Vance Says Watergate Would Be a '12-Hour News Story' Today. He Tied Nixon's Fall to Trump's.

Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that the Watergate scandal that ended Richard Nixon's presidency would amount to "a 12-hour news story" if it happened today, and he compared the forces that drove Nixon from office to those he said pursued President Donald Trump.

Vance made the remarks during an on-stage conversation at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California, where he was promoting his new book, "Communion." He turned to Nixon after discussing the book and his Catholic faith.

What Vance said

"I'm actually fascinated by Nixon as a character in history," Vance said, according to the Associated Press and a recording posted by Democracy Now. "I think that his historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, and I think deservedly so. As I joked with Robert backstage, if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. The idea that it took down a presidency is crazy."

He then drew a direct line between Nixon and Trump.

"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, whom the AP described as a widely expected contender for the 2028 Republican nomination, also compared his own path to Nixon's. "Young senator, vice president, writes some bestselling books, is hated by the media," he said. "It kind of sounds like JD Vance. I've always liked Richard Nixon."

Newsweek reported that the comments drew applause from the audience. Newsweek said it contacted the White House and Vance's office for comment.

What the record shows

Watergate began in June 1972, when operatives tied to Nixon's reelection committee were caught breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington. Congressional investigations and reporting that followed documented a cover-up that included hush payments, pressure on federal investigators, and efforts to shape witness testimony.

White House tape recordings later captured Nixon discussing how to contain the investigation. The case widened to include surveillance of political opponents and an "enemies list" of perceived adversaries. Nixon resigned in August 1974, the only U.S. president to leave office that way, after the House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment and his support in the Senate collapsed.

The reaction

David Axelrod, a CNN chief political commentator and former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, reposted a clip of Vance's remarks on X and called them "mind-boggling." Axelrod noted that the scandal involved a White House-directed burglary, a cover-up that drew in federal agencies, criminal convictions for top Nixon aides, and tape-recorded evidence of Nixon's own role. He said treating it as a short news cycle reflected "the moral and ethical degradation of the Trump era," according to Newsweek.

Historian Kevin M. Kruse, responding on Bluesky, wrote, "Oh, he's so close to getting it." Kai Ryssdal, host of public radio's "Marketplace," wrote on the same platform, "The quiet part out loud he said."

Vance's office did not publicly respond to the criticism as of Friday.