How response to Watergate tapes 50 years ago contrasts with today’s political climate

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• Amna Nawaz:

  Today marks an anniversary that some see as a pivot point in the American presidency.

  Exactly 50 years ago, a White House aide revealed that then-President Nixon's conversations had been taped. The Watergate tapes included audio of Nixon working to cover up the Watergate break in connected to his campaign and became a point of no return for him as he slid to political downfall.

  But what is their legacy and the heated politics of today?

  Correspondent Lisa Desjardins has more.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  It's hard to miss some broad similarities with today.

  In early 1973, President Nixon faced congressional and criminal investigations related to the Watergate break-in. He pledged that he had no role in the break-in,and the American public was split over it, until news of the Watergate tapes. After that, Nixon's approval plummeted and key Republicans broke with him.

  To compare and contrast that with today, I'm joined by Jill Wine-Banks, who was one of the prosecutors in the Watergate investigation of President Nixon, and Stuart Streichler, who teaches law and politics at the University of Washington.

  Jill, as many of our viewers know, the most damning audio from the Watergate tapes is known as the Smoking Gun tape. I want to play an excerpt from that. And, in this audio, you will hear President Nixon speaking with his then-Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman. They're going to be talking about the idea of asking the CIA — deputy CIA Director Walters to tell the FBI, tell a man named Pat Gray, to end the Watergate investigation.

  Here it is.

  H.R. Haldeman, Former White House Chief of Staff: Now, on the investigation the Democratic break-in thing, we're back to the — in the problem area, because the FBI is not under control.

  The way to handle this now is for us to have Walters call Pat Gray and just say, stay the hell out of this. This is business here. We don't want you to go any further on it. That's not an unusual development.

  Richard Nixon, Former President of the United States: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

• H.R. Haldeman:

  And that would take care of it.

• Richard Nixon:

  You call him in. Good. Good deal. Play it tough. That's the way they play it, and that's the way we are going to play it.

• H.R. Haldeman:

  OK.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Even today, here in Oval Office audio is rather stunning.

  Jill, what did you think when you first heard that audio? And how do you think that affected the way the American public saw Nixon?

• Jill Wine-Banks, Former Watergate Prosecutor:

  It was dramatic evidence against the president.

  It, to put it in context, was the president saying, use an agency of government, the CIA, to falsely claim that it was national security, and the FBI should stop looking at the money trail, because the money would have shown that the burglars had on them $100 bills from a cashed campaign check, so that it would have proved right away that the Committee to Reelect the President, known as CRP, was responsible for the break-in.

  That would have been dramatic in an age of actual facts in the news, where people believed what they read, and there weren't alternative facts being offered.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  I'm going to come back to that.

  Stuart, you wrote an article last year about the legacy of Watergate as being ironic, and even maybe problematic today. What did you mean by that?

  Stuart Streichler, University of Washington: Well, I think it's ironic.

  The conventional view follows what President Ford said afterwards in relation to the pardon the President Nixon was that the Constitution works, that, eventually, the abuse of power was curbed.

  Now, first of all, it took a long time, and we need to remember that. But, second, what I thought was that the legacy left in place by the checks and balances was actually ironic, because each of the institutions actually set up obstacles for future institutions to curb the abuse of power.

  So, for example, the Supreme Court constitutionalized executive privilege. Since then, even though there was what we might consider a national security exception made by the Supreme Court, presidents since then have pretty much ignored that if they can in claiming executive privileges.

  And then it seemed like there was a cultural expectation set up that, ever since then, if you're going to prosecute or think about prosecuting the president, you have got to have a smoking gun.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  So what about those ideas, that, in fact, this allowed the idea that you can't prosecute a president and that there is wide — or some form of executive privilege?

• Jill Wine-Banks:

  So, let me say I don't agree on executive privilege.

  I think that the exception for crime-fraud is very broad, and covers what you want to cover. I think it's important that a president be able to get advice without having it revealed, in the same way that lawyers can give advice to clients and it's confidential, as long as they aren't helping in the commission of a crime.

  So, I don't agree on that. I do agree that not prosecuting was a mistake. I argued during Watergate that we should indict him while he was sitting president. I see nothing in the Office of Legal Counsel memo or the Constitution or any statutes that would have barred that. And I think it was a huge mistake not to.

  So do I think the Constitution needs stronger language? Yes, I do think so. But I think that, basically, the system did work. And there was some luck involved.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  So this brings us also to today.

  Obviously, former President Trump has also faced scrutiny because of words caught on tape. But I'm interested in that. And I want to play one example that may be coming up again soon, which is his conversation with Georgia's secretary of state following the 2020 election.

  Let's listen to that.

  Donald Trump, Former President of the United States: And the people of Georgia are angry. The people of the country are angry. And there's nothing wrong with saying that you've recalculated.

  Brad Raffensperger (R), Georgia Secretary of State: Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong.

• Donald Trump:

  I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  I want to be very thoughtful about this.

  This is not to say Presidents Trump and Nixon are the same, nor that we know what the fate of President Trump should be. But I want to ask each of you, starting with you, Stuart, what's the difference here between audio with — in Nixon's case, where Republicans changed their loyalties?

  Trump, it doesn't seem like anything changes with these problematic audios.

• Stuart Streichler:

  Right.

  Looking at the larger political landscape, what's interesting to me is that politics was polarized in the early '70s. We were just coming out of the Vietnam War. We were still it in Watergate. And yet you had Republican leaders in the Senate, in the House of Representatives, and also Republican voters who were capable of saying: I'm looking at this evidence as it's coming out,. I'm seeing these repeated denials by President Nixon.

  And, at some point, they — there was a shift. And with President Trump, the difference in the landscape now is partly that he's got a charismatic connection with the loyal base of whatever it is, between 30 to 40 percent of the electorate. And so I don't see anything that would move them.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Jill, does President Trump — is he affected by the legacy of Watergate and our expectations of presidents?

• Jill Wine-Banks:

  Well, I view this slightly differently than Stuart does.

  I think that the big difference between then and now is the multiplication of media outlets. Back then, we had three networks, and they all had the same facts. Democrats and Republicans agreed on the facts. They debated the outcome and the policy implications of facts. Nowadays, we have alternative facts, which are lies, and we have a strong support system that, had it existed for Richard Nixon, could have made a difference.

  He might have survived if there had been a FOX News supporting his lives. And so I think that's really one of the biggest differences, is that facts mattered back then. And people had shame. Even Nixon had shame. And the Republicans are the ones who went to him and said: We have just heard the Smoking Gun tape. And you have been lying to us. You will be convicted in the Senate.

  Whereas, during the impeachment of Trump, the senators said, well, he did it, but it's not impeachable, which was completely against all the facts.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Did Watergate change how we see the presidency itself, Stuart?

• Stuart Streichler:

  I think so.

  I mean, one point you might think about is the profanity that laced Nixon's inner conversations, which degraded the presidency and shocked people at the time.

  You could argue that that had a great — well, some effect that was comparable to the evidence of criminal activity, that just the fact that the president was talking about people, enemies, voters like he did, and using profanity, not one — on one occasion — there's other presidents that have done that — but just all the way through, it diminished the character of the presidency, and not only the president, I think.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Jill?

• Jill Wine-Banks:

  I agree with that.

  And I would add to that what we have now is verbal evidence that is irrefutable of the president's voice. And that made all the difference in the world. I know hearing the tape for the first time, for me — the first tape I heard was March 21, the cancer on the presidency tape.

  And it did change my view of the presidency. I had been raised to respect the office, no matter who held it. And you listened to that, and you heard him saying, "I am not a crook," and you knew he was. And so it did change my view that the president is just a person and needs to be treated that way and needs to be held accountable.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Jill Wine-Banks and Stuart Streichler, thank you both very much.

• Stuart Streichler:

  Thank you.

• Jill Wine-Banks:

  Thank you.