← Chris Distefano Presents: Chrissy Chaos
Chris Distefano Presents: Chrissy Chaos
The SHOCKING Truth about WATERGATE - Chrissy Chaos Presents - Christories History Lessons - ep 42
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Christopher De Stefano
KFC Phillips are back. Four delicious meals for just $7 each. That's great news for everyone. Except a driver in F1 the movie who only gets 2.5 seconds for a pit stop. 2.5 seconds. That's not enough time to indulge in juicy original recipe chicken. Oh, and he's gone. Creamy mashed potatoes, sweet pie poppers, and a medium drink. Well, the rest of us can take as long as we'd like to enjoy any KFC. $7 fill up, then see F1 the movie starring Brad Pitt. Only in theaters June 27. Rated PG13. Prices and participation vary while supplies last. Taxes, tips and fees extra. Welcome to another episode of Christeries. I'm your host, Christopher De Stefano, AKA Christerie De Stefano. And this is Christeries. Now today we're gonna be talking about something juicy. We're gonna be talking about something scandalous. We're gonna be talking about some Deep Throat. Oh, yeah? You think you know what I'm talking about? I bet you do, big boy. Richard Nixon and Watergate. Or as my mother calls it, Watergate. So let's set the scene. Do you know about Watergate? I want to teach you about Watergate. That's the thing. If you're a history professor or if you're just looking for some knowledge on trying to write a book report and you don't want to turn to chatgpt just this time, then listen to your boy. Chrissy D. We're going to talk to you about Richard Nixon and Watergate. I had a friend who used to put on a Richard Nixon mask and have sex with women. All right, so let's set the scene. Where are we? What's going on in the world? Where in the world is Richard Nixon? So it's early 1970s. Your mom and dad are probably doing heroin, having sex in a field. And the USA has the 37th president of the United States, President Richard Nixon, Tricky Dick. He was a Republican, and he was a boy from California. He was born into a Quaker family, loved oatmeal, and he ran for president in 1960, but lost to John F. Kennedy in a very, very, very close election. See, Richard Nixon, you escaped death. Here's some interesting facts about Richard Nixon in office. It was actually believed Richard Nixon believed that audio recordings were the best way to capture accurate records of conversations and decisions. He didn't believe in film. He was more audio. That's what he was about. Okay, listening. So Nixon's system, it was installed, monitored by the Secret Service and covering the Oval Office and the other White House rooms. So everywhere you went in Richard Nixon's White House, you were being audio recorded. And the tapes, they got stored in a secret spot in the White House in a basement. No one knew about these tapes. So this was highly illegal. You couldn't just be recording people without their consent. But Nixon wanted the recordings to serve as a reliable, factual record of his presidency, which is gonna bite him in the ass later. So Nixon's first term as president went pretty good. Pretty, pretty good. People liked him, okay? He focused on ending Communism. Cold War dust was settling. And of course, of those of those of you who don't know what the Cold War was, it was a period of intense rivalry and tension between the US and the Soviet Union. We had nuclear threats, we had spies, we had proxy wars, but no direct war with each other. That's a hot war. This was a cold War. This was more like threats and mind games. It was kind of like being in a relationship. He came into the office when Vietnam was going on, okay? The Vietnam War, one of the worst wars ever. First of all, we lost, okay? That's just the truth. We lost. Second of all, so many guys died, they thought, oh, maybe a couple of thousand will die. 58,000 men died. And they sent so many men over there. So one thing about the Vietnam War that my uncle told me, he said, you know, if you went to Vietnam, you had a decent chance of surviving. 80%, 90%. But it's just so many men died because we sent so many men. So that's why there was a lot of deaths. But he survived. Cause he didn't go. The Vietnam War for North Vietnamese, South Vietnamese. United States eventually loses. We wanna stop the spread of communism in Asia. Follow the Cold War policy. Blah, blah, blah. It's very, very, very unpopular. Nobody wants the Vietnam War. People hate it. War, what is it good for? Absolutely Nothing. So the US starts withdrawing the troops in the 70s. They were fighting for years. They just leave. North Vietnam took over the south in 1975. Kind of felt like, why the hell did all these guys die for if we just gave a guy back? But anyway, Nixon is taking turn as all this is going on. His promise in 1969 is to bring American troops home from Vietnam. That's what he says he's gonna do, and that's what he does. I mean, Vietnam goes to shit, but he does say, I'm bringing him home. He had a policy called Vietnamization. Vietnamization, which meant training South Vietnamese forces to take over the fighting so that the US could just gradually withdraw. We Taught the Southern Vietnames had to beat the Northern Vietnamese. And we're gonna leave and then what happens? We leave and the North Vietnamese beat the South Vietnamese. And it was all for nothing. The war didn't end right away, but Nixon reduced drastically the number of US troops that were fighting in Vietnam during his first term. So people liked them, even though, you know, Nixon was definitely getting the troops out slowly. Anti war protests were still active in the US it was not quick enough. They wanted everyone gone immediately. A president is always judged by the economy. So the reason why people say the first term went well is because the economy was going well. People had shmoney in their pockets. They had open diplomatic relations with China that was good for the world. Nixon visited China in February of 1972. First president ever to visit communist China. Nobody ever did. That huge diplomatic breakthrough and that opened up trade talks, kind of decreased the Cold War tensions and it rebalanced global power a little bit. Cuz he was pressuring the Soviet Union cause he's like, look, we're friends with China. You thought you were friends with China, so are we. What? The only criticisms about him were young Americans really didn't like him. He kind of just looked like an old not to be trusted white guy. Civil rights groups didn't think he was supportive of the black cause at all. And his politics were a little aggressive, a little secretive. AKA recording you without your consent. So he did have a good first term. Nixon definitely did have a good first term, but he did not feel confident going into his second term. Okay, that's what it is. He just kind of felt like, I feel like these people don't really like me like they used to. And he had this deep insecurity about power. He wanted to maintain that power. So Nixon lost that 1960 election to JFK and he also lost the 1962 California governor's race. So he did not wanna lose again. And he believed his enemies, which he believed as the press and the Democrats were out to get him, he thinks they didn't like him. He had the anti war backlash. Even though he was the one, you know, removing the troops. He was. People felt he wasn't doing it quick enough. So he was concerned about how that Vietnam war really hurt him. And even though he tried to help get the Americans out, the Vietnamization, he also covered up two things regarding the war. There were two big things that he was like, let's just keep that a little secret. That was Cambodia and the Pentagon Papers. Okay, what happened in Cambodia? So 1970, President Nixon he secretly authorized US troops to invade Cambodia to attack the northern Vietnamese supply routes. So remember, the North Vietnamese were the communist bad guys to him. So Cambodia, right there, he does a little invasion through Cambodia, which expanded the war actually. Instead of winding it down, he just made things worse. And the decision outraged so many Americans, it led to massive protests. They're called the Kent State Shootings, where the Ohio National Guard opened fire at Kent State University in Ohio on a crowd of student protesters and he killed four students. So that's black eye. Then the Pentagon Papers, 1971. Former Defense Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg, he leaked the Pentagon Papers, which were top secret documents showing that the US had misled the public about the Vietnam War for years. The release eroded public trust in the government and intensified opposition to the war. So it was kind of like Snowden, when Snowden, Edward Snowden just released everything. It's kind of like that. So this is not good. So now people, people always need other people to blame. So we were like Nixon, you're done. And also the Democratic Party looks strong, at least at first. They came out the gates swinging. There was a guy named Edmund Muskie, no relation to Elon Muskie, and later George McGovern. And Nixon and the Republicans were kind of like this Democratic surge could be legit, a threat. So he was paranoid, he was desperate. He wanted to win reelection in 1972. So he actually approves. He approves efforts to spy, sabotage and harass political opponents illegally, which that led to the Watergate break in. Okay, so it's not like Nixon didn't know. Nixon knew you about to get impeached. There was a whole team devoted to getting Nixon reelected. They took desperate measures. Anything they can do. So what is Watergate? What is the Watergate scandal? I actually stayed at the Watergate Hotel. It's cute. On June 17, 1972, five men broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters located at the Watergate complex in Washington D.C. they were trying to bug phones, steal documents to help President Nixon's reelection campaign. The burglars carrying wiretapping equipment, cameras, spying equipment, wasn't a simple burglary. They were there to like legitimately spy, spy, spy. And these burglars, they had connections to President Nixon's reelection team. So right now everyone's thinking this is politically motivated. And after the break in, there were these unusual efforts by Nixon's administration to block the investigation, silence witnesses, and made the whole thing seem like Nixon may be involved. Cuz this was a big story. Nixon was like, I don't wanna Talk about that. Let's talk about Vietnamization. So we were like, you had something to do with that, didn't ya? Didn't ya? They started investigating the break ins. They're saying there was an informant known only as Deep Throat. And Deep Throat warned Deep Throat. Their informant was saying this break in was politically motivated and connected to the top White House officials. How high up there? Oh, as high as it goes, baby. Deep Throat was actually. It was a joke made by journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's editor at the Washington Post. So that nickname, Deep Throat, they made that up. It was a play on words referencing the 1972 adult film Deep Throat, which was famous and scandalous at the time. Check it out, Full Bush. But the nickname stuck because, you know, it's funny, it's catchy. Identity was secret, deep, high level information. And you know, it was about secrecy, scandal and intrigue. But Deep Throat, we don't know who he is yet. On June 17, 1972, when these burglars broke in, they got caught right away. Day of, they got caught. So the very next day, these puppies are. These babies are in court. Right away, the five burglars are arraigned in court. Bob Woodward was there, the guy who coined the nickname Deep Throat. And he heard the names and affiliations mentioned in court, including that one of the burglars, James McCord, was a former CIA agent and the security coordinator for Nixon's reelection campaign. Creep. It actually was called the Committee to Reelect the President. Creep. You know who you are out there. So checks and address books, investigators and journalists discovered that the burglars had $100 bills in sequential order and address books with notations that all went back to CREEP officials. Woodward and Bernstein confirmed with the sources that some of the people, even inside their own law enforcement, they knew that the break in wasn't just a random burglary. And they knew that the people arrested had ties to Nixon. So kind of it was like an open secret, right? Nixon's trying to be like, no, no, no, it wasn't me. But everyone's like, dude, we know it was you. Shut up. So the Washington Post runs a front page article that was co authored by Woodward and Bernstein that first publicly suggested the break in was politically motivated and connected to at least one burglar to Nixon's reelection committee, AKA creep. Here's the thing though, I'm gonna be honest with you. At the time, the public really didn't care, okay? They just were like, all right, yeah, politics get dirty. Dirty tricks. They're all dirtbags, politicians are all. If you wanna be a politician, I think it's understood now just as simple, you can't. It's an oxymoron to say you're a good politician or a bad politician. If you want power, then there's some. You have an ego about you. If you're saying, oh, look to me, to be in charge, that in itself should disqualify you. That's just what it is. It's not good. You don't want people like that who are so power hungry and want to be the center of attention. You don't want them leading because they will always, always, always be corrupt. AKA Richard Nixon, Tricky Dick. Initially, there was no real link to the President. It was maybe some low level operation. Some people Nixon never even heard of. Nixon's secretary called it a third rate burglary. And people kind of just moved on. They were like, all right, it was the 1970s. So you know what they were saying? They were like, all right, a couple of black guys and Puerto Rican guys robbed a hotel. It's just what it was back then. It's not right, but it's just what it was. Again, we're not. The facts don't matter. Here on Christerie's. So the presidential campaign continues. He's not getting disqualified for this. He's gonna go up against George McGovern, the Dem candidate. Nixon won in a landslide. Won 49 out of 50 states. One of the biggest election blowouts in U.S. history. I mean, the Democrats got smacked and he got reelected November 7, 1972. So even though Nixon won, he's now the sitting active U.S. president. Breakin's still being investigated. So Nixon's in his second term. He's trying to make Watergate go away. Can't make it go away. Early 1973, the Senate establishes the Watergate Committee to investigate the scandal officially. So now we want to look into this. So from February to May of 1973, televised Senate hearings begin. Watergate details go into the public view. Testimonies from the burglars, Nixon aides. I mean, this is like the Diddy trial. It's happening. I want you to have better sex this summer. I love Blue Chew. You know me. I want to see your penises nice and hard. That's what I want to see. I want to see your Rock Hardcocks and I want your penis. And I know by the way, when you guys send me pictures of your erect penises, I know if it's a Blue Chew boner or not. I can Tell now. So I want more people with that Blue Chew cock, that bcc. So be ready when she needs it. Get your feet. First month of bluechew for free. What I love one of the things I love about bluechew. First of all, they're tablets, chewable, okay? You don't have nothing. I know a lot of you guys aren't swallowers, you're spitters, just like me. So you get the chewable tablets, and these tablets are made right here in the usa. So you get a little thing I like to call a freedom boner. And that's what's important. Blue Chew tablets, they are delivered discreet, right to your door. No awkward conversations. You don't gotta go to the doctor's office. All done online, right to your door. No waiting line at the pharmacy. Make life easier by getting harder. And discover your options@bluechew.com, and we have got a special deal for our Chrissy Chaos listeners. Try the first month of BlueChew for free. When you use promo code Chaos, just pay the $5 shipping. That's promo code CHAOS. Visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Bluechew for sponsoring the podcast. So 1973, former White House counsel John Dean testified that he discussed the Watergate cover up with Nixon, at least 35, calling it a cancer on the presidency. The first public connection between Nixon and the scandal. So also in June 1973, Alexander Butterfield reveals the existence of secret Oval Office recordings. So this is the first time that people are like, wow, you recorded us without our permission. He confirmed that everything in the Oval Office taped. They have audio recording of it. That shocked senators, viewers. I mean, anybody imagine going in the Oval Office and being like, I didn't know that. Everyone. I didn't know that you recorded me saying that. Damn. What? That of course a judge is going to allow a subpoena. They got those tapes and they set up the battle over executive privilege. Like, can you just take the tapes from the President? This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Between two factor authentication, strong passwords and a VPN. You try to be in control of how your info is protected, but many other places also have it and they might not be as careful. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast for 40% off terms apply or not, we're gonna find Out. Yes, you can. So these televised moments made Watergate impossible to ignore, and it shifted the public opinion drastically against Nixon. So people that voted for him and loved him, now they don't like him because like, oh, we didn't know you were legit a creep. So he did not want to hand over the tapes. Nixon, he's like, no, I'm not giving them to you. He cited executive privilege. And there's a thing called the Saturday Night Massacre, which, that was the turning point in the Watergate scandal. He's saying it's a Saturday night, October 20, 1973. He's saying, Nixon's saying, I'm not giving you the tapes. So the prosecutor, Archibald Cox, he got appointed, he was the head guy, and he demanded access to these secret White House tapes. So Nixon says to Attorney General Elliot Richardson, fire Cox. Get, get Cox, get Archibald and his Cox out of here. And Richardson refused and resigned in protest. So Nixon's own Attorney General actually resigns. Right. Which is crazy. That's a crazy thing. Think about like, that's his top cop and he's like, I can't support this. So next in line, Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, also refused and resigned. So now you got two of them that are saying, I'm not doing this. Finally, the third guy, Solicitor General Robert Bork, agreed and fired Cox. So you got one guy to listen. So why did it matter? Because it looked like, and it was Nixon obstructing justice by stopping the investigation. The public and Congress were actually outraged. And this started intensifying the calls for the impeachment. They were like, get this guy outta here. He's a power hungry nut. So what do you think impeachment is? Some people know, some people don't know. What impeachment is is the process by which a government official, including President, is formally charged while in office, which can lead to being asked to leave office. So presidents get impeached but not always get removed from office. So like Clinton got impeached, Trump got impeached, but not removed from office. House of Representatives in the US votes on whether to impeach, AKA bring charges. If impeached, the Senate then holds a separate trial to decide whether we're gonna remove this guy or not. Doesn't always mean removal. The Senate's gotta vote to convict 2/3 majority for the President to be removed. So you gotta get a lot of numbers. There was only one guy ever to be actually fully impeached, Andrew Johnson. In 1868, he was impeached because of political conflicts with Congress over Reconstruction, which is how they reconstructed the country after the Civil War. And he violated the Tenure of Office Act. And he's just a guy that's kind of forgotten in history, but he was impeached and he was the president right after Lincoln. So Richard Nixon tries to clear his name. November 17, 1973. Has a press conference at the Contemporary Resort in Walt Disney World, Florida. Cute. Gonna go on. It's a small world after all. And he addresses a gathering of top newspaper editors across the country. He's got the whole press in there. And when he was asked about personal corruption and whether he profited illegally while he was in office, he says, I wanna say this to the television audience. I am not a crook. I've earned everything I got. Well, survey says that's a lie. So it was meant to clear his name, but the phrase that he said, I'm not a crook became a symbol for his dishonesty to Americans. And it was widely mocked in the media. It's like, don't say they were probably. His handlers were probably saying, don't say the word crook. Don't say the word crook. And then he said the word crook. So remember how I told you that first year went so well? Well, the second year, not so great. Early 1974, those White House tapes come out. Nixon's involvement in Watergate is just pretty much clear. April 1974, the Judiciary Committee begins the impeachment hearings. July 1974, the Smoking Gun tape was released which directly prove Nixon ordered the COVID up. The smoking gun tape is a recording which again, he did this from June 23, 1972, just days after the Watergate break in. And it captured a conversation between Nixon and his chief of staff, whose name was H.R. handelman. And in the tape, Nixon and Haldeman, I'm sorry, discuss using the CIA to block the FBI's investigation into the break. And it's like, dude, you know you're being recorded. Why are you saying stuff on your own recordings? Are you dumb? This show Nixon's direct involvement in trying to obstruct justice by covering up the crime. I say he's dumb, but then again, I get it. Because it's like sometimes you just forget. He probably just forgot. There's times where I'm telling Jaz, I'm like, look, I'm at the Comedy Cellar. And she's like, you're still sharing your location with me. I know you're getting a massage. The tape, of course, contradicted Nixon's earlier claims that it was A cover up. Were like, you're a crook. The tape got made public in July 1974. It just absolutely destroyed Nixon. I mean, Watergate destroyed him. And the evidence led the Judiciary Committee to say, we gotta impeach you, bruh. Sorry. He knew. He could see the writing on the wall. So a lot of people say he took the coward's way out. I get it. He knew he was gonna be impeached. He knew he was probably gonna get asked to leave office. So he just resigned. He's the first and only US President ever to resign. Just fully resigned. Said, I'm not doing it until. Well, Joe Biden kind of resigned, didn't he? Joe Biden kind of, in a way resigned. He just said, I can't do this anymore. I'm too old. I shit my pants, I gotta go. So Nixon boards the plane in August of 1974, waves to the crowd, makes a historic but kind of somber exit. And he just left. He just went like that. Peace out, everybody. And he leaves. And then peaceful transfer of power to Gerald Ford, who a lot of people say was the worst president in U.S. history. And then he gets pardoned by Vice President Gerald Ford, who was the president. And he never returned to politics. His legacy was kind of never repaired. I mean, he wrote books, did interviews, diplomacy. But he kind of is always looked at as a black guy kind of president because of this Watergate stuff. So Deep Throat finally gets revealed in 2005. So forever nobody knew who Deep Throat was. But then in 2005, it was revealed to be Mark Felt, lifelong Republican, the FBI's former associate director. He exposed the scandal because he said it felt it was his moral duty. So that's what happens. A lot of people. You always think that you're gonna get killed by some random stranger. It always happens from within. It's always the people closest to you can inflict the most damage. So this whole time, this secret identity of Deep Throat was Mark Felt, a fellow Republican. So here we go. Time for a little Chrissy conspiracy. So it's a little Chrissy conspiracy, never been proven, but here's how we see it. So why Does Mark Felt, aka Deep Throat, do this? Well, May 2, J. Edgar Hoover dies, who was the director of the FBI. So Mark Felt at the time was the Associate Director of the FBI, basically the number two man. And he's meant to be the director of the FBI, but they don't do that. The day after J. Edgar Hoover dies, they give it to a guy named Patrick Gray. He becomes the director of the FBI. So Felt being a career FBI man is like, wtf? I spent years rising through the ranks. I'm like legit Deep Throat. And now you're gonna give the head of the FBI the position I deserve to L. Patrick Gray, AKA Patrick Gay? No thanks. Felt believed Gray was going to protect Nixon and not investigate him, especially in this Watergate case. So I think Felt was like, you know what? You didn't give me the head. If you would have just done the right thing, Nixon, and just made me head of the FBI or done anything to give me that position, maybe your life would have went down in flames. But you messed with the wrong dude. And so now I'm going undercover, I'm naming myself after a famous porn film and I'm gonna expose all your deep darkest little secrets. And Felt stayed in the FB FBI for a little while. Cuz again, he's a country man, he does love his country. And he quietly was just leaking info to the Washington Post underneath this alias Deep Throat. He eventually resigned before the scandal fully exploded. But I really believe that Felt just Felt saw that Nixon was trying to control the FBI through Gray. And he didn't stand for that. And he was like, now I'm gonna just drop Watergate on your ass. And that's what happened. And by leaking the truth anonymously, he believed he was protecting the country and the FBI from a corrupt president. And he was probably right. Mark Felt, AKA Deep Throat, was not the first whistleblower in the Nixon administration. No, Martha Mitchell, she was the first one. They actually did a documentary on her called the Martha Mitchell Effect on Netflix. And she got suspicious of Richard Nixon right after this Watergate breaking. She was the wife of Nixon's Attorney General, John Mitchell. She probably didn't like Richard Nixon. She didn't like her husband John hanging out with Richard. God knows what the hell those two guys are doing, drinking whiskey, having sex with, with the secretaries. She doesn't like him. And she overheard these shady conversations that were tied to Richard Nixon, like, you know, maybe through her husband or whatever this reelection campaign. And she starts saying, I don't know about this. And she calls a reporter to speak out. And she said she wanted to leave her husband over what was involved. She was looking for a way to leave her husband anyway, cuz I'm pretty sure she just knew he was having an affair. So she's like, all right, I'm just gonna get out through this way. I'm just gonna. I don't wanna be part. I don't want me and my kids to be part of this Nixon scandal. But Nixon seemed free, forcibly silenced her. They held her in a hotel room and medicated her to discredit her as unstable. So they got real nasty. That story is actually as crazier, crazier than Watergate. Watch that Nixon. Watch that Martha Mitchell effect documentary on Netflix. And it became so famous that the Martha Mitchell effect is actually a psychological term that refers to when a person's true but unusual sounding claims are misdiagnosed as delusions or paranoia. So she was later vindicated, of course, and she was one of the first to sound the alarm. So we salute you, Martha Mitchell. So here's the truth about Watergate. Nixon did not directly order the Watergate break in. There's no solid evidence that he planned for it or asked for it beforehand. But we know he was the mastermind. Like Charles Manson never really killed anyone, but we know he was the mastermind. And he was definitely involved in the COVID up. Nixon was 100% involved in the coverup, which ultimately is what brought him down. Now look, what he did was illegal. It was all awful. These people will do anything to win. While he may not have initiated the break in, he definitely abused his power to protect himself once it happened. And ultimately this wouldn't have happened if he just believed in himself a little bit more and if he just came from a place of strength instead of a place of fear and weakness. Okay? An insecure man. I tell my daughters all the time, the number one thing in life to fear is an insecure man. And Richard Nixon was an insecure, insecure man. Those guys will do anything to keep their power. They will do anything to keep you as their girlfriend. Stay away from insecure men, okay? Richard Nixon, insecure. Always believe in yourself. All right? He would have won his second election if he just believed in himself a little bit more. But he didn't. And he took a coward's way out and he resigned. He resigned and he was never really heard from again. And he gave the presidency to Gerald Ford, who was the worst president ever. And Richard Nixon, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, Richard Nixon, AKA Tricky Dick, if you would have just made the right man the leader of the FBI, you would have no problems. But instead, you got a lot of problems. And I'm sorry, I don't know if you're in heaven or if you're in hell, but I know you're recording it wherever you are. So remember, yesterday was history. It.