Podbit · The Rest Is Politics
JD Vance claimed Watergate would barely last a news cycle today — but Alastair Campbell did the maths: if it's a 12-hour story, the current administration is doing at least two things worse than Watergate every single day. The man pointing out the shamelessness of political culture is Donald Trump's own vice president.
Where this was said
At 19:36 · chapter starts 19:16
A question from a listener named Kieran prompts a sharp exchange about JD Vance's claim, made while promoting his book on his conversion to Catholicism, that if Watergate happened today it would be out of the news cycle in 24 hours. Alastair Campbell describes this as a sign of moral collapse in both the individual and the culture, arguing that Nixon was at least brought down because political culture in that era still had standards, even if those standards were imperfect. [1] — Alastair Campbell "JD Vance claimed Watergate would barely last a news cycle today — but Alastair Campbell did the maths: if it's a 12-hour story, the current…" 19:36 Rory Stewart adds a layer of absurdist irony: the person pointing out the shamelessness of political culture is Trump's own vice president. Then Campbell delivers his killer calculation — if Watergate is a 12-hour story, the administration is doing at least two things worse than Watergate every day. The segment closes with a comic coda: Vance appearing on his wife Usha's reading podcast, where he gave her what Alastair described as 'the most patronising pat on the leg I've ever seen'.
JD Vance claimed that if the Watergate scandal happened today it would be out of the news cycle within 24 hours and couldn't bring down a president.
Alastair Campbell calculated that if Watergate is now a 12-hour story, the current administration is doing at least two things worse than Watergate every single day.
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