Thread

If you feel like you’ve heard that something’s “worse than Watergate” before, well, it’s because you have.

By my count we’ve had about a dozen Trump-related stories that are “worse than Watergate” according to Carl Bernstein.

A stroll down memory lane, anyone?

You’ve gotta understand that all of this goes back to the end of 2016, mere months after Trump’s election.

Here’s ol’ Carl Bernstein saying in December 2016 that Trump’s “lies” are “worse than Nixon’s”

He dips another toe in later, this time in February of 2017, when he describes Trump’s criticism of the press as more “treacherous” than Nixon’s.

February 2017 was a bit of a turning point on all this it seems.

But the story really heats up when we start talking about “Russian collusion.”

We can go all the way back to the Comey firing for when this was all “worse than Watergate” - in this case “potentially [a] more dangerous situation”

In November of 2017, well before impeachment, Bernstein at least couched his language with an “if it’s true” disclaimer...

...but by 2018 he had dispensed with this. The people wanted blood, after all.

These two moments are six months apart. This wasn’t some flash-in-the-pan quote.

And once he was off and rolling, we got plenty more of this talk.

He even said Trump was worse than McCarthy!

He then got into the habit of just describing Trump’s presidency as worse than Watergate (?)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

And he brought in his old pal Woodward to make the same point. Hearing a lot of echoes it seems.

This one was from 2019, presumably related to impeachment or some such.

Then in September of last year the tapes about coronavirus from Woodward’s new book (remember that?) were also “worse than Watergate.”

Is there anything that’s NOT worse than Watergate to this guy?

I mean. Cmon. Does anyone even remember the Ukraine scandal? Is there anyone who actually believes that Ukraine was worse than Watergate?

Now is it possible that, on 10+ different points in the last four years, Trump has done something that’s “worse than Watergate”? Idk. It’s been a weird few years.

But don’t we think it’s FAR more likely that a @CNN employee is simply repeating a line their viewers want to hear?

It wasn’t just Bernstein.

Other folks involved in Watergate also did this, including former prosecutor Nick Akerman( @nickakerman), who called @DonaldJTrumpJr’s emails “treason” & a “smoking cannon” back in 2017 (and plenty since - apparently this line gets you booked by MSNBC).

There appears to be a whole cottage industry around being a person tied to Watergate saying that something is “worse than Watergate.”

Here’s Nixon’s lawyer John Dean taking his stab at it.

I mean where does this stuff even come from?

Apparently this is also part of @JillWineBanks’s schtick.

And I’m shocked - SHOCKED - to know that plenty of Dems have repeated these claims, dating back to **before Trump got elected**

I couldn’t help but add @JRubinBlogger to this thread because she also claimed that Benghazi was worse than Watergate back when she was a Republican.

Now apparently she saves that honorific for whatever it is Trump was doing in September and October of 2019.

Plenty of our usual blue check suspects do this, too.

@joelockhart makes my job easy by just listing everything that’s worse than Watergate out in two tweets, including the Russian collusion conspiracy theory and the “good people on both sides” lie.

Anyway. I hope you’re getting the picture.

So, was Trump’s call re:GA really bad? I suppose the jury’s still out. I suggested it might be & y’all got real mad.

But cmon. Watergate bad? Give me a break. And if you’re taking Bernstein’s word for it, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

Didn’t realize @carlbernstein was on Twitter, otherwise would’ve tagged him, as is my custom