Published on 6/26/2026
Although it was related to the most famous political and ethical scandal that toppled former US President Richard Nixon, US Vice President Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, downplayed the espionage case known as “Watergate.”
In Vance’s opinion, Nixon’s resignation as a result of the fallout from the scandal surrounding his spying on the Democratic Party in the Watergate office complex in Washington was “crazy.”
Vance, a potential candidate to succeed Trump in the 2028 presidential elections, went further, considering that this issue would not have drawn public attention if it had occurred at the present time.
“If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would just be a 12-hour news story,” he said. “The idea that it would have been enough to bring down a presidency is crazy.”
In his sympathy with Nixon against that scandal, Vance justified his opinion – during his speech at the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in California, yesterday, Thursday – by saying: “I believe that his historical legacy is witnessing a kind of renaissance.”
“moral decadence”
Vance’s statements did not go unnoticed, but rather sparked sharp criticism, as Democratic commentator David Axelrod – via the X platform – considered that what he made “reflects a lot about the moral and ethical decline of the Trump administration era.”
The Watergate scandal began in 1972 with the arrest of 5 men who were caught breaking into the Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate office complex in Washington.
Nixon was then seeking a second presidential term, and was easily re-elected in November of the same year.
An investigation by the Washington Post later revealed a large-scale political espionage operation and a cover-up attempt that was planned at the highest levels of the White House.
After a long legal battle and with impeachment proceedings approaching in Congress, Nixon resigned in 1974, becoming the first American president to leave office voluntarily.
The repercussions of Watergate were not limited to Nixon’s resignation and the conviction of 48 people, but rather extended to the American political scene, as the Republican Party lost 5 seats in the Senate and 49 seats in the House of Representatives to the Democrats, and new reforms were approved to regulate the financing of election campaigns and subject them to stricter federal oversight.
