The “All the President’s Men” authors visited host Stephen Colbert to mark the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, but the conversation turned to the problematic reigns of both Nixon and Trump.
The former eventually resigned after it was discovered (thanks in part to Woodward and Bernstein) that he led a coverup of the June 17, 1972, burglary at Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex to dig up dirt on the opposition party and plant bugs. The latter has been accused of fomenting a coup to overturn the 2020 election, and a House committee is attempting to assert his criminal responsibility.
“It is a crime,” Woodward said.
Bernstein noted that Trump “went farther” to attack democracy.
“Richard Nixon was a criminal president who tried to undermine the very basis of our democracy, the electoral system,” Bernstein began. “Then you have Donald Trump, who also tried to undermine the electoral system but went farther. He staged a coup to prevent the peaceful transfer of power to the duly elected successor Joe Biden, who was elected fairly and freely. And then we have in this coup attempt the first seditious president of the United States.”
“We had a coup staged by a president the likes of what you see in juntas, the likes of what you see in authoritarian regimes,” he added.