During an appearance at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library on Thursday, Vice President J.D. Vance argued that the Watergate scandal would not have the same political or journalistic impact if it occurred in the current media climate.
“If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story,” Vance said. “The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy, and by the way, 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. There is a parallel.”
On Friday, media analyst and The Bulwark managing editor Sam Stein stated that he found validity in Vance’s perspective regarding public desensitization to political controversies. Speaking on MS NOW and All In with Chris Hayes, Stein expressed agreement with the Vice President’s timeline.
“Honestly, I think he’s right,” Stein said. “I do think there’s actually some validity to what JD Vance was saying, which is that we’ve become so calloused to a whole new breed of scandal from this administration that, frankly, we would probably move on.”
Stein cited an anecdote from a recent book by journalists Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman concerning government officials discussing how to handle files related to Jeffrey Epstein. He noted that the report, which he described as “incredibly corrupt,” only remained a major story for a short period.
“And that was a 10-hour story,” Stein said. “It’s shocking that JD Vance thinks this is sort of a politically advantageous thing to say out loud, but I do have to say I think there is some validity to the idea that we’ve become so calloused by this stuff.” Stein also pointed to modern institutional changes, such as Jeff Bezos’s ownership of The Washington Post, suggesting that financial and political interests might alter how major investigative journalism is handled today compared to the 1970s.
Conversely, MSNBC Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough rejected Vance’s characterization of Richard Nixon’s presidency and the federal actions during the Watergate era. Speaking on his Friday morning broadcast, Scarborough characterized Vance’s analysis as historically flawed.
“I know he didn’t go to a Southern State school like me, but what he’s saying is, hey, historic, what he’s saying is stupid,” Scarborough said. He noted that while Nixon achieved significant foreign and domestic policy goals, such as establishing relations with China and creating the Environmental Protection Agency, his actions during Watergate constituted a severe abuse of power.
“Let’s be really clear here that the Vice President of the United States just said that the deep state went after Nixon,” Scarborough stated. “No, Richard Nixon used the deep state to go after political enemies, just like, well, your administration, Mr. Vice President, the FBI, the CIA, the DOJ, it sounds vaguely familiar, doesn’t it?”
Scarborough listed documented events from the scandal, including break-ins at the Democratic National Committee and psychiatrists’ offices, wiretapping, and the creation of an enemies list, adding, “This is what J.D. Vance says is normal.”
Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski noted that Vance’s point about a 12-hour story “might actually have been true” given the continuous volume of news generated by the current administration. However, both Brzezinski and Scarborough concluded the segment by criticizing Vance’s shifting political positions over his career, with Scarborough noting Vance’s transition from once comparing Donald Trump to Hitler to defending his administration.
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