Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that the Watergate scandal that forced Richard Nixon from office in 1974 would amount to little more than a single news cycle in today’s fragmented political environment, dismissing the notion that such a scandal could bring down a modern presidency.
“If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be a 12-hour news story,” Vance told an audience at the Richard Nixon presidential library in Yorba Linda, California. “The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.”
Vance spoke at a book-promotion event for his new memoir, “Communion,” which chronicles his conversion from atheism to Catholicism. During the discussion, he shifted to the 37th president, declaring his admiration for Nixon and asserting that the scandal’s explosive impact was a product of its era.
Vance said Nixon’s legacy was rightfully “enjoying a bit of a renaissance,” citing attention to his diplomatic achievements in ending the Vietnam War and opening relations with China. He described Nixon as a “political genius” who was brought down by forces he likened to those that targeted 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 administration,” Vance said. “There is a parallel.”
Trump was impeached twice during his first term: once over allegations he pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate Joe Biden while withholding military aid, and again for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. He was acquitted by the Senate both times.
Vance drew a direct line between his own trajectory and Nixon’s. “Young senator. Vice-president. Writes some bestselling books. Is hated by the media,” Vance said. “It kind of sounds like JD Vance.” He omitted the part of Nixon’s résumé for which he is most famous: the presidency itself, which he abandoned in disgrace.
The remarks reflect a broader effort by Trump and his allies to reframe Watergate — long held up as a triumph of the American constitutional system’s checks and balances — as a bureaucratic and media-driven coup. Trump has previously said Nixon “may” have been guilty.
The comments came as Vance, widely viewed as a 2028 White House contender, continues to carve out a public identity that blends his self-described populist, anti-interventionist politics with a personal narrative centered on his conversion to Catholicism. He has taken a leading role in the administration’s foreign policy, most recently as the public face of the Iran ceasefire deal.