In an appearance on MSBNC’s Harball with Chris Matthews Monday night, NBC News icon Tom Brokaw compared the Nixon impeachment proceedings to the Trump impeachment, saying that Nixon’s had evidence like audiotapes of Nixon trying to cover up crimes that was “obvious to everyone”, but that Trump’s is a game of “he said, she said” without such evidence. Brokaw also opined that President Nixon was ‘presidential’ during his impeachment while Trump “plays from the gutter”.
Brokaw, who was NBC’s White House correspondent during Watergate, was promoting a book on the Nixon impeachment.
Matthews: …”On the front of the National Archives it says, “the past is prologue”. How much is Watergate like or unlike what we’ve been though this fall?”
Brokaw: “There is significant differences, first of all, you gotta remember by the time I asked him that question his principal aides were on their way to prison, we had tape recordings of the attempt within the White House itself, including from the president, to try to cover up everything. So the evidence was much harder at that point and much more obvious to everyone. Now it’s become this kind of game ‘he said, she said’, ‘that’s not what we meant’ kind of thing. So, I think that’s the difference..
“At the same time, the conduct of Donald Trump versus the conduct of President Nixon — Nixon was always aware of being presidential and the way he spoke and the way he responded to me there. Trump, you know, plays from the gutter, frankly. It’s ready, draw, shoot, whatever you need to do. So it’s a different time…”
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Note: President Nixon resigned after articles of impeachment were approved by the House Judiciary Committee but before the full House could vote on them, so he is not considered ‘impeached’.
