Politics
Vice President JD Vance Says Watergate Scandal That Took Down Richard Nixon Would Only Be ‘12-Hour’ Story Today
Vice President JD Vance thinks that the times have certainly changed.
President Donald Trump‘s second in command, 41, reflected on the Watergate scandal that prompted then-president Richard Nixon to resign from office on August 9, 1974.
While promoting his new book, Communion, at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California, the vice president stated, “If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story,” per the Associated Press.
“The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy,” he said.
On June 17, 1972, people associated with Nixon’s 1972 re-election campaign were caught planting listening devices in the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex.
The attempted cover-up of the scandal led to his resignation in August 1974.
Vance — who said the legacy of the late 37th president is “enjoying a bit of a renaissance” — identified parallels to Trump, who was impeached twice, but acquitted by the Senate both times.
“If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration,” Vance said, per the AP.
Vance also compared himself to Nixon, who first served as the 36th vice president under president Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1961. (Though Vance has not made any formal announcements, he is viewed as a top contender to run on the Republican ticket for the next presidential election — that is if Trump doesn’t attempt to stay in office for an unconstitutional third term.)
“Young senator, vice president, writes some bestselling books, is hated by the media,” Vance said, comparing himself to Nixon, who died in 1994 at age 81.
“It kind of sounds like JD Vance,” he said. “I’ve always liked Richard Nixon.”
Nixon, who was in his second term when he resigned in 1974, had a stroke on April 18, 1994, and died four days later.
