredibly worried about Clinton going off script.”

Obama wanted Clinton to stay in North Korea for no more than 20 hours, while Kim wanted a longer visit.

The White House also warned against paying a dime in bribes — but Band said that he prepared a duffel bag stuffed with $100,000 in cash of his own money just in case.

Obama only signed off once the group agreed to take along mutual ally John Podesta to monitor the situation.

It was only during a refueling stop in Japan that Band learned that Kim had been promised a letter of gratitude from Obama — which the president had since decided not to write, for fear of being perceived as propping up a despot, Band said.

Upon landing in North Korea, Kim’s daughter, Kim Yo-jong — who has recently been viewed as a possible future ruler of the nation amid health concerns over her brother, Kim Jong-un — immediately demanded the letter.

Band deflected by insisting on seeing the hostages first, a stalling game he had to maintain for the duration of the trip.

“For the next 20 hours, I did everything I could to make sure that they didn’t get upset that I didn’t have the letter,” Band told Vanity Fair. “In their minds, that was part of the deal and we didn’t live up to our end of it. It was a mistake by the White House.”

The mission ultimately succeeded, however, and may have helped mend the rift between Clinton and Obama.

Shortly after the plane landed in America, Obama phoned Clinton to thank him for his service, in their first conversation in some time, Ling recalled in a memoir, according to The New Yorker.

The tales were just part of a wide-ranging series of interviews Band gave to Vanity Fair, also including details on the Clinton family’s ties to deep-pocketed pervert Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Band and Clinton have since had a falling out, with a Clinton family spokesperson accusing Band of being self-serving and abusing the relationship for his own financial gain.