The President's Men: 1973 / 2026

usapolitics.news  Analytical Journalism. 

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"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." — JD Vance, Richard Nixon Presidential Library, June 25, 2026

On the evening of June 25, 2026, JD Vance stood in the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California, promoting a book about his journey back to Christian faith, and said something that deserves to be read slowly.

"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."

He was not wrong. He meant it as a defense of Nixon. It is, in fact, an indictment of everything that has happened since.

Watergate began in the early hours of June 17, 1972, when five men were arrested inside the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington. What followed was not a single crime but a systemic architecture of abuse: a White House enemies list used to direct the IRS against political opponents; the CIA pressured to obstruct an FBI investigation; secret payments of hush money to operatives; the Saturday Night Massacre; and finally, on the White House tapes, Nixon's own voice instructing aides on how to contain the investigation six days after the break-in. He resigned on August 9, 1974, the only American president ever to do so, facing near-certain impeachment.

The process that produced that outcome took two years. It required a free press — the Washington Post's Woodward and Bernstein, sustained over months of investigation with no guarantee of resolution. It required a Senate select committee that held televised hearings watched by tens of millions. It required a Supreme Court that ruled unanimously, 8-0, that Nixon had to turn over the tapes. It required enough Republicans — Howard Baker, Barry Goldwater, Hugh Scott — to tell a president of their own party that it was over. It required, in other words, every institutional check the American constitutional system possesses, working simultaneously and under sustained pressure, over 26 months.

Vance is correct that none of that would happen today. The question he did not ask — and that the audience at the Nixon Library did not ask — is why.

The answer is not that Watergate was not serious. Historian and journalist Garrett Graff, who wrote one of the defining books about Watergate, described Vance's comments as "shockingly ahistorical" and an "immature understanding of what Watergate was and wasn't." The answer is that the institutions that processed Watergate into accountability have been systematically weakened — and that the weakening has been celebrated by the same political movement now staging a Nixon renaissance at a presidential library in California.

Consider what has changed. The Senate of Howard Baker — the Republican who asked "What did the president know and when did he know it?" — has been replaced by a Senate that this week provided a precise illustration of what institutional capitulation looks like in practice. On Tuesday, for the first time in history since the War Powers Resolution of 1973, both chambers of Congress approved a concurrent resolution directing a sitting president to end a military conflict — the Iran war. Four Republican senators broke ranks to make it possible: Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul, and Bill Cassidy. It was a historically significant moment. It lasted approximately 24 hours.

On Wednesday, Trump went to Capitol Hill, called Cassidy a "lunatic" in a closed-door lunch, and demanded to know why Republicans had voted against him. Cassidy, who had shouted back at the president and told reporters he would not be bullied, received a private briefing from Vance and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff at the White House that afternoon. That evening he returned to the Capitol and voted against the war powers resolution he had supported the day before. Trump celebrated on Truth Social: "Wow! The Senate just changed its vote on Iran." He was not quite right about the mechanics, but he was right about what had happened. Two senators had looked at the president calling one of them a lunatic and decided, after a briefing, that their concerns had been addressed.

The Senate that held a late-night vote to make the president feel better about a war powers rebuke that had lasted less than a day is the same Senate that confirmed without meaningful objection a Defense Secretary who said Operation Epic Fury would have "no stupid rules of engagement" three days after a US missile killed 120 children in a school in Minab, Iran. Howard Baker's question — what did the president know and when did he know it — assumed that the answer mattered to the people being asked. That assumption no longer holds.

The Supreme Court that ruled 8-0 against Nixon in 1974 issued a ruling in 2024 that granted presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts — a ruling that, applied retroactively, would have made the Nixon tapes inadmissible as evidence of criminal conduct. The press that broke Watergate operates in a media environment where a story that does not generate sufficient outrage within 12 hours is algorithmically buried and commercially abandoned.

Vance identified the symptom and called it a feature.

There is a second argument embedded in his remarks: that Nixon was brought down not by his own conduct but by "the deep state" — the same forces he said pursued Trump. This argument requires ignoring the tapes. Nixon's voice is on them — instructing his chief of staff to have the CIA obstruct the FBI, discussing hush money payments, constructing the cover-up six days after the break-in. The deep state did not put those words in his mouth. He put them on tape himself, in the Oval Office, and the Supreme Court ordered them released. As historian Tim Naftali put it: "It's not as if it's a matter of partisan interpretation. The evidence is overwhelming. If he does know all of this, he's telegraphing the kind of president he hopes to be."

There is a name for what happened on the evening of October 20, 1973. The press called it the Saturday Night Massacre. Congressional offices were flooded with more telegrams than at any point in American history. Impeachment resolutions began to be filed in the House within days. Richardson and Ruckelshaus lost their jobs rather than carry out an order they considered unlawful. The cost to them was real and immediate. (1)

Fifty-two years later, Senator Bill Cassidy received a briefing from JD Vance and Steve Witkoff at the White House, said his concerns had been addressed, and changed his vote on the Iran war. The distance between those two responses is a precise measurement of what has changed.

That last sentence is worth sitting with. Vance is widely expected to run for president in 2028. He chose the Nixon Library for this particular observation. He compared himself to Nixon explicitly — "young senator, vice president, writes some bestselling books, is hated by the media. It kind of sounds like JD Vance." He said Nixon's legacy is "enjoying a bit of a renaissance, and deservedly so."

What Vance is describing as a renaissance is not a reexamination of Nixon's record. It is a lowering of the threshold. If Watergate would only last 12 hours today, that is not evidence that Watergate was trivial. It is evidence that the tolerance for presidential misconduct has expanded so dramatically that a coordinated obstruction of justice, a White House enemies list, the firing of a special prosecutor, and the use of the CIA to obstruct an FBI investigation would be processed and discarded before the evening news.

The things happening now that are processed and discarded in 12 hours include: a US missile striking a school full of girls in Minab, Iran, killing 120 children, with no one held accountable four months later; a sitting president purchasing stock in a company whose event he then hosted on the White House lawn; a Defense Secretary firing senior military officers without explanation while conducting active combat operations; a president announcing his intention to seize the oil infrastructure of a sovereign nation; a fuel blockade that has left a million Cubans without reliable water access.

Each of those stories broke. Each generated coverage. Each moved on.

Vance's point is that this is fine. That Watergate should be measured against this standard, and found to have been overblown. That the institutions which forced accountability in 1974 were themselves the problem.

What he said at the Nixon Library, without quite realizing he was saying it, is that the ethical floor has been removed. He presented that as progress — a strange posture for a movement that has always defined itself by its defense of institutions against the arbitrary exercise of power. It is worth being precise about what it actually is.

Nixon was forced from office because enough people — in the press, in Congress, on the Supreme Court, in his own party — decided that what he had done could not be normalized. The decision was not automatic. It was not inevitable. It required people in institutions to choose accountability over loyalty, at personal and political cost.

Vance's 12-hour news story is what happens when they stop making that choice. He went to the Nixon Library to celebrate it. He is, on current trajectory, running for president on it.

The tapes still exist. Nixon's voice is still on them. That has not changed. What has changed is the number of people for whom it matters.

Sources

(1) The Saturday Night Massacre, October 20, 1973. Richardson resignation confirmed in Senate testimony, November 1973. Ruckelshaus account in multiple contemporaneous sources including the Washington Post, October 21, 1973. Congressional telegram volume reported by Western Union and cited in the House Judiciary Committee record, 1974.

Vance's Nixon Library remarks

  • NBC News, June 26, 2026 — full quote; Nixon Library location; book promotion context
  • NBC Philadelphia, June 26, 2026 — "young senator, vice president, writes some bestselling books" self-comparison
  • New Republic, June 26, 2026 — "I joked backstage" framing; deep state argument
  • Newsweek, June 26, 2026 — Watergate historical summary; Nixon resignation context
  • MSNBC/MaddowBlog, June 26, 2026 — Garrett Graff "shockingly ahistorical" quote; Tim Naftali "telegraphing the kind of president he hopes to be" quote; Ed Martin "hoax" claim; Monica Crowley endorsement
  • Rolling Stone, June 26, 2026 — Chris Rufo "Nixon Renaissance" quote; lowering of ethical standards framing

Watergate historical record

  • General historical record on the break-in, Saturday Night Massacre, White House tapes, Nixon resignation
  • United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974) — 8-0 Supreme Court ruling on tapes
  • Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. ___ (2024) — presidential immunity ruling

Senate war powers vote reversal

  • PBS NewsHour/AP, June 24, 2026 — Tuesday vote 50-48; first time both chambers approved concurrent resolution; Collins, Murkowski, Paul, Cassidy broke ranks; Fetterman voted against; McConnell absent
  • Common Dreams, June 25, 2026 — Cassidy shouting match; "temper tantrum" Kaine quote; Trump "Republican losers" social media post
  • NewsNation, June 25, 2026 — Cassidy account of exchange; "I'm not going to be bullied"; escalation detail
  • NBC News, June 26, 2026 — Wednesday night vote 50-47; Cassidy and Paul changed votes; Republican leadership held vote knowing it would fail; Vance and Witkoff briefing; Cassidy "thorough briefing" post
  • ABC News, June 25, 2026 — Trump called Cassidy "lunatic"; Cassidy did not dispute; Paul "present" vote explanation
  • CNN, June 24, 2026 — closed-door lunch detail; Trump celebrating Truth Social post; "Wow!" quote

Hegseth "no stupid rules of engagement"

  • Senator Warnock letter, March 30, 2026 — Hegseth statement on Operation Epic Fury rules of engagement, March 3, 2026

Minab school strike

  • Wikipedia / Amnesty International / Human Rights Watch — 120 children killed; February 28, 2026; US Tomahawk missile; preliminary investigation confirmed US responsibility

The 12-hour news items in the penultimate paragraph

  • UFC/TKO stock purchase — financial disclosure reporting, May 2026
  • Admiral firings — Pentagon announcements, August 2025 onward
  • Kharg Island statement — Trump Truth Social, June 10, 2026
  • Cuba water access — UN figures, April–June 2026