Vice President JD Vance compared Richard Nixon’s fall to Donald Trump’s current struggles, arguing both men faced coordinated opposition from the same establishment institutions. Speaking at the Nixon presidential library in Yorba Linda, California, on Thursday, Vance was promoting his new book Communion when he made the remarks.
JD Vance talks about Richard Nixon and Donald Trump
“If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be a 12-hour news story,” Vance told the audience. “The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.”
The 1972 Watergate break-in, carried out by people connected to Nixon’s re-election campaign at the Democratic National Committee’s Washington headquarters, set off the biggest political scandal of 20th-century America. Nixon ultimately stepped down rather than face near-certain impeachment, becoming the only US president to resign from office.
The Vice President rejected the traditional reading of those events. JD Vance cast Richard Nixon as a president brought down by powerful institutions acting in bad faith; institutions he believes targeted Trump in the same 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 administration,” he said. “There is a parallel.”
Donald Trump faced two impeachments during that term. The first one was over alleged pressure on Ukraine’s president to investigate Joe Biden, then over the January 6 Capitol riot.
Vance also hailed Nixon’s foreign policy record, citing the end of the Vietnam War and the opening of ties with China as proof of a “political genius.” Then he turned the mirror on himself. “Young senator. Vice-president. Writes some bestselling books. Is hated by the media,” Vance said. “It kind of sounds like JD Vance.”
Originally reported by Devanshu Basu on Mandatory.
