US V-P Vance says Nixon Watergate scandal would not end a modern presidency

WASHINGTON – US Vice-President J.D. Vance called it “crazy” that the Watergate scandal toppled Richard Nixon’s presidency, saying it would have barely registered in today’s political environment.

While promoting his new book at the Nixon presidential library in California, Vance said he had always liked the former president, who resigned under a cloud of scandal.

He drew parallels between Nixon and President Donald Trump, a fellow Republican who was impeached twice during his first term, saying they were both targeted by “deep state” forces.

“If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy,” Vance said on June 25.

Watergate was one of the biggest political scandals in American history.

In 1972, five men hired by Nixon’s re-election campaign were arrested in Washington while breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in an attempt to surveil the office.

The resulting investigations eventually consumed Nixon’s presidency and he resigned in August 1974 rather than face impeachment.

The saga deeply eroded Americans’ trust in government.

“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.

Vance, who entered politics by running successfully for Senate in Ohio and who is expected to run for president in 2028, said he shares several things in common with Nixon on “a personal level”.

“Young senator, vice-president, write some best-selling books, is hated by the media. It kind of sounds like J.D. Vance,” Vance said.

Nixon served as a United States senator from California and then as vice-president to Dwight Eisenhower before being elected president in 1968. BLOOMBERG