Washington
How Washington has changed since Watergate
It was President Richard Nixon’s decision, which he announced on August 8, 1974, to leave office. But he had little choice. There was near-total agreement in both parties that he had committed some (or all) of what he was accused of: abuse of power, obstruction of justice, and contempt of Congress.
Fifty years later, would the same thing happen in today’s political climate?
“I really find it hard to believe that Nixon would’ve resigned in an environment like the one we have today,” said Brian Rosenwald. As a lecturer about conservative politics at the University of Pennsylvania, Rosenwald has thought about the what-ifs of the Watergate scandal. Nixon, he said, “would have dug in. He would have had enough support to avoid conviction”.
Up until the very end, Nixon was dug in. The day before he relented, the front page of the Washington Post read, “Nixon Says He Won’t Resign.”
But unlike what we might expect today, Nixon’s party had abandoned him. On August 7, 1974, Senator Barry Goldwater (who had been the last GOP presidential nominee before Nixon) and Republican leaders in Congress visited the White House. Goldwater told reporters outside, “Whatever decision he makes, it will be in the best interests of our country. … There’s been no decision made. We were merely there to offer what we see as the condition on both floors.”
The condition was dire. Republican Congressman John Rhodes said, “Impeachment is really a foregone conclusion.”
The majority of Republicans were likely to vote to impeach Nixon in the House, and there weren’t enough Republican Senators to block his conviction in the Senate.
A day after the meeting, Nixon’s decision led to the iconic Washington Post headline: “Nixon Resigns.”
In the fifty years since that announcement, that White House visit by leaders of the president’s own party telling him his time was over may tell us less about what was happening then, then it tells us about what is happening in our politics now.
“In our modern era, where we’re so cynical about our politics, it’s almost impossible to capture how different the political landscape was in ’72, ’73, ’74,” said Garrett Graff, the author of “Watergate: A New History.” “Even Democrats trust Nixon, because they say, ‘The President would never lie to the American people. We can’t impeach the President. He’s the President! If he is saying he’s not involved in Watergate, he’s telling us the truth.’”
For in August 1973, Nixon told the American people, “I had no prior knowledge of the Watergate break-in.”
No prior knowledge, perhaps … but Nixon had been involved in the cover-up after the burglary and wiretapping of the Democratic National Committee Headquarters, abusing his powers to obstruct the investigation, and defying Congressional subpoenas for evidence.
Proof came from one of the bombshell moments in the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities’ Watergate hearings, when it was revealed by former Nixon aide Alexander Butterfield that there were recording devices in the Oval Office. On one of the tapes: direct evidence against the president.
Graff said, “What comes out is this ‘smoking pistol’ tape, from June 23, 1972, in which Nixon is heard saying, ‘They should call the FBI in and say that we wish for the country, don’t go any further into this case, period.’ It is a recording from the first day that Richard Nixon is back in the White House after the Watergate break-in. And it effectively shows that Nixon was part of the cover-up from the earliest hours.
“Watergate is a story of incredible corruption and criminality,” Graff said. “But to me, it’s actually an incredibly inspirational story of how our system works, and the incredible ballet of checks and balances written into our Constitution. Every institution in Washington had to come together to play a special, and important, and unique role.”
Asked what was a basic shared norm that they believed in in 1974, Graff replied, “Everyone agreed, at that moment, Richard Nixon was not above the law.”
That agreement could be reached because politicians weren’t attached to their parties the way they are today.
Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Watergate committee, probed for the truth. He didn’t erect obstacles to protect his party’s president, famously asking, “What did the president know and when did he first know it?”
Rosenwald said, “Our electoral politics have changed. In the last half-century we’ve become much more geographically polarized, which means red states and blue states. And the way that manifests today is the most important election for most people are primaries, because that’s the place they can lose. And who shows up for primaries? It is the people consuming ideological media. They’re engaged, and they’re usually far right or far left.”
In Nixon’s day, lawmakers answered to an electorate where voters consumed the same information. Eighty-five percent of U.S. households watched some portion of the Watergate hearings, which featured White House counsel John Dean exclaiming, “I began by telling the president that there was a cancer growing on the presidency.”
“Nixon didn’t think that he was committing crime,” said Graff. “He thought he was the law-and-order president.”
Nixon may have believed it, but there was no pro-Nixon media apparatus to feed that alternative reality to the public during the 784 days between break-in and resignation.
“I don’t think we could see a moment like that happen [today],” Graff said, “because of the media environment. The poisoned information ecosystem that politics now exists in is all but inescapable. If Richard Nixon had Fox News in 1974, he would’ve survived.”
Rosenwald imagines how the political and media developments of our world today would have played out 50 years ago, in response to a “smoking gun” White House tape: “They would’ve said, ‘They’re just getting rid of our guys. They’re getting rid of our champions.’ They would have pointed at all kinds of malfeasance from Democrats and said, ‘Oh, look at those guys still serving, nobody ran them out of office.’ And they would’ve pointed at the media and said, ‘And they did nothing about it. They are out to get you. They hate you.’ And then basically said, ‘Whose side are you on? Are you on the side of your enemy, or are you on the side of your guys?’ Nixon might not be perfect but all of a sudden he’s ‘our guy.’”
“He’s our guy” may capture best the modern instances where lawmakers put party above all else. Though that instinct did not prevail when Democratic leaders convinced Joe Biden to abandon his campaign, it did rule with Donald Trump, when the moral stakes were at Watergate levels.
Just days after the January 6th attack on the Capitol, Republican leaders accused the president of their party of breaking his oath. In a recording made public a year later, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy spoke to his colleague, Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, about an impeachment resolution, telling her, “The only discussion I would have with [Trump] is that I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation you should resign.” And on February 13 [after Trump had already left office], Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told the Senate, “There is no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.”
But in the end, there was no White House visit from leaders in Trump’s party. And in 2024, McCarthy has endorsed Trump for president, as McConnell has.
Fifty years after Watergate, the question is not whether a tough-love visit by members of a president’s party is possible. It is. What’s changed is what motivates the lawmakers willing to take the walk.
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Story produced by Reid Orvedahl. Editor: Ed Givnish.
Watch Oregon State celebrate its win against Washington State
Oregon State players and fans celebrate their 10-7 victory against Washington State on Nov. 1 in Corvallis.
Oregon State football has finally reached its final game of the season.
After a long, tumultuous few months, the Beavers (2-9) have the chance to finish on a high. OSU is travelling to Pullman, Wash., to take on Washington State (5-6) in the one, and only, official Pac-12 Conference game of the year.
“It’s the last time this group of people is ever going to be together again,” OSU interim head coach Robb Akey said. “That’s it.”
For numerous Beavers, Saturday’s contest against the Cougars will be the last college football game of their careers. For some, it’ll be their last in Oregon State uniforms and for others, they’ll be back next season.
But Akey said it’s valuable for these players to be able to close out their careers in the fashion they are. A rivalry game, a conference matchup against a team Oregon State’s already beaten this season.
“It gives us the opportunity to be Pac-12 champions,” Akey said. “That means a hell of a lot, in my opinion.”
A Pac-12 rematch
Oregon State hosted Washington State on Nov. 1 at Reser Stadium. The Beavers, at the time, had just rattled off their first win over FCS program Lafayette and were sitting at 1-7 through a bye week.
The Beavers came out on top in a low-scoring, dramatic affair, 10-7. It was Akey’s second win in as many games in charge and a high point of the Oregon State season.
It wasn’t technically classified as a Pac-12 contest, but rather just a typical regular-season matchup. Regardless, the win meant that OSU had pulled off two wins in a row for the first time in 2025. But those are the only two wins the team has garnered so far.
Having the opportunity to play, and beat, the Cougars again is exciting for Akey and the Beavers.
“It’s a cool situation that you get to go about. So we’ve tried to approach it as a cool situation,” Akey said. “You’ve got two teams that are going to know each other pretty well and two teams that fought their tails off against each other the last time they were together.”
WSU is 1-1 since the the earlier meeting. The Cougars beat Louisiana Tech, 28-3 at home, then travelled to Harrisonburg, Va., where they lost to a ranked James Madison squad, 24-20.
OSU is 0-2, with losses at home to Sam Houston (21-17) and at Tulsa (31-14).
On the season, Oregon State averages over 356 yards of offense to Washington State’s 308 yards. The Beavers outrank the Cougars in nearly all significant offensive statistic categories, especially in the run game.
Defensively, the script is almost completely flipped. Washington State gives up nearly 70 fewer yards per game, over eight points per game less, and are superior in nearly all significant categories.
It presents the opportunity for a fun, crazy contest, Akey said.
“They’ve got a good defense, they play well,” the coach said. “It’s got the makings to be a hell of a game.”
Two teams looking to end the season with a smile
Neither Oregon State nor Washington State has delivered the season it had expected back in August. Both teams have undergone one of the rockiest, unpredictable conference realignment transitions in the NCAA to remain with the Pac-12.
For Akey, some of the main takeaways from this season are off the field.
“Life deals you adversity, and you deal with it,” Akey said. “What I will take from this is these players. We’ve built some cool relationships with them and those are going to last forever.”
And for the players, it’s one last chance to enjoy this specific group’s company on the field together.
“It’s the last chance they’re going to get to play together,” Akey said. “They’ve spent a ton of time working … and it didn’t play out the way that everybody had hoped that it would.”
Since his inaugural press conference, Akey has has emphasized that he’s in Corvallis to help the Beavers have fun, smile and produce a season they can look back on and be proud of and enjoy. He said this week that he believes this is a great opportunity for that.
“They get one last chance to be able to compete together and to fight for one another,” Akey said. “That’s an unbelievable deal.”
Landon Bartlett covers high school sports and Oregon State for the Statesman Journal. He can be reached at lbartlett@salem.gannett.com or on X or Instagram @bartlelo.
Washington
Lawsuit blames Tesla design flaws for crash that killed Washington state woman injured her husband – WTOP News
Design flaws caused a Tesla Model 3 to suddenly accelerate out of control before it crashed into a utility pole…
Design flaws caused a Tesla Model 3 to suddenly accelerate out of control before it crashed into a utility pole and burst into flames, killing a woman and severely injuring her husband, a lawsuit filed in federal court alleges.
Another defect with the door handle design thwarted bystanders who were trying to rescue the driver, Jeff Dennis, and his wife, Wendy, from the car, according to the lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.
Wendy Dennis died in the Jan. 7, 2023, crash in Tacoma, Washington. Jeff Dennis suffered severe leg burns and other injuries, according to the lawsuit.
Messages left Monday with plaintiffs’ attorneys and Tesla were not immediately returned.
The lawsuit seeks punitive damages in California since the Dennis’ 2018 Model 3 was designed and manufactured there. Tesla also had its headquarters in California at the time before later moving to Texas.
Among other financial claims, the lawsuit seeks wrongful death damages for both Jeff Dennis and his late wife’s estate. It asks for a jury trial.
Tesla doors have been at the center of several crash cases because the battery powering the unlocking mechanism shuts off in case of a crash, and the manual releases that override that system are known for being difficult to find.
Last month, the parents of two California college students killed in a Tesla crash sued the carmaker, saying the students were trapped in the vehicle as it burst into flames because of a design flaw that prevented them from opening the doors. In September, federal regulators opened an investigation into complaints by Tesla drivers of problems with stuck doors.
Jeff and Wendy Dennis were running errands when the Tesla suddenly accelerated for at least five seconds. Jeff Dennis swerved to miss other vehicles before the car hit the utility pole and burst into flames, the lawsuit says.
The automatic emergency braking system did not engage before hitting the pole, the lawsuit alleges, even though it is designed to apply the brakes when a frontal collision is considered unavoidable.
Bystanders couldn’t open the doors because the handles do not work from the outside because they also rely on battery power to operate.. The doors also couldn’t be opened from inside because the battery had shut off because of the fire, and a manual override button is hard to find and use, the lawsuit alleges.
The heat from the fire prevented bystanders from getting close enough to try to break out the windows.
Defective battery chemistry and battery pack design unnecessarily increased the risk of a catastrophic fire after the impact with the pole, the lawsuit alleges.
___
Thiessen reported from Anchorage, Alaska.
Copyright
© 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
Washington
Alaska Airlines comments on holiday-week disruption concerns due to Washington pipeline leak
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Alaska Airlines said it does not expect any disruption in operation through this holiday week because of a leak in a pipeline in Washington, which is raising concern it could impact jet fuel supplies at Seattle and Portland airports.
“We are working to mitigate a potential impact from the Olympic Pipeline fuel leak,” Alaska Airlines wrote to Alaska’s News Source Sunday. “To ensure our scheduled service is maintained without significant disruption, we have implemented contingency plans.”
The contingency plans include tankering in fuel on inbound flights to Seattle, and tech stops on certain routes to conserve fuel. It’s also maintaining and expanding its trucking operation to bring in additional fuel, the airline said.
The airline said tech stops are “a stop at an airport along a flight’s route to add more fuel onboard. The passengers stay onboard.”
The Associated Press is reporting that officials say Portland International Airport does not expect any problems because it can bring in jet fuel on a barge.
The pipeline system has been down since Monday, but there have been intermittent shutoffs since Nov. 11, the Associated Press reported.
See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com
Copyright 2025 KTUU. All rights reserved.
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