Episode Transcription

00:00 Hey, thanks for listening to things. I learned last night. It's my favorite thing to do. My second favorite to do is stand up comedy and so we love for you to cover those shows this month. I am in Houston Plano. That's in Texas, Kingsport, Tennessee, Fredericksburg, Virginia, Charlotte, North Carolina, Milton, West Virginia. Where's that at? Huh? Raleigh, North Carolina. It's in West Virginia, Indianapolis, 00:24 Omaha, Saint Louis and Springfield, Missouri. So March twenty second, I am in Nashville, Tennessee, filming my comedy special. I got rescheduled and there's two shows on that Sunday. If you're within driving distance, put on a couple episodes, make the drive, come to the special taping. I'd love to see you there, so thanks for coming to shows. Let's get into the episode. 00:50 Oh, were you trying to feel the Braille? I thought you were trying to find my nipple. 00:55 Hey man. What's up? I you gotta leave that in, right? 01:06 Do you need to fire archibald cocks? Is that you being possessed? 01:22 I'm being possessed by the spirit of Richard Nixon. 01:37 Have you ever heard of uh Watergate? Yes, that's what we're talking about today. Oh, okay, for real yeah yeah. We're gonna. We're gonna cover Watergate. Oh, okay, great. Do know the Watergate like the I know about water? Obviously, I mean I know I know the big details, but I don't know. I don't really. I don't think I could tell you what the plot was like what no. What I say like I couldn't tell you what they were trying to do 02:05 You know yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you I know what you're saying. Yeah, so this is Watergate. Okay, it's an office plaza, but also a hotel. One of those is a hotel. Can you guess the one in the top right? No, it's got those. see the slanted windows back there, the slanted windows. Oh, that's probably a hotel. Yeah, no, it's just one on the front with the pool. 02:35 Oh, make sense. That's the hotel and then behind that is this business plaza. What is the building right behind it that looks like a government building? It's probably probably a government building. This is in Washington DC yeah and it's like it's like on the very edge of of the government side of DC. So it's like very barely. It's just barely there, barely a part of the action is okay, just almost not in it and it's the Watergate Hotel. Well, it's the Watergate Plaza. So this is a whole business park and the hotel is a part of it. 03:03 okay, majority of it are office buildings right. Is that a helicopter pad up top where I'm trying to see what oh no, I don't think it is, it looks like it could be. I mean I I'm looking I think at what you're looking at and there's pot it's potential. Okay, I will say like given the fact that most of these are office buildings and most of these are government office buildings and this is the hotel attached to it. I think that's reasonable to assume that maybe there's a 03:32 helicopter pad on that. I think it's really funny that in downtown L. A. Most of the buildings there have helicopter pads, but then they made it illegal to do that. You can't land on really yeah because they were like the noise. Oh, the noise is the problem, not the crash. Copters are allowed. I mean helicopters don't crash that often. We her mom. mean they they don't crash that often, but when they do you got blades flying everywhere yeah, but that'd be like if we just say planes can't exist because sometimes they crash. I know 03:58 no or sometimes or cars can exist because sometimes they crash. No, it's not the same. It's not the same. It's very not the same planes or I think worse than helicopter. I'm not talking. I'm not talking about helicopters just flying around. What I'm talking about is helicopters landing in a highly populated area like on a building and then just crashing and then their blades flying everywhere. Yeah, I don't think that's the I don't think the blades air pod pro eject from the helicopter. 04:25 What do mean? You know when you drop your pods case and they're they're built to freaking to fly everywhere. Yeah, I don't know who designed that, but they are built to shoot out of it. Yeah, it's like that hondi the suv that they're demoing right now. The electric one that can eject the battery. Have you seen that one day? Yeah, yeah, sometimes. Oh my gosh, okay, so what a gate plaza 04:55 How are you saying it? Hyundai, no water gate, oh water, water gate, plaza, water gate, plaza, plaza, plaza, plaza. Plaza is not right. Plaza. That's you say that you feel like you're ex you're throwing up plaza. That's gross. It's plaza. 05:25 I think most people would agree that it's most people would agree that it's positive. If you think it's plaza, just type plaza in the comment section down below. Tell us if you think it's plaza or plaza and just just say plaza. Don't even tell us don't even say I think I just do this on spotify. You can leave comments by the way people are listening on spotify. You can leave comments on spotify. Just comment plaza or plaza, which one ever one you think it is or Hyundai yeah yeah. I like 05:54 well, it's hundai, but whatever we had this debate for years. Okay, so June seventeenth Watergate Plaza after hours, June seventeenth win June, so I guess I need to give it here. That was important, so June seventeenth 06:16 a nineteen seventy two, do seventy seventy two, seventy nine, seventy two Watergate Plaza. There is a night security guard, but then I'm a Frank Willis. Here's a cool picture of him very seventies security guard. such a cool freaking look. Honestly, I okay move on. Why can't I? I hate how weird you get 06:43 I'm not. It's not weird. I just honestly such a arms are so hair. I don't think his arms are here. You can see enough of them to tell that he doesn't have hair arms, but like I do think like it's a cool vibe. Sure it's a fly. Okay, the seventies was a fly time. Oh my gosh, so he's doing his rounds. It's one a.m. uh He's doing his rounds looking around the facility and uh on one of the doors to the parking garage. 07:11 He notices that the latch is taped. Okay. So he's like, that's weird. And so he peels it off and just keeps doing his rounds. It seems a little like you should maybe look into that. I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe you're just like someone was doing something. He's doing his rounds. So it goes back around a little while later at 1.50 a.m. Comes back around and he notices that it's taped back up again. And so he's like, that's really weird. And he's like, he's like one time maybe someone did it on accident. 07:40 maybe somebody tape the latch of the door accident was walking by somebody just had a loose tape on their hand and they just happened to I'm going to the garage. It's the seventies. They're going yeah do this going out the door do and then you do in that movement to that disco movement. My I lost my freaking day. 08:04 and I just happened to latch the door that leads to the room that has all the documents. You go home to your wife. You're like I lost my tape at work today. No you because it's the sevenies. You don't talk to your wife about what happened. You go home, you get a beer out of the fridge, you sit down, your kids in the living room. They're like dad and you're like shut up shot and your wife's like hey, dinner's almost ready. Should have been ready when I got home already already. Should have been ready already. 08:30 I got no tape in my hand. Go help your mother, go up your mother come in. You sit down, you sit down, your kids eat and they go. Can I be excused? I want to go watch tv. You go. Of course you do. Of course don't want to spend time with your old man. Of course you just want to watch Johnny Carson and then your wife is like 08:51 So today I went and did and you listen to all the things she did that day and she doesn't ask you once about your day and never even ask you go to bed and you lay there and you look at the ceiling in bed, look at the popcorn ceiling in your house and out loud. You say I need a cigarette out loud. know I need a cigarette and so you sit up. It's the seventy so you smoke it inside. There's a hole in the blanket where you usually put it out. 09:20 you go fufufufuf oh 09:49 it's all right. How was your day dad? Yeah, I made. Can you believe in school every morning? We got to say the pledge of allegiance, right? But you call me and they, they only recently added the under God part, but if I forget it, they act like I'm some kind of 10:18 I'm going on and on. What happened to your you did what you lost your tape is you need this anymore. His brass just goes away. Dad takes a cigarette, full cigarettes. He's got both cigarettes now 10:45 Yeah, so I lost my today. It was a beautiful moment for the dad and the son. It goes back into his room. His wife's asleep. She snores, puts the cigarettes, cigarette out, like it tosses one of the dog was the other cigarette on the blanket toss that lays down in bed and he's got a I'll worry about tomorrow. 11:10 Meanwhile, while he's doing that security guard hot by the way, security guard hot parentheses hot is he's roaming the building and goes whoa. I didn't say it was hot. I just said he looked cool. There's a different security are cool, hot Roman Watergate building and then sees the doors latch yeah well, not latches tapes. It's taped open so that it does not like it doesn't latch yeah. 11:40 and so one fifty he rolls back around, sees taped again and so he's like oh maybe this wasn't old John losing his tape like I thought in my head this whole story on every night. It's all story like to my cigarette. It's up his kids like yeah, they mean I say the police, I left my tape. He's like you left your tape yeah and they call me old John and thirty one and then 12:09 Yeah, my life doesn't look like what I thought was going look like when I was twenty three. 12:16 but I got a good job. I play with tape all day and my name is Bob. I don't know where the job came from, so maybe that wasn't old job. Maybe something else is going on yeah something else is a foot, so he calls the police and luckily there just happened to be an unmarked police cruiser nearby. They were out doing. What are you looking at? Nothing okay, they're doing rounds looking for drugs 12:45 Um, it's the war on drugs. is before the war on drugs. 12:50 stop. He's doing. I was trying to read one of your tattoos earlier and then you went. What are you looking at? It was really this one or in mean this one yeah. I was just looking. I just saw it there. You got a new one. I was just looking at it okay, and then you were like. What are you looking at? So then I was like what am I looking at and I just heard all right, whatever, whatever, dude, whatever bro, so he calls a police and there was a look. There was a 13:19 police crews are nearby that was doing, there was unmarked trying to catch people doing drugs because they were just rolling out. Yeah. You know, it's the seventies. Um, and so they pull up and they go into the office building. Okay. Meanwhile, across the way at the hotel, there is one of, there's a guy by the name of what's his, what's first name? I know his last name is Baldwin. Let me grab his first name real quick. Uh, Alfred Baldwin, the third, um, and so his job at this whole event, 13:49 as he is monitoring the situation from the hotel across the the plaza. So he's in his room with his binoculars watching, watching the movie or watching the watching the event unfold, keeping his eyes on the scene, making sure everything and he's at the hotel watching the that office that they're to get they're breaking into yes, and so he's he's like they're over watch okay, and there's people breaking into the office yeah and so he's got them on on radio talking to them, making sure everything looks like it's safe. You know okay, uh 14:18 and so these cops show up coincidentally baldwin was watching with binoculars. The situation was also in the hotel room and he's watching a movie on tv, so he gets distracted and he misses the cop show up, but then like your look out has one job. It's look out is to look out. 14:44 Yeah, yeah and so they were on the eighth floor. uh What they were doing, they're installing a listing device in the DNC office and he's watching on the binoculars, watching the movie, cops come in, misses it, just on the do you think is so good that this high still you're pulling off is like I can't, but I mean anytime sleepless in Seattle's on I can't miss it. What movie is that for you that you just can't not watch? Oh, like if I'm scrolling 15:13 yeah and you see that that move back when I was changing channels. Yeah, back that now was on that have golly. I don't know. There's some movies that I'm like yeah, I'll watch you know 15:28 Lion King animated because Nala parentheses hot is. 15:39 I'm actually low. 15:47 I don't know. We don't. We don't scroll channels anymore now. You know yeah, but I had a list of those that I would stop and watch any time. Yeah. What are those? One of them was remember the Titans, O Shashank Redemption for sure every time I see that that's that's the main one that I stumble upon. Sometimes I go I'll watch it again. I'll watch it again. Yeah, four brothers was definitely a list for me holes holes stop and watch holes. Anytime that's a love holes again. Big fan of holes, but he was watching attack of the puppet people on 16:17 which never seen him this movie from probably before the seventy's honestly, doll dwarfs versus the crushing giant beasts. Yeah, yeah, okay. I mean it's like a honey. I shrunk the kids a long time before the honey. I shrunk the kids for the kids. Oh, it is because that's a kitchen knife. I see. Yeah, I see. I see that's probably a dog. So okay, not a monster. So he's distracted. Yeah, he's watching this instead of okay. 16:46 the people who are committing a serious crime that he's supposed to be watching their backs. And while he's looking away, the police show up, the police show up and they start sweeping the building and he's kind of like, you know, looking over his shoulder at the movie. And then he notices a light on the eighth floor turns on. And so he hurries his, his binoculars over there and he watches and he realizes it's, it's police officers sweeping the building. So he gets on the radio and he says, Hey, some cops just got to your floor. And he was like, our floor, 17:14 you were supposed to tell us if they showed up at all. He's like yeah, I don't know where they came from. They must have been in the building the whole time. Yeah, I I was I don't know what tell you. I can't. I can't tell you. I can't what's less embarrassing. Yeah, what I got stuck in traffic. You put what he did in the hotel the whole thing. Yeah, I met you there. I went to the ice machine. I came, but he was traffic in the high. It ran into a kid who's smoking 17:45 I talked to him for a while. I got a lot to say about his dad. 17:54 Hey, thanks for watching our show. you like it, a great way to help out is by being a Patreon supporter. Doing that helps make this show possible, but it also gets a lot of perks for you. You can get every episode a week early ad free. You get access to a Discord where you can meet a lot of other people who love the show and actually hang out with Jaren and I every month on a hangout. And we're also in that Discord chat all the time, hanging, talking with people, talking about episodes and just random stuff in life. It's super fun. 18:17 We do, there's a way to get birthday messages, a free gift, merch discounts in there. So there's a lot of really great reasons to be a Patreon supporter. You get a lot of benefits out of it. And it also makes the show keep happening. So if that sounds great to you, you can go to support.tilling.com or tilling.com slash support, uh or just tilling.com and search around until you find the links and become a Patreon supporter. really appreciate you doing that. But if not, right back to the episode, right? 18:45 Okay, so yeah, they're on the floor yeah, and they get caught yeah, so the they hid behind a partition in one of the office building and one of the offices and obviously the police found them and so they get arrested. uh Some of them attempted to flee. They didn't make it very far. Some of them. How many are there? So there's five of them. Okay, they all end up getting arrested. Here they are uh okay, uh very mob mob guys. 19:15 uh James McCord Jr. uh I love that you started saying the names I like, because I saw it. That's the first time I saw and then I saw one of the names at the end too and I was like and then you went James McCord Jr. Oh Virgilio Gonzales, Gio, yeah, Frank Sturgis. 19:38 um you know, no, what was it? Don't try to hide by you, Gio Martinez and Bernard Baker. Okay, and so and then their lookout was across the street and who is a lookout? He's not in this list. Okay, um and so these guys all get arrested ah and they begin this long investigation into what's going on. Okay, and to 20:06 There's a lot to cover here. So I'm going to kind of truncate a lot of this story. They go into trial and then the process of the trial, ah they find out that this is the second break in. And so they had actually broke in on May 28th. Okay. So they broke in, they installed some listening devices in the office, but they were bad. They weren't getting good signal from them. So they acquired higher quality listening, listening devices to put in there. 20:35 um and to be able to spy on the convention. And it was interesting in the investigation, were, uh this becomes highly televised. And it was in a time when TV was, there was four channels. So it was highly viewed, not just highly televised. um And there was a couple of reporters who really dug into this um to try to figure out the storyline. 21:04 And it's not really, well, it is clear. It seems like the reporters did a lot of the investigative work that started to really break this case open. And it's interesting in the investigation, um you would think that the Justice Department running this investigation would be the one to find a lot of these things, but the work of these reporters started to open up. 21:34 Why are you sitting like that and I'm thinking you would think fixing my ear buds? Okay, I'm fixing my things that the judicial system would do most of the stuff, but it was reporters. 21:56 reporters, parentheses hot uncovered a lot of stuff because they planted some listening devices legally and 22:12 you just reached up and then I was like oh, that's normal and then you went other and you sat here like this. Well, I was trying to was trying to tighten this thing back here and I was trying to do it with one hand and I couldn't get the right amount of tension, so I had get the other hand up there so I could pull it and actually tighten that and then I got well honestly I got comfortable. It was a comfortable way to have my arms up here like this. I sat like that. Don't do that. Don't do that. I'm just gonna stay like this. Get uncomfortable 22:44 it made me so mad. Okay, so they had snuck in May twenty first. They'd already put some listening devices and then they like a twenty sorry May twenty eight. They've already put some listening devices in yes and then June fifteenth. The ones they put in earlier didn't work as well. They weren't working and they were just getting like fuzz back. Okay, so they had to go put new ones in yeah and so 23:13 the a couple of reporters from the Washington Post. Let me get their names because they are actually very significant people Woodward and Bernstein. Those are the two journalists that our first names they do. Hold on. You want me to get it Bob Woodward. You know them. I know what word yeah yeah Bob Woodward and Bernstein. Let me see bears 23:46 Carl Carl burns Carl burns and it's right. Yeah They they did a lot of leg work to try to figure it out what was going on right and the work that they did they eventually they followed this money trail they these Robbers had a cashier's check that they were paid to do this uh action um and they followed the money trail of that cashier's check and 24:14 Long story short, it was apparent that it had been laundered for a little bit that that money and eventually they traced it back to a campaign donation to the Nixon reelection campaign for his next presidential term. along that line, they started to uncover there was this organization that was put together called the CRP, um which was uh the uh Committee for 24:42 uh, reelection of the president. Uh, a lot of people started calling it creep, which love that. Um, but this group came together to try to do anything that they could to get next in his reelection. Right. And a little bit about Nixon, we're not going to dive too deep into his background, but he shady. It's shady. He had a shady past. I am not a crook. There was a lot. feel like if you got to say that, that's that kind of shows where you are. You know, 25:11 if it's a question yeah and then yeah, there's yeah. So there was a lot of things leading up to this in his career before becoming president. You got to watch what we do in the shadows, the vampire show. I keep telling you to watch in it. Well, there's an episode where they learn that they can hip and hypnotize other vampires. Yeah and one of the vampires they can only do when they're sleeping yeah and he hypnotizes him to speak like Richard Nixon. So all episode that guy is like I you know any does like all these speeches. He goes. We had a dog yeah 25:40 and I gave that I loved that dog. Yeah, you know and and he goes is this isn't this a Richard Nixon speech? 25:51 it clocks it very funny episode. So the this money gets chased back yeah and they they they realize the campaign the Nixon campaign and specifically to this CRP group, which is a part of Nixon's inner circle that's working to try to get him reelected and it's interesting when you look at a lot of their behaviors because it's a lot of I don't know if you would call it a legal 26:20 but it's not. I wouldn't legal. I certainly would not call it a legal. They do a lot of things that are like. Would you call it a legal? 26:31 No, no, you wouldn't. What about you Blair? 26:36 Yeah, put in the comments what you would call it, illegal or what illegal. Oh, that's hard to say. I thought I was going to gag on that word. Illegal. uh I really that yeah, really playing up how bad you are at that. I would call it go. Oh, we stupid uh this group. The point is this group did a lot of things that were 27:05 in a gray area or a questionable yeah, well, I believe maybe within bounds. Yeah, it was depending on the interpretation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, could be like it's not explicitly illegal. Yeah, except for this um because what they did is they were wiretapping that's a dnc office. Yeah, they broke into the dnc office twice wire tapped it, laundered money to pay a group of um these were Cuban expats. 27:35 uh, uh, who were involved in the Bay of pigs invasion, um, that whole crisis, they were CIA informants that the CIA used for the whole Bay of pigs mess. And so, um, a lot of muddiness and a lot of definitely illegal actions going on here. And so this investment investigation is going on. And while this investigation is going on, um, the prosecutor on the case, uh, pulls a, pulls a witness from the CRP. Okay. And 28:03 The big question that pretty much everyone in the public had as this is going on is now it's starting to get connected back to Nixon's campaign. Right. The question is, is Nixon aware of this? And if he was aware of this, like when? Yeah. How involved? Yeah. Yeah. And so the question was straight up asked, was Nixon aware of this and when was he aware of this? And this kind of blew open the case in a different level uh because the person that was involved in this was 28:32 Everybody inside of Nixon's cabinet was a part of this group that I think, think as the, the, the, uh, the administration went along, they all kind of got into a point where I don't know if it's, it's not really clear if they all, uh, 28:52 I'm trying to figure out the way the way to say this. They did a lot of things that I think they knew they shouldn't have been doing, but they got in so deep that they all began working together to make sure they didn't get caught for the right that they were doing. And a lot of these people were lawyers in a previous career, so they were really good at understanding the law and understanding the system. Sure. And just before everything kind of broke that the oval office was involved in this, um there was this uh meeting at Camp David 29:21 Or maybe it wasn't Camp David. was one of their offsite locations. don't think Camp David's right. They're at one of their offsite locations. And it was kind of one of these meetings where one of his cabinet members who ended up being the witness at this juncture in the trial realized, oh, ah they are setting me up to be the fall guy. They didn't explicitly say this. Nothing obvious happened there. 29:49 But he just kind of realized, he's like, I think they're setting me up to be the fall guy in this situation. And so he comes into this trial within a couple of days of that event. And he's like, I need to make sure that I'm not the fall guy. And so he basically, he comes in and he basically opens the book and he says, know, uh Nixon thought it would be a good idea to install listening devices in the Oval Office. 30:19 And so there's a device in the Oval Office that the second anyone starts talking, it starts recording. And so we have on tape everything that's ever happened in the Oval Office. And so the prosecution was like, yeah, we need that. Yeah. And so this became, they put forth a subpoena. And what's really interesting is a subpoena comes forward and this, let me, let me find this. 30:48 hold on. This is also the time of the era where I don't know. This is we talk a lot about how there was times where you could just run away and live somewhere else and you could start over, but like this was their AI got me. You know I'm saying like yeah recording devices. That was like they're like oh my gosh, anything could be recording device. Yep, we could be like there's nowhere that's safe. Yep, you know, yep, yep, 31:16 and and there was a time not that long ago in relative to human history, where it's just like yeah. If you looked around and you were the only two in a room, you knew you were in the clear. Yeah, yeah, yeah, true, true, you know, unless you were in one of Nixon's offices because he did this throughout the white. No, no, no, but I'm talking about like, you know, the eighteen hundreds, whereas you look around and it's like yeah, hey, it's just us to just us to if we talk quiet, no one else can hear us. It's just us and now this gets out. I kill you 31:45 I think about a lot like yeah, that sounds weird. How often I think about this, but like there's nowhere to escape the cctv or ring doorbells or traffic cameras like there's there's just nowhere you can go yeah yeah that you won't not get caught yeah yeah and that's sounds sketchy for me to say that I think about that, but whatever because you're doing all sorts of sketchy things. 32:15 Well, no. I am not a crook. I do not do that. 32:22 I am a I sound like Alex Jones a little bit. The same thing happened. Alex Jones. You watch that documentary right the about Alex Jones, Alex Jones, Jones versus the truth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you watch that? It was during the Sandy Hook trial because the Sandy Hook parents sued him because you know he lied and said that it was all made up and that it never happened and so they were trying to prove that he knew that it had happened like he 32:51 knew it was real and even after he knew it was real. He was still on his show being like maybe and so they were trying to prove that in the in like internal documents of their team. They were talking about how they knew the stuff they were saying on the show was fake right and there's a moment in the trial. I remember this going viral. I remember watching this happen a real time during there's a moment in the trial where the lawyers for the prosecution had asked for them to search Alex's phone 33:19 And if there's anything on your phone that mentioned Sandy Hook, you have to submit that to Discovery. And they said there was nothing on his phone that mentioned it. And uh and so the prosecution stands up and says, Mr. Jones, do you realize that 11 days ago your lawyer accidentally sent me an entire digital copy of your phone, not just the messages we asked for, but the entire device. So we searched it. 33:49 and we found messages about Sandy Hook, which you claimed in discovery did not exist, and it's just that moment where it's just like yeah and he he asked him probably he goes before you answer the question. I just want to be clear. You know what perjury is right. That was such a freaking and it was just freaking get him and then that jury honestly did not punish him hard enough. Yeah, 34:15 because that jury was like yeah, you're the defendants, a couple million dollars and it was like oh my gosh well, then the one in texas yeah, that was the one in texas the one in connecticut. They came down really hard. They came down hard on him and then that's where he's anyway. Alex Jones is currently sense. He owes like a billion dollars to the families of family of sandy hook. It's never going to pay that he's never going to pay and he's hitting his assets in his family and it's really really a wars again, but 34:45 anyway, ah but it's the same kind of thing where it was just like oh you got got like you got and it was stuff that was like very clearly like they were running the numbers like every time they mentioned sandy hook. They would get a bunch of donations or a bunch of purchases from their store, so they started running more stories about saying hook even though he was publicly saying he knew it was real yeah and it's just oh so yeah the corruption that exists just in that level of person. I can't imagine 35:14 So did you find the way you were talking what you were looking for for the oval office yeah yeah yeah, so there was a the special boss, the prosecutor on the case. name was Archibald Cox and Archibald cost put forward a subpoena to get these these tapes and obviously Nixon was like we can't those tapes get out yeah and so Nixon calls the Attorney General. It was Attorney General Elliot Richardson on October 20th, 1973 and he says hey you need to fire Archibald Cox and the Attorney General is like 35:44 I'm not going to do that. And he was like, no, you really like we, we need to protect. He's like, we need to protect presidential privilege. The president has immunity to act in his and the attorney general was like, that's not true. And the fact that you're asking me to do that is very sketchy. So I'm to go ahead and I'm going to resign from my post. And so he resigns and the deputy attorney general, William Ruckelshaus takes over. 36:16 it was your face had such a an ease at the end where you look relieved that the name was over. guess I was. Oh, thank God I made that so your face looked like your face was like. Oh, it's not as bad as I thought was going to be. That's so funny. William Ruggles have a run. 36:46 Hey, thanks for listening to this episode of things. I learned last night. If you liked the show, you want to support us, we've got merchandise that you can get and it's good stylish stuff that I made. put a lot of work into this stuff, so it's great to find other tilling fans in the wild and be like, wait a minute. I know that shirt. And so yeah, we would love for you to do that. You can pop over to shop.tillin.com or the QR code or there's a link in the description. There's plenty of ways to find it. We promise we made it super easy. So thanks for supporting the show and thanks for listening. 37:17 calls. So he calls the new attorney general. Hey man, Elliott crazy that he just resigned. Isn't that I'm going to need you to fire her to bull cocks. And he's like, really? Why? And he's like, ah, we just need you to do it. He's the president of the community. You got to protect it. He's like, ah, I'm not going to do that. That's not how this works. And he's like, honestly, the fact that you're asking me to do that is pretty sketchy. So I'm to go ahead and I'm going to resign. And so he ends his post same night. He took it. 37:46 and this goes through another attorney general, another internal general and until finally the solicitor general takes the position as attorney general. His name is Robert Bork and he gets the call from Nixon and Nixon's like hey Mr Bork. He's like welcome to the office. All of your direct reports just quit crazy. Ha uh I have something I didn't call. What's this night called? This is called something right? They call it the Saturday Night Massacre. That's right. How many people ended up 38:13 uh three people resigned. The fourth person is the one who did same. And it was Robert Bork was like, all right, Mr. President, all fire. I'll do whatever you want. Yeah. And so he calls Archibald Cox and he says, Hey, the attorney general and the other one and the other one, they all resigned. I'm now the guy you're fired. ah And so he gets fired. The public finds out about this and they're all like, that's very sketchy. And so there's this huge public protest widespread across the nation. Everyone's like that. 38:42 is there's obvious corruption going on here. Yeah. The replacement issues a subpoena and it pretty much gets to this point where it's like we can't outrun this. We're going to have to turn over the tapes. So they turn over the tapes and they call them the smoking gun tapes because they listen through the tapes and in those tapes there's all sorts of recordings about these these events before the they happen. And in those recordings Nixon himself is saying well we got to pay them pay them twenty five thousand dollars from the campaign about the people who are going to break in. 39:12 talking about the plans to break in. And there's in fact, this is really interesting. 18 minutes were missing from the tapes. Right. 18 minutes of time that were just gone. And at the time the story was, when we were collecting these tapes to bring it over to you, our receptionist accidentally overwrote 18 minutes. It's not, was an accident. She came forward and she acknowledges. said, I did it on accident. I didn't mean to do it. I'm so sorry. So wait, so 39:39 The prosecution's like there's 18 minutes of tape missing. He goes home, grabs a beer. 39:47 This is the kitchen table. His wife like how dinner's almost ready. He should have been ready already. He didn't sit down nor like dad dad and he's like, uh I know they're like, can we go watch TV? Yeah, go watch the dolls versus the whatever the dog thing. He gets in bed at night. He's like, I need a cigarette. 40:13 he gets out of bed, goes to his eight year olds room, wakes him up, wakes him up, goes, hey buddy, I need you to smoke with me. Hey buddy, you feel about a I think I'm more than buddy. Would you know it's not more than it's eleven p.m. want a cigarette and they blight up together. This shows all about dads and sons. It's the seventies. Those are bonding in different ways and they're sitting there 40:45 I need two of them. 40:49 He's like dad was dad was wrong. What happened today? Did something happen? Well, son, perturbed father, we've lost 18 minutes of the tape. You lost the tape. m 41:11 all that for a for a you lost the tape call back really funny. The build up you knew where it was going for the beginning of the story, but the payoff my new specials coming out soon and and you know if you like that kind of jokes, if you like that kind of jokes, whatever do 41:34 so this is a team is missing. So water date the water gate break. It happens in seventy two right this whole legal proceeding takes years. He ends up getting reelected in the middle of the process because the elect which is currently in that process yeah, so it's early enough that it was like the public wasn't. I don't know if the public wasn't aware of what was going on, but it wasn't as big of a deal yet. They didn't know everything that was a part of the story and so 42:02 They hear the tapes, they find out the things missing. The story line is initially uh the receptionist overwrote it sidebar in two thousand three. I think it was they did some forensics on it and they discovered that they weren't. It was not an accident. They're like this was very intentional uh removal of the took until two thousand three to know that. Well, I think it was like they finally had the technology where they could they could examine these. Yeah, everybody knew. But again, I was the first time they could they could 42:32 conclusively prove that that was what happened, and so this ends up going before the Supreme Court and the defense of the what's the question for the Supreme Court did well, so the the the defense of uh Nixon and his whole uh administration was that uh the presidential immunity argument. Oh God, they said because of his position as pro they're acknowledging what he did was illegal. Yeah, 43:02 I'm sorry. Illegal. Well, they use, they use the phrase executive privilege. Yeah. Yeah. And so he said he has the privilege to take these actions for whatever official means. And the Supreme court is like, no, they're, they affect the act. The literal ruling is no person, not even the president of the United States is completely above the law. That was July 24th, 1974. So in the house judiciary committee, they then put forth in July 27th of 1974. 43:31 uh three articles of impeachment for obstruction of justice, misuse of power and contempt of Congress. And so he gets ahead of it on August 8th and he announces he's going to resign instead. He's like, you're not going to impeach him to resign. Yeah. And so he resigns Gerald for that where he does his famous. Well, he had been doing that a lot. That was his thing. That was his thing. Yeah, that was his thing was the, the deuces. He said that I'm not a crook thing when everybody was trying to like before the tapes even came in, it was like the question of whether he was involved. He's like, I'm not a crook. Yeah. And so honestly, 44:01 That better be the best impression I've ever done in my life. I know it wasn't great. I know it wasn't great, but I'm going to be honest. Yeah. I'm not an impression guy. And that was, I'm pretty impressed. Do it again. I'm not a croc. No, that was way worse. 44:17 Should I try one more time? No. Okay. I think we get it. Okay. 44:26 so he resigns so he resigns. Are you telling the story super fast? You trying to get out of here? What's your deal? I'm just I look there's a lot of there's a lot to this story. There's more I'm trying to stay to the main, the main story, okay, not get in all the other like side stories. Okay, so he resigns. He gets out of out of dodge and escapes. What does he do after you know? What did he do after he left after his presidency? Yeah, 44:55 Um, that's a good question. Actually. Let's see. post presidency, 1974 to 1994, uh, moved to San Clemente, California. Uh, and while he was there, um, he spent a while just chilling. It looks like, um, he, uh, yeah, he's spent a while just kind of doing nothing. And then he got back into public life, apparently. 45:21 uh I don't know what that means. It doesn't show the library. You know George W is a painter now. Nix was like I gotta figure out yeah, he loves holding his hands. Oh, he worked for the Coast Guard. Apparently puppets on there. Yeah, he took a golf cart to his office at the cost card okay ah and like did public appearances. It looks like he became an author. He wrote a book 45:49 the mememoirs of Richard Nixon sure obviously the audio books missing eighteen minutes yeah opened his library, did some conventions, some public. It sounds like called if I did it, it's memoirs of Richard Nixon, but if I put it would be 46:09 and then he died in ninety four. Okay, so I mean, sounds like born, so yeah. Hold on. Let me see. He died in ninety four. Let's see exactly way twelve April, eighteenth, so about almost a month to the day, pretty close to a month to the day. I know there's chance. I think he's in there. I'm nix it in corn and 46:35 That's why that I mean Alex both were like. uh No, I don't like you. I'm not a corn. I'm Richard Nixon. You just are telling me all that. I do you need to fire Archibald Cox. Is that you being possessed? Oh wow, a spirit of Richard Nixon. 47:08 That's going in the intro, I know for sure! It's just you being like, I'm being possessed by the spirit of Richard Nixon. 47:23 You 47:29 okay, so he resides yeah, and so he resides. He kind of goes on to your very typical like post presidential life right. Okay, uh meanwhile, in very typical fashion, forty of his cabinet officials were indicted or jailed on various charges, most of them serving anywhere from a few months to a few years. 47:58 yeah, all of the people who are part of the burglary did multi year sentences for that burglary uh and so he it's it's pretty phenomenal that he just gets to go. He gets impeached and he gets to go move to California and just kind of chill while forty other people pay the consequence yeah of his actions and I will say it was it. 48:21 I don't understand this after seeing the storyline of the smoking gun tapes because in the smoking gun tapes he straight up says like we got to have the guys break in and we got to pay him for it and so it's like he's a part of the planning of whole process right, but like if you read the reports everyone's like well, we don't know if he planned it. We did. We know he covered it up, but we don't know if he planned it, but it's like the tapes in the tapes. He says we got to pay the guys and so it's like he know he has to know yeah. If you say we got to pay the guys, so I don't understand, but 48:48 don't know. I guess they were like losing your job as presidents enough. I guess that everyone just didn't give him an actual it's the same thing though of like you know. I don't know. I think the idea was that if we prosecute a president, then that just opens the door for every president to be prosecuted for everything all the time. I mean right. I mean is what was just is what was said to justify it. I don't think that's true. 49:16 I am of the position that if they committed a crime, they committed a crime. Yeah, you know, yeah, that was a crime. Yeah, that was crime and so yeah, but I think that at that time and even if they saw that as a win enough, that was like okay, he's never going to be able to run again. Yeah, you know and and that was enough for them. Well, even if you use the argument of the executive privilege argument, it doesn't even make sense because like what you the law, the event of Watergate 49:46 it was not. You're not doing anything to protect the American people. You're trying to make sure you get elected again right and so it's like even if the argument is that like I don't feel like that's right, but I even I'm not saying I'm not saying from a legal position. I am saying let's say the next party in power next for the next president then ah brings legal action against the previous president yeah justified or unjustified. 50:15 from a public perception. Yeah, that is what dictators and third world countries do yeah right, and so they were trying to avoid that. I think by doing that in the seventies, they then open the door for us letting yeah. I think I think I think after that it became a thing. I think you well he just got a slap on the wrist. He actually broke off. I'm just in things that are questionable. 50:42 You know, and I think with their fear of it going too far this way, it went too far the other way. Yeah, I think I think that's fair. So, but this had a massive impact. Obviously the public trust impact is gigantic. Right. I don't think people have trust the office of the president since this happened. There was definitely a much different um respect. I would say not even respect. I would say people expected the president was kosher, was doing everything. 51:12 in a very legal manner and was doing things with the best of intentions before this. But then after this, this has been this cloud over the country ever since of like, oh, I don't know. Like, is it legit? They're all crooks. He said he's not a crook, but he was clearly a crook. So it changed his public perception. also this was this turning moment where journalists became celebrities. Wordward and Bernstein, they both won Pulitzer prizes. And this was 51:42 the most interesting thing on TV for like three years. And so the reporters who were at the front of this, it kind of changed the news. And it turned, it began this shift where the news went from this honestly pretty dull thing you did to stay informed to entertainment. And so there's a shifting moment there. And then there was a massive reform to our legal system. There's the new Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 came out of this. 52:10 to help make sure that we weren't doing sketchy things like this to like listen to people without their knowledge and things like that, and then there was also within it's so interesting. In some states, there's like the one party consent law for phone call recording yeah and then in other states, there's two party consent like both people have to know that it's happening yeah. That's interesting that they left that up to states to decide yeah. That is crazy uh and then and then 52:38 because so many of the people within his cabinet were barred lawyers, there was new professional responsibility requirements where even when you were outside of a, uh like they were in a public service capacity, but they still are now beholden to all these professional requirements. Or else they lose their license with the bar association. ah And so a bunch of things changed with that. And then obviously like everything's gate now, everything that, uh 53:07 is a scandal is deflate gate, right? Email gate, pizza gate. Like all of it just gets gate after it. Um, I think they said that, uh, up to the numbers, like over 200 of these scandals have just gotten gate gate to the back of it. Yeah. Um, till and gate till and gate. Yeah. Um, and, uh, it's interesting because, uh, uh, we don't have to talk about that. Nevermind. Okay. Nevermind. Nevermind. I started, I started and I'm going to show growth. 53:37 Never mind okay, but uh yeah, so uh Nixon lost his job. A bunch of other people went to jail. That is the Watergate scandal. So how long between the planning and the execution of the thing? Do know that I don't think we know initially when it was planned? I do know 54:03 We know the initial break in was May twenty eight right and then we know the the second break in was that was seventy two nineteen seventy two and then he resigned August eight. What year seventy four yeah yeah so a couple years of this whole scandal being in the public limelight um and so it's most likely that there was a few months before that, but I think I think what's clear is like they installed those listening devices in the oval office right and so they really liked the fact that they could just listen to stuff. 54:32 and it's there's definitely a question of like they did this to the D and C office at Watergate. Yeah, where else they do this to yeah. Do we know of we don't know that's just the one they got caught with yeah and nobody would have known about the White House thing had this whole event not happened. What were they doing with the White House tapes? Do we know listening to stuff listening to the conversations that's weird? That's that is really insane to me that they would record that it sounds like it sounds like blackmail 54:59 like I don't know why else you're recording. know what else you have, but I try to hold that which I mean I guess which is pretty mobster activity to do is what I'm saying yeah. I guess though just kind of thinking out loud. We record all of our video calls nowadays. Anyways, we record this podcast this blackmail. Are you blackmailing me? Jaren's blackmailing me as right spirit of Richard Nixon doesn't like 55:26 being black bales, the only one who black bales around here. I got to fiddle off the spirit of Richard Nixon. 55:38 the spirit originally compels you the spirit of Richard Nixon compels you to listen to another episode. You should listen to the Charles J Cato episode. He's speaking of presidents. He killed one, so go listen to that episode and share this or share this podcast with somebody that you know would like it, and if you can't wait for next week, it's available right now on Patreon. So I think I said all the stuff from the outro is everything else you want to say. We fiddle off or whatever. I don't know