Vance dismisses Watergate as fleeting news cycle in Washington remarks

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3 days · 4 summary articles
US Vice-President J.D. Vance has dismissed the Watergate scandal as a 24-hour news cycle, telling an audience on 26 June 2026 that if the 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters occurred today it would “be a 12-hour story.” Speaking in Washington, Vance—who has repeatedly invoked the language of the “deep state” to describe institutional resistance to Donald Trump—called Nixon’s resignation “crazy,” according to reports in *Der Standard* and *Die Presse* .
The remarks come as Trump and Vance push an economic-populist platform that critics, including German historian Christina Morina, describe as having “almost socialist traits.” Morina, who spent a year in the United States, told the *Handelsblatt* that American democracy is now more imperilled than Germany’s, though she still expects the Trump era to end soon .
Vance’s comments also intersect with a broader conservative critique of Pope Leo XIV’s forthcoming revision of the Catholic Church’s just-war doctrine. The Pope’s move, reported by *Politico Europe*, has drawn early fire from Trump-aligned figures who question the pontiff’s theological credentials. Vance himself has previously challenged the framework, arguing in his 2023 memoir *Communion* that the Church should not “lecture” secular leaders on war ethics—a line that some outlets have mischaracterised as a direct papal rebuke .
The White House has not issued an official response to Vance’s Watergate remarks, but the episode underscores the administration’s combative stance toward historical norms. In a separate development, *Financial Times* columnist Edward Luce, reviewing Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s forthcoming chronicle of Trump’s second term, describes a presidency governed by instinct rather than institutional guardrails .
Across the Atlantic, European diplomats are privately debating whether the Trump-Vance agenda will outlast the current electoral cycle. Morina, however, cautions that the coalition’s durability remains uncertain, even as polls show Trump’s approval rating holding steady at roughly 42 %.
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