U.S. Vice President JD Vance before boarding Air Force Two, after the U.S. and Iran held high-level talks at the Lake Lucerne Summit, at Emmen Military Air Base, Emmen, Switzerland, June 22, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/Pool
Comments made by Vice President JD Vance at the Richard Nixon Library on Thursday earned him a thrashing on MS NOW after he blamed Nixon’s Watergate scandal on the “deep state.”
As “Morning Joe” co-host bluntly observed, Nixon's use of the FBI, CIA and Washington insiders — which brought down his presidency — was the very definition of the ”deep state.”
After sharing a clip of Vance, who is on the road promoting his new book “Communion,” telling his hosts, “If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration,” Scarborough had enough.
“No, no, don't clap,” he exclaimed. “I mean, because, listen, I know he, I know he didn't go to a southern state school like me, but what he's saying is ahistoric, what he's saying is stupid. You can say a lot of things about Richard Nixon from 1946 through 1973, you can talk about opening of China, you can talk about the creation of the EPA, you can talk about a ton with Russia, you can talk about how we use China to counterbalance Russia with that triangulation you can talk about just again how he was one of the more significant political figures of his time, but to say that? That is defining deviancy down, and that's trying to say, ‘Listen, what we're doing now, you know it's not bad.”
“That deep state comment? So stupid. Where did you go to school, man? Where did you go to school? Like, did you really get a degree from Yale?” the clearly exasperated Scarborough later asked.