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Watergate: Deep Throat, Deeper Trouble with Langston Kerman and Gareth Reynolds

Watergate: Deep Throat, Deeper Trouble with Langston Kerman and Gareth Reynolds

Released Monday, 1st July 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
Watergate: Deep Throat, Deeper Trouble with Langston Kerman and Gareth Reynolds

Watergate: Deep Throat, Deeper Trouble with Langston Kerman and Gareth Reynolds

Watergate: Deep Throat, Deeper Trouble with Langston Kerman and Gareth Reynolds

Watergate: Deep Throat, Deeper Trouble with Langston Kerman and Gareth Reynolds

Monday, 1st July 2024
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0:00

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the

0:02

Big Flop early and ad-free.

0:05

Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery

0:07

app or on Apple Podcasts. When

0:20

the phone rings at 2 a.m.,

0:22

most people groan and

0:24

roll over. But

0:27

not Helen Thomas, the White

0:29

House reporter with an all-access

0:31

pass to the juiciest gossip

0:33

in town. The

0:35

year is 1972 and she

0:38

knows this late night call

0:40

can only mean one

0:42

thing. Her favorite source

0:44

has had one too many and

0:46

is ready to spill the tea.

0:49

On the other end of the

0:52

line is Martha Mitchell, the Mouth

0:54

of the South, aka the wife

0:56

of President Nixon's attorney general. She's

0:59

known for two things, eavesdropping

1:02

on her husband's hush-hush conversations

1:04

and having no problem blabbing

1:07

about them all over town.

1:12

But this time, Martha's got

1:14

a real doozy. In

1:16

the dead of night, five men

1:19

were caught red-handed breaking into

1:21

the Democratic National Committee offices

1:24

at the Watergate Hotel. They

1:26

had enough surveillance gear to

1:28

make the NSA jealous, tear

1:30

gas guns straight out of a

1:33

spy movie and even wads of cash.

1:36

Who brings money to a robbery?

1:39

But here's the kicker. Martha

1:41

recognizes one of the burglars.

1:44

He works with her husband. Just

1:46

as she's about to dish the dirt to

1:49

Helen, the line goes dead. This

1:53

phone call will lead to Richard

1:55

Nixon resigning from the presidency years

1:58

later. He would personally... We're going

2:00

to finally blame Martha and her big

2:02

mouth for toppling his presidency. But

2:05

we're about to learn that he's the

2:07

one who should have kept his tricky

2:09

trap shut. The

2:17

biggest White House scandal in a

2:19

century. The Watergate scandal broke wide

2:21

open today. And so there

2:24

is tonight a real persistent and substantial

2:26

question of whether the president can in

2:28

fact carry out his responsibilities. Well, I

2:30

voted for Nixon and unfortunately I think

2:33

the whole thing has come up

2:35

and his political credibility is just

2:38

completely gone. What did the

2:40

president know and when did he know it? I

2:43

welcome this kind of examination because people have

2:45

got to know whether or not their president

2:47

is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. From

2:57

Wundery and At Will Media,

2:59

this is The Big Flop

3:01

where we chronicle the greatest

3:03

flubs, fails and blunders of

3:05

all time. I'm your

3:07

host Misha Brown, social media

3:09

superstar, also known as the throat

3:12

goat at Don't Cross a Gay Man.

3:14

And today we're talking about the

3:17

scandal gate that started the whole

3:19

gate thing. We

3:33

get support from Dove. Hey y'all, it's

3:35

your girl Kiki Palmer, host of the

3:37

Wundery podcast, baby, this is Kiki Palmer.

3:39

Let me cut to the chase. Did

3:41

you know that in many states across

3:43

the US, it's still not illegal to

3:45

discriminate against people based on the way

3:47

their hair grows out of their head?

3:49

To deny black folks from jobs and

3:51

opportunities because they have braids, locks, twists

3:53

or bantu knots? That's messed up. And

3:55

today's sponsor, Dove, agrees. That's why Dove

3:58

co-founded the Crown Coalition in 20 years.

4:00

to advocate for the passage of

4:02

the CROWN Act. CROWN stands for

4:04

Creating a Respectful and Open World

4:07

for Natural Hair, and the CROWN

4:09

Act is legislation which prohibits race-based

4:11

hair discrimination in workplaces and schools

4:13

in the US. Dove is driving

4:15

awareness by advocating for petition signatures

4:17

and supporting the CROWN movement to

4:19

create a society where black hair

4:21

is not only accepted, but respected

4:23

and celebrated in all of its

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beauty. Join Dove in taking action

4:28

to help end race-based hair discrimination

4:30

by signing the CROWN Act

4:32

petition at dove.com/crown. That's dove.com/crown.

4:34

This episode is brought to

4:36

you by Huggies Little Movers.

4:38

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diaper. Huggies Little Movers.

5:02

We got you, baby. On

5:05

our show today, we have a comedian,

5:07

actor, and writer. He's

5:12

a co-creator, writer, and

5:14

star of Bust Down on

5:16

Peacock, and you can

5:19

stream his comedy album, Light Skinned

5:21

Feelings. Now it's Langston Kerman. Welcome

5:23

to the show. Yay, thank you.

5:26

And congratulations on the throat goat

5:28

title. I had no idea. What

5:31

an honor. What an honor, yeah.

5:33

Self-appointed. Congratulations, I'm proud of you.

5:35

Thank you. Well, I'm so

5:37

excited. Also on the show today is an

5:39

absolutely fantastic returning guest. You

5:42

last heard him on our episode

5:44

covering Howard Dean. Ah! You

5:47

know him from his podcast, The Dollop,

5:49

and we're here to help. Welcome

5:51

back to Gareth Reynolds. Thank

5:53

you, Misha. Hi, Langston. I actually

5:55

had been calling myself the throat

5:57

goat, so this is awkward. It's

6:00

hard news for you. You're

6:02

finding out that

6:04

the title has moved and you didn't realize.

6:07

Brutal. It's brutal. We'll figure it out off

6:09

air. It's

6:11

history month at Wondery, so we're going

6:13

to look at some flops of yesteryear.

6:16

And today we're about to get into our

6:18

time machine and head back to 1972. Think

6:22

polyester. Grease is on Broadway.

6:25

Abba, Ziggy, Stardust, the video

6:27

game Pong, and of course

6:29

the godfather. So are we there?

6:31

Are we feeling it? Yeah, of course.

6:33

Yes. Well, before we

6:36

dive into Watergate, let's just see how

6:38

well you know your scandals and let's

6:40

play a game. ["The

6:44

Star-Spangled Banner"] So

6:46

here are the rules. I'm going to

6:48

name a gate scandal and you tell

6:50

me what it was. Okay. Okay.

6:54

The first one, Deflate Gate.

6:57

Oh, that's easy. The

6:59

Patriots were accused of taking the

7:01

air out of footballs for Tom

7:03

Brady's convenience so that he could

7:05

throw them better and more efficiently.

7:08

Yes. It was the New England

7:10

Patriots allegedly deflating footballs, making them

7:12

easier to grip and catch during

7:14

the 2015 AFC Championship

7:17

game against the Indianapolis

7:19

Colts. Yeah. All right,

7:21

second one, Envelope Gate. Ooh,

7:25

Envelope Gate. That sounds like Gareth's problem

7:27

to me. Come on, Wanks. I really

7:29

nailed the first one, so

7:32

I think that's really... You really did. I

7:36

would maybe guess that it's when they

7:38

started mailing the anthrax? I don't know.

7:40

Oh, good guess. I

7:42

can tell by your reaction that I'm right. No,

7:47

during the presentation of the best

7:49

picture category at the 2017 Academy

7:51

Awards, La La Land was announced

7:54

as the winner. However, the announcement

7:56

was a mistake and the actual

7:58

winner was Moonlight. Of course, of

8:00

course. All right, one more. Donut

8:03

Gate. Donut Gate. Oh, this is

8:06

good. Come on, Langston, take it and run. Donut

8:10

Gate, we all remember, is

8:14

when Ben Affleck found

8:16

himself sprawled out after

8:18

his fifth Dunkin' Donuts

8:20

run of the day. And

8:22

everybody was horrified about whether or not

8:24

we needed to intervene and help this

8:26

poor man with his addiction. I

8:29

got it right. No need to fact check it. Good.

8:32

You are an actor. Yeah. Unfortunately,

8:35

as great as that improv

8:38

was, this is when singer

8:40

Ariana Grande was observed on

8:43

video licking un-purchased donuts and

8:45

stating, I hate Americans, I

8:47

hate America, that's disgusting. Whoa.

8:50

What? You've never heard of that? No. What?

8:53

That legitimately is the worst

8:56

of these gates. I

8:58

think it's worst of Watergate. Lick

9:00

un-purchased donuts. And

9:03

put them back. Didn't you like keep them? Just lick

9:05

them and put it right back on the shelf. Oh

9:07

my Lord. All right.

9:14

So to talk Watergate, we need

9:16

to talk about the man behind

9:18

it, Richard Nixon. And now you

9:20

may be thinking, Nixon, this is

9:22

a comedy podcast. That guy's not

9:24

funny. Well, before you

9:26

make that call, let's listen to an appearance

9:28

on 1968's version of SNL called

9:32

Laugh In. In this

9:34

clip, his only job is

9:36

to deliver the show's signature line, Sock

9:39

It To Me. Let's watch. MBC,

9:44

beautiful downtown Burbank. Oh,

9:48

hello, Governor Rockefeller. Oh

9:51

no. I don't think we could get

9:53

Mr. Nixon to stand still for a Sock It To Me.

9:57

Sock It To Me? Wow.

10:02

That's pretty good. Oh, my

10:04

God. Yeah. A

10:08

lot of added punctuation. Sock

10:10

to me? Sock

10:12

to me? Now, the question

10:14

I guess I have is, do you think that he

10:16

had never seen the show and thus had no idea

10:19

how to say it? Or was

10:21

he putting a fun Nixon

10:23

spin on that catchphrase?

10:26

Well, funny you asked that question

10:28

because, fun fact, according to producers,

10:30

it took six takes for Nixon

10:33

to say the line without sounding angry.

10:37

So that's like the heavily directed one.

10:41

And they were like, we got

10:43

it, I guess? I don't know. That's

10:46

his version of Gleeful and Charming. Look,

10:48

we got to go to lunch. Yeah,

10:50

I think we got it. We got it.

10:54

Well, that socket to me must have worked

10:56

on some level with voters because Nixon comes

10:58

out of the 1968 presidential

11:00

election with a decisive victory.

11:03

And that, in theory, should leave

11:05

him feeling confident that he has

11:07

the country's support. But

11:10

Nixon is a strange man

11:12

at a strange time. By

11:15

the time Nixon is elected, there are 500,000 American

11:18

troops in Vietnam and the

11:21

country is restless. So

11:23

he's paranoid and believes all sorts of people

11:25

are out to get him. He

11:27

makes an actual enemies list. Nice. Just

11:30

in case there really are some people

11:32

after him. Do you have an enemies

11:34

list? Oh, yeah. Yeah, not

11:36

that I've written down, but certainly there's

11:39

like a flow chart in my

11:41

head that's constantly working and unworking.

11:44

Come on, share a name what they do. I

11:47

mean, I'll start alphabetical if you'd like, but...

11:50

I would say most of my career is fueled

11:52

by full on spite. Oh, yeah. Fuelled

11:55

by rejection that I'm

11:57

trying to turn into fuel to shove

11:59

down people. people's throats. So there's a

12:02

long list. That's a separate podcast. Well,

12:04

Nixon's list is pretty extensive.

12:06

It includes obvious political enemies

12:08

like Democrat Ted Kennedy, but

12:10

also some puzzling ones like

12:13

quarterback Joe Namath, actor Paul

12:15

Newman, and even Barbra Streisand.

12:17

Not Babs. Well, Babs. I

12:19

mean, she's on everybody's list.

12:21

She's a huge threat, obviously.

12:23

Burned a lot of bridges that Barbra Streisand.

12:25

Imagine writing that list down for him. Like,

12:27

when you get it, you're like, I think

12:30

we should probably take a break. We should

12:32

also Barbra Streisand. She's

12:34

wronged me. Who else? Checkers,

12:36

the dog. What

12:40

really makes Nixon go off the deep

12:42

end in paranoia is the Pentagon Papers

12:44

fiasco. I mean, now that could be

12:47

a whole other episode of the Big

12:49

Flop, but the long and short of

12:51

it is a series of documents exposing

12:53

government lies about Vietnam that are released

12:55

to the New York Times by a

12:57

whistleblower. And Nixon goes

12:59

ballistic. He never wants an embarrassment

13:02

like this to happen again, so

13:04

he decides to create a secret

13:06

team to do his dirty work.

13:09

They're known as the Plumbers.

13:12

Okay. And he guess why they're called

13:14

the Plumbers? Arm deep and

13:16

shit. I think

13:18

that's better. They're called the

13:20

Plumbers because they fix leaks. Okay. Every

13:23

diplomatic way of handling the wrong answer,

13:25

by the way, Misha, let's not sleep

13:27

on that. We

13:30

both feel good and wrong, which is

13:32

nice. It's very flat.

13:34

It sort of feels like unimaginative in a

13:36

way that like, come on, man, you're president.

13:38

You could do whatever you want. Dream

13:41

bigger. Dream bigger. It

13:44

also shows you that they never thought they would get

13:46

caught. Oh,

13:49

just wait. The audacity of the Plumbers

13:51

and the delusion that they live in.

13:54

So the Plumbers operate out of a basement

13:56

in a building next to the White House,

13:59

I'm sure. in a house that said, no

14:01

plumbers here. These

14:03

members include really bad dudes like

14:05

Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy.

14:08

Hunt, for example, was a former

14:10

CIA officer involved in the disastrous

14:12

Bay of Pigs invasion. And

14:14

Gordon Liddy liked to brag to White

14:17

House secretaries how he could kill someone

14:19

with a pencil. Maybe

14:22

I'm wrong, but I feel like killing someone

14:24

with a pencil, very

14:26

difficult. Oh, I disagree. Not

14:28

to- You think possible? No, go

14:30

ahead. I actually think most of us

14:33

could kill someone with a pencil and

14:35

that's more why it's unimpressive. Okay.

14:38

You mean that sharpened object?

14:41

Spike. I bet I could

14:43

find some soft parts in you that

14:45

could make this problem go away. Either

14:48

way, it's a cool brag. It's

14:50

a normal man brag. Yeah. While

14:53

the plumbers are brought together by

14:55

a guy named Charles Colson, he

14:58

claims he'd, quote, walk over his own

15:00

grandmother to get Nixon reelected. Boy, these

15:03

guys have some quotes, huh? They're really,

15:05

it's like a locker room. It is

15:07

the locker room talk. For

15:09

sure. Colson's also known

15:11

as the White House hatchet man

15:14

and Nixon's personal dirty tricks artist.

15:17

Now the plumbers first task is

15:19

to break into the psychiatrist office

15:21

of the guy who leaked the

15:23

Pentagon papers so they can discredit

15:25

him. Oh God. I

15:28

didn't know it started this silly. That's funny.

15:30

Yeah. That's a, just

15:32

your weight. Just your weight, Langston.

15:35

The plumbers are known for

15:37

being idiotic and very sloppy.

15:40

They break into the office and crowbar

15:42

open the drawers. They do find

15:44

the guy's file, but unfortunately for

15:46

Nixon, they don't find any good

15:48

dirt. Wait,

15:51

so they broke in not

15:53

knowing if there was gonna be anything

15:56

in this psychiatrist's office, but just knew

15:58

that he was seeing a psychiatrist. and

16:00

thus presumed that they were gonna be able

16:02

to find some nasty dirt on him. I

16:04

mean, this is 1968. They're

16:06

like, there's a man going and talking about

16:08

his feelings? He must be broken. He's sick.

16:11

We've gotta do something. I also, anytime I've

16:13

been in therapy, I've always wondered what they're

16:15

writing down, and I always kind of assumed

16:17

it wasn't much. Like, you're not

16:19

gonna open that up and be like, we got

16:21

him. His dad didn't love

16:23

him. Boo. No. carlo.com.

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Letting someone else pick out the

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terms apply. Well,

18:11

back to Watergate, specifically

18:13

what everyone refers to as

18:15

the Watergate Hotel. It's

18:18

a really big complex right on

18:20

the Potomac River in Washington, DC,

18:22

that's always buzzing with activity. There

18:25

are apartments, shops, restaurants, a hotel,

18:27

offices, including at the time, the

18:29

headquarters of the Democratic National Committee,

18:32

AKA Nixon's rival party.

18:35

On the night of June 17th, 1972, Watergate

18:40

security guard Frank Willis is

18:42

working his normal midnight shift.

18:45

He does his rounds through the

18:47

parking garage when almost immediately something

18:50

strange catches his eye. There's

18:52

a piece of masking tape covering the

18:54

latch of a stairwell door, allowing it

18:57

to close, but not to lock. Clever.

19:01

What would you do in that moment? As the guard?

19:04

I wouldn't be too worried because it's so bush-leak.

19:07

It feels so amateur that

19:09

it feels like some rascals,

19:11

maybe some teens had broken in more

19:13

than adult men working for

19:15

the most powerful men in the world. Probably

19:18

take it off. I'd probably just take it

19:20

off. I'd be like, okay, we're good. This

19:22

is what I'm supposed to, this is my

19:24

level of security in this job. How much

19:26

is my paycheck? I can take

19:28

the tape off the door. Yes. Well,

19:31

he thinks weird and

19:33

he does exactly that. He pulls the tape off

19:35

and goes about his rounds. But

19:37

when he circles back around to the

19:40

same spot later, the tape is back.

19:42

That's a weird move from the plumbers.

19:44

That's bad. At

19:46

that point, you gotta be like, all right, look, the tape thing, we

19:50

can't do the tape thing twice. We're

19:53

elite, we're an elite force. I

19:55

do like the idea that one of them probably said,

19:58

we can't do the tape thing twice. Blow

28:00

my cover. Blow my cover. Blow my cover.

28:03

Deepthroat, the person, is

28:06

extremely secretive. Woodward

28:08

and Deepthroat have dramatic late-night meetings

28:10

in a parking garage and use

28:12

little flags and flower pots to

28:15

signal when to meet. The

28:17

theatrics pay off because

28:19

Deepthroat points the reporters in the

28:21

right direction. And with

28:24

his help, they uncover more and

28:26

more people involved in the break-in

28:28

that are definitely in Nixon's orbit.

28:32

Sidebar, his true identity remained a secret for

28:34

30 years. So

28:36

he was a really good undercover source. What

28:39

was his whole thing? Was he just a

28:41

dude who knew stuff? How did

28:44

he come to be Deepthroat? Well,

28:46

he ends up being a guy

28:48

named Mark Felt, an FBI official

28:50

involved in the investigation to begin

28:53

with. Much better

28:55

name. Yes. I'm

28:57

Mark Felt. What

29:00

everyone calls me Deepthroat. I'm Mark Felt.

29:02

Mark Deepthroat Felt. Yeah,

29:04

when they called him Deepthroat, he was

29:06

like, yes, finally. Can I

29:08

wear a cape? All right, Mark, relax. Mark,

29:10

stop. Stop it, Mark. Stop it, Mark. So

29:14

as the stories break, Nixon and

29:16

the White House, of course, deny

29:18

everything, but more evidence pops up

29:20

every day. For instance, Congress uncovers

29:22

the source of the plumber's money.

29:25

Oh, no. The office

29:27

of Nixon's commerce secretary. There's

29:30

a literal safe stuffed with $350,000. Oh,

29:33

my God. It's

29:36

so sloppy. So

29:39

we're getting to November of 1972, and Nixon is up

29:41

for reelection. All

29:45

of this news must be pretty bad for him, right? Yes.

29:49

No, because he wins

29:51

by a ridiculous landslide. He

29:53

wins every state besides Massachusetts.

29:56

That's the thing that is so shocking is

29:59

that he won. how

32:00

this could never happen today. No.

32:04

Like, this figure would not exist

32:06

today. And it's amazing that it's

32:08

just brutal honesty, because

32:11

they were trying so hard to keep

32:13

everything under wraps and there's just a

32:15

gossiper who is just old-fashioned,

32:18

just like, my husband's a moron. They

32:20

had a plumber. They taped the door. Well,

32:23

the Justice Department assigns a

32:26

special prosecutor for the investigation.

32:28

The man assigned to the job is

32:31

Archibald Cox, a

32:33

six-foot-tall law professor known for

32:35

a personality that is, quote,

32:38

Ramrod Strait. Okay.

32:40

Let's go. This is a very strange episode, everybody.

32:43

Yeah, we're going. Yeah. Not to mention the fact

32:45

his name has Bald Cox in it. Ha ha

32:47

ha ha. Then,

32:50

the Senate hearings reveal a

32:52

bombshell. Alexander Butterfield.

32:55

He has the worst name, I would say. Alexander

32:58

Butterfield. So,

33:01

he's Nixon's appointments secretary, and

33:03

he says that Nixon had installed

33:05

secret recording devices in the

33:07

Oval Office. As it

33:09

turns out, Nixon secretly tapes almost every

33:12

conversation that takes place in the Oval

33:14

Office. This is it. Leaving

33:16

aside how bizarre it is to tape

33:19

all of your conversations, especially when you're

33:21

committing crimes, the tapes will

33:23

settle this once and for all. I've

33:26

never taped a conversation before,

33:30

but I'd like to believe that if

33:32

I did, it would be, like, extremely

33:34

necessary. I'm not taping every

33:36

single one and listening to those back.

33:38

That's nuts. Yeah. Misha, you're not taping

33:41

this, are you? This is just a

33:43

hang, right? Oh, did we not tell

33:45

you? Oh. I actually see a microphone if I

33:47

look closely. Ha ha ha ha. Well,

33:52

special prosecutor Archibald Cox

33:55

asks for them, just in case. Nixon

33:58

is not into this. at

34:00

all. Nixon says no.

34:03

He claims executive privilege, where

34:05

a president can withhold information

34:07

in the name of national

34:09

security and offers to write

34:12

up a summary. But

34:14

Cox insists, as they

34:16

do. And when

34:18

Nixon suggests a hard-of-hearing senator

34:21

can listen, the prosecutor is

34:23

fed up and demands to

34:25

hear the tapes. So

34:28

what do you think Nixon does? I

34:30

think he's going to burn those tapes. There's

34:32

no way he's handing those bad boys over

34:34

politely. He fires

34:36

Cox. Nice. That's

34:41

the move. Yeah, you're making

34:43

me nervous, my man. I'm going to

34:45

go ahead and eliminate you from your

34:48

position. Can I fire you? Yeah. Get

34:50

out of here. You're done. This will

34:52

come to be known as the Saturday

34:54

Night Massacre. Over

34:56

the course of a few hours on October 20, 1973,

34:59

a lot goes down at the White House. First, Nixon

35:05

wants to fire Archibald Cox,

35:08

but because of a twisty-turny

35:10

government structure, he technically can't.

35:13

He needs to tell the attorney general to do

35:15

it. That guy

35:17

refuses. So Nixon

35:20

fires him. The best. So

35:22

then the next guy comes

35:24

in and Nixon is like, okay,

35:26

now fire the special counsel.

35:28

But that guy refuses. So

35:30

then he also gets fired.

35:32

That's cool. Finally, in

35:35

comes this guy named Robert Bork,

35:38

who's like, I'll do it.

35:40

And Nixon's like, finally, and gets

35:42

rid of Archibald Cox. Whoa.

35:44

Bork also goes on to become quite

35:47

a figure in Roe v.

35:49

Wade and all that stuff as well.

35:52

He's known for a lot of stuff

35:54

eventually. I bet he was

35:56

on the right side of history in Roe v.

35:58

Wade. Absolutely. Without question. corrupt

46:00

bargain. Can't imagine. Three

46:04

years later, Nixon still

46:06

has not given a significant interview

46:08

until British journalist David Frost gets

46:10

him to agree to a series

46:13

of talks on camera. Nixon

46:16

gets $600,000 for the interviews, which

46:20

is the equivalent of like $3 million into

46:23

day one. I didn't know he was

46:25

getting like big paid off of those.

46:27

I didn't either. During the 28 hours

46:29

of interviews, Nixon

46:32

dropped some nice tidbits like quote, I didn't

46:34

think of it as a cover up. I

46:36

didn't intend it to cover up. Let me

46:38

say if I intended to cover up, believe

46:41

me, I'd have done it. Mm, mm. You

46:43

call that a cover up? I could have

46:45

covered that up way better. Yeah. Yeah. In

46:49

a time honored patriarchal tradition, Nixon

46:51

blames a woman for all his

46:53

problems. Nixon says, quote, if

46:56

it hadn't been for Martha Mitchell,

46:58

there would be no Watergate. Listen,

47:01

I'm not a fan of blaming women

47:03

for our problems. I think that there

47:05

are a lot of other explanations for

47:08

what happened here. You're not

47:10

wrong. Martha did

47:12

fuck him pretty bad. Oh

47:14

yeah. Well,

47:18

the strange thing is, Nixon is

47:20

never actually implicated in the burglary

47:22

at the Watergate. If

47:25

he had told the truth about what he knew, he

47:27

would never have had to resign. This

47:29

is where the phrase, it's not the crime, it's

47:31

the cover up comes from. Yeah,

47:34

right. Even today, there are many unanswered questions

47:37

about the scandal. What exactly was the purpose of the break

47:39

in? Why didn't Nixon

47:41

just destroy the tapes? What

47:44

was on that 18 minutes of tape that was deleted? Crazy.

47:48

We'll never know. That's so crazy. What

47:50

do you think was on the tape? It had to be horrible.

47:53

It had to be just

47:55

very clear criminal confessions. It

47:58

just has to be that. Recording

52:00

every conversation as the president

52:02

is inane. Recording

52:05

every conversation and then hanging out

52:07

with Martha afterwards. The

52:09

two, the combination ruined

52:12

his life. Well

52:15

thank you so much to our unimpeachable

52:17

guests, Gareth Reynolds and Langston Kerman for

52:19

joining us here on The Big Flop

52:21

and thanks to all of you for

52:23

listening. We'll be back next

52:25

week to take a deep dive into

52:27

one of the wilder post-exoneration career changes,

52:30

O.J. Simpson's short stint as an author,

52:33

and his book, If I Did It.

52:35

Bye! Bye. Bye.

52:39

If you like The Big Flop,

52:42

you can listen early and

52:44

ad-free on Wondery+.

52:58

Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app

53:00

or on Apple Podcasts. Prime

53:03

members can listen ad-free on

53:05

Amazon Music. Before

53:07

you go, tell us about

53:09

yourself by filling out a

53:11

short survey at wondery.com/survey. The

53:20

Big Flop is a production of Wondery and

53:22

Atwill Media, hosted by me,

53:24

Misha Brown, produced by Sequoia

53:26

Thomas, Harry Huggins, and Tina

53:28

Turner. Written by Anna Rubinova.

53:31

Engineered by Andrew Holtzberger, with

53:33

support from Zac Grappone. Our story

53:35

editor is Drew Beebe. Our

53:38

managing producer is Molly Getman. Our

53:40

executive producers are Kate Walsh and

53:42

Will Malnati for Atwill Media. Legal

53:44

support by Carolyn Levin of Miller,

53:47

Korzenich, Summers, and Raymond. Producers

53:49

for Wondery are Matt Beagle and Grant Rudder.

53:52

Story editing by Brian Taylor White.

53:55

Coordinating producer is Mariah Gossett. Music

53:57

supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freesound.

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