Do Go On - 273 - The Watergate Scandal

Episode Date: January 13, 2021

The Watergate Scandal was a political scandal that went all the way to the top (President Richard Nixon) between 1972 and 1974. It has been referred to as the scandal of the century and this is the story of how two young journalists helped crack the case wide open!Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodBuy tickets to our streamed shows (there are 12 available to watch now! All with exclusive extra sections): https://sospresents.com/authors/dogoonCheck out our AACTA nominated web series: https://www.youtube.com/user/stupidoldchannel Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/Submit-a-TopicTwitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasREFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:All The President’s Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodwardhttps://www.history.com/topics/1970s/watergatehttps://www.britannica.com/event/Watergate-Scandalhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/watergate/timeline.htmlhttps://www.vox.com/2014/8/7/5970967/what-was-watergate-scandal-nixonhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/watergate/https://www.dummies.com/education/history/american-history/president-richard-nixon-and-the-watergate-scandal/

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates.

And welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dave Warnikey and as always I'm here with Jess Perkins and Matt Stewart. I'm Jess. Hi, I'm Matt as well as a very proud member of the team here. And it is good to be back. This is the first episode of recording since our holiday break. Hope you had a great kishmish and a happy new year. I don't know that's that weird.

But it is going to be back in the same place as you two. We all spread across different states. I got recognized in Tasmania. I bought a book. And the woman behind the gown I said, what brings you down here? And I said, I'm just down for the holidays. Wait, how do you know I'm down here?

How do you know I'm on a local? Hang on a second. Yeah, my first instinct was, do I not fit in around here? Am I dressing weird? Do I look like a tourist? You don't look like you come from these parts. Were you wearing your Melbourne T-shirt and your Melbourne shorts and your Melbourne hat? We all get them.

Yeah. I had a big camera around my neck. Yeah. Were you buying like a map of the city? I was buying a map of the city. I was asking for direction. I said I'm not from around here. Oh, what brings you down here?

Oh, okay. Okay. Oh, I must be an out of town. Yeah, I'm not a local then, huh? Just because I've never been here before. Hey, it's just a very cool, very cool bookstore there. Any bookstores are cool bookstore. I've been at store a few times as well. But first time I'd been recognised.

Dave, where did you get recognised over your holidays? Oh, just before the break I got recognised in a bunnings. Oh, yeah, fantastic. That's fun. That was cool. I was really hoping you had nothing for that. Oh, and, um, fuck, have I been recognized it? But apart from that, over the holidays, absolutely no recognition and shame on you all.

Yes. Come on. Yes. Okay, I'm going to tell an embarrassing story. Okay. We didn't pry. You sort of like, you said that like, all right, twist my arm. Matt will die of shared shame in this.

You'll cringe so hard. No, secondhand embarrassment. I was at a fish and chip shop last year, and I made my order, and then I went out because I said it'll be 10 minutes. So I said, I just walked around the block and I came back in. And there was a guy sitting there and he goes, excuse me, are you Dave? And he was wearing like a high vis. It clearly didn't work there.

And I thought, oh, man, here we go. All right. Here we go. And then I said, yes. And he goes, oh, they just called your name. I've never felt more like so, so embarrassed. My first instinct was, this guy knows the podcast. But at least you didn't say, always nice to meet a fan.

I thought you had a pen out ready with a headshot. I thought you were saying no pictures, please. All right. Do I make this one out too? I will not kiss your baby. Yeah, they just called your name out. I was like, oh, thanks. Cool, my fish and chips are ready.

Why didn't I? That is probably, that is a better result, really. Yeah, to be fair, yeah. And I get the fish and chips. Yeah. And that was quite nice of him. I mean, to be fair, if I was working at the fish and chip shop, if I was having a bad day, I'd be like, all right, mate.

I'll fucking do that if you don't mind. Yeah, that's right. I don't need your help here. But if you have it a great day and that's a nice person, you'd be like, oh, what a nice guy. But if I'd said, oh, I'll wait until they call it. Thanks, mate. Yeah. You'd look like a psycher.

Oh, wait. I don't trust you. No, thank you. Because he's so burnt from not being recognised. Yeah. You turn on him. No, fuck you. I said, fuck you, sir.

No, fuck you. And he's just sitting there like, oh, I just didn't want your chips to get cold because I'm a nice person. Well, you could have listened to the last week's episode. Hey Dave, for new listeners in this new year, do you want to explain what the show is? I know you've put out the call for people to put it into music into a jingle, 60-style sitcom style. Yes, we'd love that. I said style too much then. No, that's fine.

And we do have a few more in the bank. I just don't have one locked and loaded today. So can you do a spoken word version? All right. There's three of us here. We take it in terms to report on a topic suggested by a listener more often than not. It is Matt's turn to report on a topic. Jess and I have no idea what he's about to tell us about.

And we always start with a question. That was actually pretty good. That is pretty good. Speed run. So if anyone wants to put that into 60 style, sitcom style jingle. Or if they could get like William Chatton to read that out or something. And send it through to dig on pod at gmail.com. Anyway, like Dave said, it is my report today and I will start with the question.

I think it's a pretty easy one. Let's see how you go. What event started the convention of adding the Suffolk's Gate? to signify a scandal. I don't understand that question at all. The answer is Watergate. Oh, gate. I got, for some reason, suffix there to me was just Suffolk the place.

And so I was like, there's a gate in Suffolk that has something to do with it. Got you, Watergate, okay. Suffolk's the plural of Suffolk. Yeah. I'm really looking forward to hearing this report. I don't know too much about the original one other than the two sentence, probably summary. What about from Forrest Gump? Oh.

It's referenced in Forrest Gump. Oh, I don't remember the reference. What happens? Forrest is staying in a hotel and he sees people with flashlights in the building opposite. And he like calls someone about it because it's distracting him or it's like kidding. So it's implying that he was the one. Right. Okay.

Right. It's probably referenced in We didn't start the fire. Probably. Probably most things are. But yeah, I did not know much about it either. Put it up to the vote. It won in a landslide. About 60% or just over 60%.

Would there be an investigation? Votegate. Then maybe there should be. Someone hacked the system. Votergate. But it was quite coincidental because there was a similar landslide vote in the story. But this was suggested by Nesta Guero. Tim Randall, Jared Brazil, Kevin Packrad, Baylor Robert Barnard, Marcus Brisbane and Alexandra Rogers Brassington.

What a great cropper name. Incredible. That sounds like a Suffolk name to me. I don't understand. I do not understand the question. One bit. Sorry. But you know how they call everything something gay.

Absolutely. I totally get it now. But I did not understand. It was just my enunciation of some of those words. And possibly as I was reading it, I was doubting that it made sense as well. So maybe you took on some of that. Yeah, I am an empath. I also have not had more than six hours sleep in five weeks.

Yeah, that's not a good run. In total. Yeah, in total. Were you sleeping like one hour every three days? Yeah, it's not a good plan. I just stay awake at a month. Oh, that was your plan, though. Yeah, I stay awake and then every three days I sleep for an hour.

Well, it's actually half an hour every three days. That's awful. Yeah, it's not a good hour. Should I up it to one hour? Yeah, every three days. Or 10 minutes a day if you wanted to Yeah, it's probably better Power nap it through.

Anyway, so my brain, no walk, no good. All right, well, good news. Do you say no walk? No good? Oh, no. Yeah, I did. Oh, no. Dave, I'm going to be relying pretty heavily on you today.

Yeah, it's fantastic. Probably a good call. Yeah, it is like, it's a big story. It's too big, full on podcast. This would be, there'd be full podcast series about this, I'm sure. And yes, a lot of great references as if people want to read more about it.

I've been reading, or, you know, with my ears, reading the audio book, all the president's men, which is what a lot of this report is based on as parts of it is. I was actually trying to summarize the whole book at one point, and I got to the end of the first chapter, and that's a good third of the way through my report. Wow. See, it's dense. It's dense, a lot of stuff.

So I skim past a lot of things, you know, like you have to do on a couple of things. comedy historical podcast. See, bookcheet isn't as easy as everyone thinks it is. No one cares about bookcheet, though. I just had a micro nap. Jess, I saw you did too. Well, we have to knock that off your three-day total.

No one thinks about bookcheet. Oh, I do, unfortunately. No one else in this room gives a fuck about bookcheet. So thanks so much for thinking. We go, wow, book cheats easy. We don't think about it at all. Do you want to be on the next episode? Okay.

Can I? Absolutely not. New Year. Every second year. That's right. You've got 12 months off, man. All right. After being on 90 episodes last year.

Fair enough. All right, let's get into this report. So the Watergate scandal gets its name from the Watergate office building, one of six buildings in the Watergate complex in the foggy bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Foggy bottom. Foggy bottom. Probably didn't need a... High school nickname.

Foggy bottom. Foggy bottom. What's their mascot at the high school? Foggy Bottom High School. And their fart. Their mascot is a fart. But like a brown gas is seeping out. And some shorts.

Yeah. They've even got like an animated version on the lawn. You just say, huh. And nobody wants to be in that mascot uniform. Oh, no. I've drawn the shorts. If you get a detention, that's what you have to do. Six weeks foggy bottom

Foggy bottom Go bottom That's done So early in the morning of June the 17th 1972 A foggy morning It was a foggy morning

So really just after midnight Watergate security guard Frank Wills noticed that a latch On one of the doors in the building had been taped over To stop it from locking properly This wasn't in any old section of the building either, but where the Democratic National Committee's headquarters was located

in the Watergate office building. All the President's Men, that book I was talking about before, book detailing the events of Watergate, described it as an odd place to find the Democrats, the opulent Watergate on the banks of the Potomac in downtown Washington was as Republican as the Union League Club. Its tenants included many key Republican figures, plus many other prominent figures of the Nixon administration. I should have looked up how to pronounce Potomac. Apologies for Washington, D.C. Potomac.

Potomac. Potomac. Potomac. Potomac. Potomac. Potomac. Don't leave that car just sitting in a heap coming to Potomac. Is that pick a part? Yes. Sorry. The futuristic complex with its serpent teeth, concrete balustrades, an equally menacing

prices. I looked it up. Those prices were like, it was 100 grand at the time for a two-bedroom apartment, which is now about 650,000. I was like, well, it sounds in an opulent area. Two-bedroom apartment for 650? You're doing pretty well.

Oh, boy. Yeah. Two-bedroom apartment. Tell you what, these bloody these boomers back then. Were they kids then? Where were the boomers doing? Bought their first home for a bloody

bag of bread. A bag of bread and a bloody garlic, man. I'll throw it. Two different guns of bread. Have you got two loads of bread? Well, I've got one loaf and one garlic. I'll take it.

Brilliant. Love garlic. But apparently the complex had become the symbol of the ruling class in Richard Nixon's Washington. Anyway, so that's just setting up. It doesn't really matter, but it's interesting that it's a slightly strange place for the Democrats, but that is not at all relevant apart from maybe a point of interest. I'm looking at you, Jess. And I'm getting it.

Yeah, if you're interested. You know I understand politics. Oh, yeah, big time. We all understand it. We get it. We get it. So Frank Wills, the security guard, remove the tape off the latch, not thinking much of it. But when he returned and found it taped again, he realized something fishing.

Fishy was afoot. Hang on some sort of just-for-last prank video? Am I being punked? Hello? Part of you'd be like, hang on, did I not remove that tape? Anyway, he was way quicker than that. goes, something weird's happening, I'm calling the cops. And people have said since then, if he didn't think so quick, a lot of people would have

gone, whatever, or I'll call my supervisor or figure it out. But because he called the cops, this whole ball got rolling. Wow. The police who responded to the call were three plainclothes officers in an unmarked car. These officers, Sergeant Paul Leaper, officer John Barrett, and Officer Carl Schofler, were dressed as hippies working the so-called Bum Squad ship. That's what they called it. Because they were dressed like hippies, like bums.

To go undercover. To go undercover. Yeah, they were really just patrolling the streets for drug-related crimes. Right. You're dealing? Yeah. Hey. Hey, want to get buzzed?

Hey, me and two of my friends over here, clean-shaven young men, would like to get buzzed if that is quite alright with you. Hello, fellow bum. I am also our bum. Hello, I do not have a house, nor a wife or children. Or require illegal illicit substances. Please speak into this microphone. Well, I think these cops did, they lent in it a fair bit.

One of them described their look as sort of a young Charles Manson. Oh, that's not a good reference. No. Reference to give. That's how he saw himself. And so they've rocked out. So the security guy's like, I'll have to call in the big guys. And then three, quote, unquote, hippies turn up.

And he's like, what the fuck? Yeah. So the police from walked down the office hallway, checking rooms, left and right as they went along. Not necessarily expecting to find anything. But the way Officer Barrett was talking about, he was like, I was kind of shitting myself, which is an amazing kind of sort of openness for a cop to talk about years later. Then all of a sudden he got startled. He saw someone's arm hiding behind a glass petition, which doesn't sound like the best place to hide. Quick, behind this class. And Barrett later said, it scared the living bit. Jesus out of me. Oh, the shit came out.

He yelled, come up with your hands up, I'm going to blow your head off. And five sets of hands went up. It was a whole crew in there. What, two and a half people? Five sets. Five sets. Five hands come out and he's like, what the fuck? He described it as ten hands, and I, for some reason, changed it to five sets of hands,

thinking it would make it easier to follow. You forgot who you do a podcast with. Someone who overthinks math. If he didn't do it, I would have. You know? Yeah. How many in each set? Five sets of hands.

What are, like seven in each set? How many people's? That's a lot of people. How many fingers? Are we counting thumbs as fingers? Oh, that old argument. He saw 50 fingers go in the air. What about thumbs?

Including thumbs. Oh, my God. So all five men were arrested and they apparently gave fake names, but were later found out to be James McCord, Bernard Baker, sorry, Bernard Barker, Frank Sturgis, Eugenio Martinez, and Virgilio Gonzalez. According to Barrett, this wasn't your normal typical burglary. These were bugging, there were bugging devices, tear gas pens, many, many roles of film, locksmith tools, and thousands of dollars in $100 bills consecutively ordered.

I never quite figured out why that was, was it to plant the, them and to track them or I'm not, I don't know why that was, but anyway, or that was just, yeah, someone listening is going to be like, oh. Yeah. Is it because is it like escape money? If you've got to go on the run, you got. Right. That's why they're sequentially.

Because, yeah, because they normally say they want them in non-sequentially ordered. Yeah. Yeah. And if they're sequentially, it's like a way to track or something. So, yeah. Anyway, I probably should have looked into that, but this one got away from me. The fact that an unmarked police car was the one to arrive on scene was very lucky is the burglars also had former FBI agent Alfred Baldwin working his lookout.

Oh, he just saw three hippies get out. Yeah, and apparently because, yeah, they were hippies. He didn't raise the alarm via walkie-talkie like the plan was. Also, as Officer Barrett later told ABC News, if a uniform police car would answer that call, could have been a whole different ballgame. But also, it's believed that Baldwin was. distracted, not just by their uniform, but also because he was across the street watching a movie called Attack of the Puppet People while he was meant to be keeping a watch on

what was he watching a movie on? I think he's in a hotel room across the way or something like that. Oh, I thought he's at the cinema. Like he's in the car, he's driving along. You see a sign saying attack of the puppet people, you think, I can't miss that. Yeah, I'd be a fool. How long does this burger we're going to go for? I could probably miss the first hour and a half.

I'll never forgive myself. If I don't see. I mean, they don't repeat these things. Yeah. And, of course, it was a repeat from, it was a movie from about 14 years earlier. But I missed it then and I'm not missing it now. Make that mistake once.

Fool me once. By the time he realized the cops were there, it was too late for them to escape. He got onto them instead of being able to escape. The cops were already in there. They hid. And as we know, soon after they were caught red-handed. Good one, Baldwin.

How many red hands? Five. Five sets of red hands. All right. All different shades. Crimson, scarless. I'll take blood bread, please. Baldwin, obviously, he wasn't busted.

He wasn't figured out that he was involved until eight years later. Yeah. He was just like, he saw them being taken away and just sort of awkwardly put popcorn in us now. I'm just staying in a hotel. He just turns the volume up on the movie. Draws the shades. Goes to bed. All right.

That's a shame. It wasn't immediately clear what it occurred. Who were these men working for? What was their goal? Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward received a phone call at 9 a.m. that morning. So, you know, the arrest was about 2.30. So this is six and a half hours later, Dave. Yeah, I can do some maths as well.

That's 5.5 hours later. Fuck. Do you say 8 or 9? 9. Okay. You're right. Oh, thank goodness. You piece of shit, Dave.

So he was called in on this Saturday to cover the burglary. It was in his late 20s and been working at the post for about nine months. His first instinct was he was being handed a bit of a dud. This is a dud story. Oh, my God. He was shouted. He's like, been in nine months. I thought I was past this.

And he genuinely does sound like he thought he'd done his hard work after nine months and he should have been getting the big stories by this point. What he didn't realize, this was the story. of the century. Yeah, that is amazing. And he was about to play a key role. He nearly passed on it. And he's still a very famous journalist.

Yeah, I mean, really based off of this. He was one of the writers of all the president's men, the book. That you are hearing. That details his own investigation. But it's all in the third person, which threw me off. It's him and another writer who I'll mention. And then Barb walks in and says. And he's looking real swive.

he's hot Is hot Is hot It's hot Hottest man in the room Whatever room he was in A sauna's still hotter He's hotter than the sauna

He's even hotter than the room itself Yeah that's hot It was uncomfortable to be near him Yeah That's why he had not many friends Okay If you're looking for a reason That's what

That's why you never settled down It just didn't want to burden Anybody with being that hot all the time It's hard It's a curse really according to all the president's men, a book about the scandal that he wrote, when Woodward arrived at the post, he checked in with the city editor and learned with surprised that the burglars had not broken into the small local Democratic Party office that

he was thinking, but the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office apartment hotel complex. So he was seeing in his head, it was like, oh, there's some small time democratic break-in. even that to me is like that still feels like a decent story they had gas pens yeah and he's like

oh I can't with I'm lumped with a gas pen story how again a dime a dozen around here so maybe this was the biggest story than Woodward had first thought he also found out that another Washington Post journalist

had been assigned on the story Carl Bernstein who would go on to write the book with him so a bunch of people that day were working on the story but they're the two to sort of main guys on the beat working on it. This wasn't welcome news to Woodward that Bernstein was involved. Though they had never worked on a story together before, they didn't really get on.

They were both in their late 20s, one was 28, one was 29, but had arrived in their roles in very different ways. According to the book, Bernstein was a college dropout. He had started as a copy boy at the Washington Star when he was 16, became a full-time reporter at 19, and had worked. worked at the post since 1996. Funnily enough, that was the same year, the Saints won their one and only AFL BFL premiership.

Fun fact. So far. So far. So far. Yeah. They're only one of that century. Many more to come this. So far.

So far. So on the one hand, you've got Bernstein. This guy, college dropout. He's also got long air, worked his way up to where he was. On the other hand, Woodward studied at Yale, was a veteran of the Navy officer corps, and Bernstein saw him as, quote, a prima donna who played heavily at office politics. Bernstein with his longish hair, on the other hand, Woodward, sensible haircut. Of course.

You set your watch to it? Real yin and yang scenario. Definitely watch setting abilities on this. What a fun, odd couple. What I'm predicting is a lot of, like, that's a lot of, like, that's a lot of. not how I do it. Well, what do you know? Yeah, you'll blah, blah, blah, blah.

And then they're going to slowly learn to respect each other. And then they're going to be closer than brothers. Yeah. And then they're going to write a book together. You have to be very close to write a book together. Yeah, you do. Because you have to share one computer. I remember there's 972 computers.

They probably hardly did exist, actually. I was going to joke that they didn't. But I guess they probably didn't really. I bet they would have been on typewriters. That's why people had so many kids. No Netflix. You have to do something. You've got a type of summon.

You're a typewriter? Or something else. Or a type reader. Type signorita. Oh dear. So to Woodward, Bernstein looked like one of those counterculture journalists that he despised. While Bernstein thought that Woodward's rapid rise at the post had less to do with his ability than his establishment credentials. Yeah, a boy over here.

phoning in a few favors. Yep. Doing all the office politics, bullshit. Whereas I've just been here working. Work my way up. Work my way up from the bottom. So veteran crime journalist at the post, Alfred E. Lewis phoned in the first details of the story.

Apparently, it was a veteran of 35 years. The book talks about him like there's a bit of a legend around these parts. Never wrote a word down himself. It was always phoning it into someone to type it out. Never wrote. On his grave it says, Never wrote a word down. Never write a word down.

He's the first words he ever wrote down. Even these. These weren't him. He was a really bad waiter. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I got it. Six gram of eggs. Sorry, what was you want again?

I was back to the book. The five men arrested at 2.30 a.m. had been dressed in business suits and all had worn Playtex rubber surgical gloves. So this is from the book, but it was all phoned in from that legend. Alfred E. Lewis. Police had seized a walkie talkie. 40 rolls of unexposed film, 2 35mm cameras, lock picks, pen-sized tear gas guns,

and bugging devices that apparently were capable of picking up both telephone and room conversations. They found over the head of the committee, they got there when parts of the ceiling were taken off where they were clearly going to be dropping the bugs. So absolutely caught red-handed. Wow. One of the met, I don't know how important this is, it's not, but one of the med had $814. $800, $800, $1 had $215, $2134, one had $230, $2.30, Lewis had dictated. Dave.

Dave, what had we got there? Imagine if he just calculated that in his head. Most of it was in $100 bills in sequence. They seemed to know their way around. At least one of them must have been familiar with the layout. They had rooms on the second and third floors of the hotel. The men ate lobster in a restaurant there that night, all at the same table. So there's like a hotel and offices and...

Yeah, it's like a whole big... It's like six different buildings, is that what I said? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's a whole complex. This is a swish little complex of Washington DC. Yeah, gotcha. So they're staying in the hotel part while... Yeah, a lot of big players in politics,

especially in the Republican scene, have offices and apartments in there. Eating... It's so funny to go, have a quick lobster meal before hitting up a burglary. Yeah. You know, you've got to fuel your body. Even eating in the same establishment, you're about to work together.

Yeah. I mean, it's like either naivety or overconfidence or something. But as you'll hear, you know, they were arrested soon after. It didn't matter that they were eating lobster. But I guess when they were being pulled out, the lobster chef was like, hey, I serve them lobster. You never forget to face you serve lobster to. That's like they're going, hey, is this risky us eating Lobby tonight? It'll be fine.

What's going to fuck us up? Is our mate watching a movie? Yeah. But that's a classic puppet people. I mean, I wouldn't miss it. Would you miss the puppy movie movie? I mean that guy and being like, all right, I'll go to jail for the crime. That's fine.

But if you're going to report in the press, can you at least say it was like, it's a wonderful life or something with a bit more respect? I was going with the wind. Frankly, my dear. Is that that one? Please. I do give a damn. Woodward heard from Lewis that they were going to be appearing in court that afternoon. So Woodward went along.

That's good. That's smart. That's smart. Go and hear stuff. That hippie would never do that. No, he'd feel stuff. He'd go talk to a tree or something. Yeah.

See what the tree knows. Yeah. Hug your story away. Good luck. At the preliminary, at the preliminary hearing, it was revealed. field that one of the men, James McCord, was a recently retired CIA agent. He said the judge was going, what do you guys do? And apparently one of them goes, we're anti-communists.

And they all sort of nodded. Like, yeah, that's right. That's our job. That sounds good. And the judge was, apparently the judge, the way they talked about in the book, they're like, the judge was used to hearing weird jobs. But even to him, that was strange. So he sort of pushed him.

And how do you make money? And McCord apparently then goes, well, I used to work as an agent. Whereabouts? CIA. And apparently Woodward said half aloud, holy shit. The CIA sitting in the back of the courtroom. Everyone turned around. Shut up.

Come on. Rood. This is an attack of the puppet people. It's not about an audience. It's not a pantomine in here, okay? Pantamine. Pantamine. That's where they do it in the mine.

The iron oars behind you. Eight reporters from the Post were involved in putting the story together, including Woodward, Bernstein, and that old bloody legend Lewis. It ran on the front page the following day with the opening paragraph reading, Five Men, one of whom said he's a former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, arrested at 2.30am. Yesterday, in what authorities described as an elaborate plot to bug the officers of the Democratic National Committee here.

Sounds like a massive story to me. I'm like, holy shit. This must have exploded everything, but that's just not how it happened. I mean, because I guess I know that it goes this way. I'm like, obviously, this looks like something that goes all the way to the top. But no one was really thinking like that. Apparently, this is again from the book, the thought that the break-in might somehow be the work of the Republicans

seemed implausible. What? Like, their direct opponents. To some reason, they were like, well, it's obviously not the Republicans. Let's cross them off. Who could it be? Some people are like, yeah, this just seems like anti-communist sort of work. Okay.

On June the 17th, and in part, that might have been thought because some of the four of, no, three of the five at Cuban backgrounds and had worked in anti, what's the old Cuban fellow's name? Castro. Castro. It's some anti-Castro sort of place. The old Cuban fella. This is still from the book. On June 17, 1972, less than a month before the Democratic convention, the president

stood ahead of all announced Democratic candidates. So this is why they thought, obviously, the Republicans wouldn't be wasting their time with this. Nixon, the president, he was serving his first term. He stood ahead of all announced Democratic candidates in the polls by no less than 19 points. It was just a no contest between him and any of the Democrats. Richard Nixon's vision of an emerging Republican majority that would dominate the last quarter of the century appeared possible. The Democratic Party was in disarray as a brutal primary season approached its end.

Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, considered by the White House and the Democratic Party professionals alike to be Nixon's weakest opponent, was emerging as the clear favorite to win the Democrats nomination for president. It's one of those unfortunate ones where they're like, Nixon's like, I hope that McGovern guy wins the Democratic thing because I will beat him. Yeah. And the Democrats are going, he's their man. Or the people who are voting on it. The higher ups of the Democrats apparently were like,

this is not good for the election, although Nixon was very popular anyway. The story noted, there was no immediate explanation as to why the five suspects would want to bug the Democratic National Committee officers or whether or not they were working for any other individuals or organizations. Could have just been some wildcats. College students.

Loan operators. Bit of a prank CIA types. Five lone wolves. What was the Airheads Band called? The lone rangers. Five lone rangers. Oh, that doesn't make sense. Outside of the ex-CiA agent McCord,

the other four men, Barker, Sturges, Gonzalez and Martinez were from Miami. and of which three were Cuban Americans and according to the book all four had been involved in anti-Castro activities and were also said to have CAA connections. So I don't know what this CIA thing is a big connection with a lot of the people involved.

Though it almost hints that maybe it goes all the way to the top. Yeah, that would be a bit of a, that would ring a bell for me in my head. I'd go, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig. Look into that. I think it seems like back then people just trusted governments more

and didn't think this kind of stuff happened. It just seems so unlikely. Yeah. Especially because Nixon is cruising. What it looks like he's cruising to a victory. Why would he need to bug the opponents? He's just got to keep doing what he's doing and he's going to win. Yeah, I guess maybe if he's always been a little bit dodgy,

he thinks this is keeping on doing what he's doing. Yeah. I bugged everyone else's thing. so I'm going to keep doing it, right? Though when Bernstein spoke to Barker's wife, to Barker, one of the Cubans, Cuban-Americans, Bernstein spoke to his wife

and asked about a husband's CIA connection. His wife replied, I've never known if he works for the CIA or not. The men never tell the women anything about that. Okay. What do you think? Why would we talk about that? Why would I need to know where my husband works?

What a fucking ridiculous question. How dare you ask me? So this is Bernstein, the hippie, thinking that people talk to their partners about their jobs and their names. All right, yeah. Benzine, I'll be the feminist of this podcast, mate. So edging in on my territory. That's odd. Where do you go every day?

No comment, all right. Why are you asking me that? How rude? Does that feel like any of your business? The day after the break in, Bernstein and Woodward were asked by the, editor by one of their editors to continue working on the story. That day, they also found out that James McCord was the security coordinator for the committee for the re-election of the president, CRP, later pejoratively known as creep.

So James McCall, one of the five was the security coordinator for Nixon's committee for re-election. Okay. Okay. That's a very direct connection now to the top. That's what you think. but it's still, no one was really necessarily seeing it that way. According to the book, upon hearing this revelation,

the two reporters stood in the middle of the newsroom and looked at each other. What the hell do you think it means, Woodward asked. Bernstein didn't know. Okay. He said, what do you think it means? What are you thinking? Why are you asking? You tell me what you think?

Then I'll tell you what I think. Then I'll say together. I don't know. Okay. Okay, yep. The same day, Nixon's campaign manager, John Mitchell, issued a statement distancing themselves from McCord. So it seems like he's pretty closely tied to the president

because he's employed by the re-election committee. Yeah. But the campaign manager, John Mitchell, said this. The person involved is the proprietor of a private security agency who was employed by our committee months ago to assist with the installation of our security system. He has, as we understand it, a number of business clients and interests.

And we have no knowledge of these relationships. We want to emphasize that this man and the other people involved were not operating on either our behalf or without consent. There is no place in our campaign or in the electoral process for this type of activity. And we will not permit or condone it. I like how I didn't even say his name. This man. What was his name? I wouldn't even pronounce it.

Greg? Greg? I think. Harry? I don't know. Let's just say this. man. All he did was install a security camera.

I mean, I don't really know what he did. I asked him what he did and he said, we don't really talk about that here. Yeah. So I moved on. I don't want to be rude. Oh, do you remember the names of every tradesperson you've ever had at your house? Did you have some guy popped in? Okay.

Remember the name of every director that works for you? Okay. Come on. He does work with us, sure, but he does work with a lot of people. Yeah. Have you asked them? If they're the president? Yeah.

Doubt it. Do your job. I'm actually offended. Yeah. I love that sort of front foot stuff. Oh, yeah. Well, actually, I think that's disrespecting the great work that our boys and girls out there in the CIA or wherever he's connected or not connected to. Because not us, not me.

Not me. I don't know him. What are you even? I've never met another person before. Are you a person? I haven't seen one. Oh, cool. I haven't even seen a mirror.

Do I look like you? Do we look the same? Do we all look the same? Do we all look the same? Have you watched death to 2020? Yes. Lisa Kudra, a lot of that kind of energy. I never said that.

A lot of I never said that. That was fine. I was a pretty good phone. It was all right. Yeah. I was very tired. I was on my phone for a bit. Yeah, it was one.

I enjoyed it. It felt like it could have been a little bit shorter. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Could have been a half hour thing. But I found the soccer mom very funny. Very good. And do you know who surprised me?

Hugh Grant was actually very good. It was very funny. Hmm. I was like, well, don't you. Haven't you seen Paddington Bear? Oh, fantastic point. Actually, no, I haven't seen the second one. Which one's either bad going?

It must be the second one. Oh, it must be the second one. So I'll watch that tonight. Yeah, it's very good in that too. Have you not seen Notting Hill? Oh my God, he's so foppish. Oh my goodness. Didn't he played one character for so long?

Yeah, yeah, but I did. He nailed it. So, four weddings and a funeral would be in like, I think that's my favorite film. I saw this film, The Gentleman. Have you seen that? It's like a guy, Richie film a few years ago. And he plays like a kind of a manipulative, bad guy journalist in that. And, you know, once again, it's slightly different.

It's probably not miles away from what he played in the death of 2020. That film had its issues. Just let me say that. Okay. And move on. Move on. Yeah, thank you for saying it. Had some good points too.

Thank you for being brave. Hey, you know, it was missing Dave's man. That's all. If I think Guy Ritchie, in my head I pictured Jason Stathen. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. I don't know what he looks like. I picture it's been emotional.

I was a no thanks, Turkish, I'm sweet enough. Anyway, how do we get there? Sorry. Sorry to new listeners who have turned off. But I look forward to your YouTube comments of trash. I couldn't get through it. This is trash. You are not funny.

No one, don't comment. Don't listen. I don't care. I'm going to come to your house. I'm going to skin you alive. So I'd be deleting that comment right. now if I were you. Oh, wow.

Yeah, I can't control it when she's like this. I'm going to have a 10-minute power lap and then I'm going to murder you. The only, that's your only one for the week, so. Yeah. I'm going to be fresh a. F to fuck you up. Okay, I think everyone should take that warning. So John Mitchell's basically said, no, like, yeah, nothing new with us. That wasn't enough for the Democratic National Chairman, Lauren,

Brian, though, who said that the break-in raised the ugliest question about the integrity of the political process that I've encountered in a quarter of a century of political activity. Know me a statement of innocence by Mr. Nixon's campaign manager, John Mitchell, will dispel these questions. He ended up, I think it was maybe that day or soon after he sued for a million bucks. I don't know what happened with that. I assume he got a million bucks. That's it.

I'm suing for a million bucks. What a country. Woodward hit the phones hard. I mean, this is the whole story, and a lot of what I don't talk about, is Woodward and Bernstein hitting the phones, traveling all around the country, talking to people who are on the inside and near the inside. Inside adjacent.

Inside adjacent. Off and on the down low, off record. Oh, they're inside adjacent on the down low. Yeah, exactly. So he has to get on his hands and knees of different points. And that is... Oh, all right. That is, well, you know, you get a result.

to get your result. So they, um, they, yeah, that was so much of this story is them just slowly nutting it out over the years. I mean,

you get the result. That's all that matters. So Woodward hit the phone's hard, chasing up any leads or half leads speaking to anyone who knew McCord. He started building up a profile on him. Deeply religious, a family man, ex-FBI, ex-CIA.

And despite, what Mitchell said, quote, those who knew him, those who knew him agreed that he worked full time for the president's re-election committee. But it like it wasn't a secret in his circles. He worked full time. Here's seven photos of him with the president. Well, I think that, yeah, they probably had just a little of a buffer between creep and the president, but, you know, that was.

He's not just some dude. Yeah. That like did you catering six years ago. That's right. Yeah. You want me to remember all the caterer? Remember, there was some good canopays that day. Actually, those sandwiches were fantastic.

Salmon and avocado on rye. Wow. I remember that, but I do not remember that man. I've said too much. Interestingly, four of the people Woodward spoke to described him as the consummate government man, reluctant to act on his own initiative, respectful of the chain of command, unquestioning in following orders. Another thing that makes you go, well, it sounds like a guy who wouldn't have acted without people from above telling him he should be.

Never had an original thought or planning his life this guy. A really dull fuck, honestly. If Nixon told him to do it, he'd do it. All of his jokes are just from chain emails. Yeah. That was it. King of the forwards, they called him. Shared a lot of memes.

A lot of memes. Woodward's starting. started typing up his story in which he identified one of the Watergate burglars as a full-time employee of the president's re-election committee, McGirt, or whatever his name is. Which was accurate. McCord. Oh, there was distracted. So last night when I'm writing this, I had one eye on the cricket.

And there's a new Melbourne Renegades player. He's like an 18-year-old. And if he gets big, he's going to have the best name in world cricket. Jake Fraser McGirk Jake Fraser McGirk That is good And Fraser McGirk is that's hyphenated Yeah

Wow I mean we've got two great names like that Yeah It's hard as choose But you also think that's one of the greatest names in cricket It will be yeah Sure Okay I mean

What are you thinking Shane Moore That's a great name That's a name you can set your watch too It's the only fucking cricketer I know I don't know I can name another one come on name one

more. Don Bradman. Oh, great name. Brett Lee. Oh, yeah. I mean, these are, you've named some super boring names. Well, yeah. Compare those to the name I just said.

Yeah, I can't remember it. Fraser McGirk. Fraser McGirk. Okay. That's great. It's all right. I mean, what was that, what's that AFL play we're talking about? Jaron.

Jaron Geary. Saints Captain. Jack. Jaron. What's the other name? No, Gryon Myers. What's saying it? Grion Myers.

The parents made it up. Feel like Gryan. Love it. Gryan. Yuck. Jaron. Call him Breg or something. Bregg.

Bregg comes in to bowl. Brigg. Well, his dad's name was Brett and his uncle's name was Greg. So this is actually a beautiful tribute to him. A tribute to Brooke. To our beautiful baby boy, Bragg. Where do I? How do I get there?

I'm so sorry. You were talking about Mc? Oh, yes. Yeah, well. And that's how you got to McGirk. So Woodward's typing up this story. He identified McGirk, McGreg, McCord, identified McCord and said he was from creep. And then without asking, so he handed in a first few pages to the editor.

And then without asking, Bernstein sort of looking over his shoulder and he took it and across the room. Woodward's like, wait, Bernstein's taking my pages and taken to his desk and he started typing and he's like,

hang on, he's rewriting my story and he went on and he said he was afraid of this anyway. He had a reputation for sort of moving in on people's stories

and putting his byline on it. The vulture. Yeah. Then he went over and he read the rewritten version and he was like, oh no, it's better.

Oh, crap. Oh, damn. That's really, really good. So, yeah, it felt like maybe the, I don't think they were ever like full best mates or anything, but I think they started, they definitely respected each other more. And they were both integral, equally integral in bringing this whole story a lot. In the early hours of the following morning, Woodward received a call from the post-night police reporter Eugene Pekinsky.

According to the book, Pekinsky had something from one of the police sources of his. two address books belonging to two of the Miami men that rest inside the water yet so they also on them had address books with a lot of details of phone number.

One of them contained the name and phone number of a Howard E. Hunt with the small notations W House and W.H. I know if you can crack the code. Hang on. Give me a sec.

Who's house? I was thinking of like you know how they sometimes call toilets wash closets Oh, yeah. I wasn't getting wash house. Oh, that's good.

Yeah. Great. So was it like a direction to a like the closest public toilet in case they needed to use the facility? Yeah, did they have IBS? So they needed to keep track of toilets? This is before toilet apps. You've got to remember that.

Yeah. Now there's so many toilet apps to choose. I mean, everyone's got multiple toilet apps. I mean, what is this smartphone except a giant thing for toilet app information? And then to look at while you're on the toilet. Exactly. You look at where your next toilet's going to be.

You plan you stop. You stop it. one, you know where you're going next. You know me, I'm a planner. I'm a Virgo. We plan. I'm going to piss in about 46 minutes. So one, do a two, go to two.

And do another one. So, each other thing, that honestly, that is almost as dumb as, let's call her L. Simpson. No, that's too obvious. How about Lisa S? Yeah, I guess they were not thinking about it being found, I guess. They were not planning at all on being busted. But I mean, why not just write White House? Yeah, it's a good point.

So Woodward went, well, that's interesting. I'll try and call this guy. He found a listing for Howard Hunt in Potomac, Maryland, an affluent horse country suburb of Montgomery County, but there was no answer. I mean, it was late at night. This is in the middle of the night. So he went back to the office the following day

and continued to try and track down this mysterious Howard Hunt. from W House. Woodward called an old friend of his who worked for the federal government. His friend said that he couldn't talk long, but that the Watergate case was going to heat up before hanging up. Oh, hot waterhout, the Watergate. Ah, okay. Woodward tried chasing down Howard Hunt by calling the White House.

He thought, maybe this W. House could be the White House. Hmm. Let's try. Roll the dice. Hello, White House. Is that you? And that's what he did. He just called the White House.

And there's something that I noticed through this book as well was that a lot of places were like, you'd call them and they'd give you information. The White House. He caught at one point, I don't think I'd go through it, but he called the library at the White House and was like, I need to know this guy works there, what books he has taken out. And they gave him the results. And he asked him more questions. And then they called back later and said, hey, I probably shouldn't have said that stuff

that's a lot of you. And then later went, I never said that stuff to you. That sort of, yeah, it's just a way more trust. time. So he's collecting information bit by a bit, phone call after phone call. The operator at the White House couldn't locate Hunt, but he just called the White House and said, I work for the paper, do you find Hunt? Now, I can't find him, and then they went before they hung out there.

Actually, there's one other place he might be in Mr. Colson's office. And then they tried, but Mr. Colson's secretary gave Woodward the number for a PR firm, said he's not in at the moment, but he also does some work at this PR firm. You should call him there, like real open with information like that. Woodward asked an assistant editor who Colson was. Who's this Colson guy? Charles W. Colson, special counsel to the president of the United States, was the White House Hatchet Man, the reply came.

It was like muscle, you know. He was the fixer kind of guy or the finisher. Who in West Wing would that be? Hard to say. Yeah, I don't, yeah. I almost quoted West Wing, like, on air on radio the other day. Yeah? Because they were talking about the 25th Amendment in the news.

And I was like, yes, like how the president gets shot in the West Wing. And he has to sign the 25th, he has to sign paper saying the vice president is in control. I understand. You beat your tongue, did you? Yeah, I did. You should have said that. I should have said it. But I didn't.

I regret it every day. So this Colson guy, this hatchet man, was talked about by an anonymous quote a year earlier in an article in the post with the quote. As one of the original backroom boys, the brokers, the guys who fix things when they break down and do the dirty work when it's necessary. That's who they described Colson as an anonymous source, which was published a year earlier. So he's going, oh, okay. so he's connected, he's working with this guy, he's connected to this backdoor boy, original backroom boy. So within a few days of the break in, the journalists had connected one of the burglars,

McCord, to the Republican National Committee and now connected the burglars to hunt and hunt to Coulson. Coulson being the backroom boy. I mean, I'm with you. Yeah, I'm following. So if they're not connecting the dots all the way up to the top, They're getting a fair way up there. Just with people. People that are just like, oh, yeah, sure, I'll send you.

When do you want these medical records sent? Yeah. Sure. You want the president's personal journal? I don't see why not? I'll get him to send it over himself. He'll drop it over. Nixie's like, okay.

Oh, that was a good Nixon. Was that a good Nixon? I want to try one later when I quote him. Okay, great. Yeah, cool. It's Bay is done Futurama. Okay, yeah. His head in a jar from Futurama.

Oh, that's right. Woodward dialed the number for the PR agency and asked for hunt. How the exchange went down, again, comes from the book. Quite a fan of this quick exchange. And I'm going into a bit more detail about their hunt for details early, and I sort of start skimming over things soon, because this goes on for years. This is day after day, and we're only in the first week.

So he calls this PR firm. And the voice answers, Howard Hunt here. Woodward says, hey, I'm Woodward from the... Hey, what's up? I'm Woodward. Woodward from the Washington Post. Hunt replied, yes, what is it? Woodward asked Hunt, why his name and phone number were in the address books of two of the men arrested at the Watergate. Howard Hunt replied, good God!

Oh, no! Oh, crap. I definitely shouldn't have said it was illegal. And then he quickly added, in view that this matter is unlawful, under adjudication. I have no comment and then slam down the phone. Good God. Good God. It's maybe my favourite quote, and whole thing. Good God. Good God. And you're just like, oh, shit. Yeah. Damn it. Oh, come on. Woodward phone Robert Bennett to ask about Hunt. Bennett was the president of the public relations firm that he was working at that Hunt was at,

and also the son of a Republican senator. Bennett replied, I guess it's no secret that Howard was with the CIA. that had been a secret to Woodward. So it's just another guy's in their ex-CIA. He then called the CIA where he found out that Hunt had been with them from 49 to 70, so 21 years. And again, they just gave that information. Yeah. And the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency.

Not so smart. And now that's two CIA in the five. Yes. No, Hunt Hunt was in the book He wasn't one of the burglars But he's connected Oh, okay, gotcha, gotcha

But connected back to it Yeah I can't believe you could just call the CIA Back then and ask for info about their agents Let's try now It's interesting because In some ways it makes sense You're like they're working for us

It's a public thing I need to report about it Shouldn't I be able to know But yeah, you go And that does put some Surely that puts some things at risk And privacy and all all those things as well.

Sort of like, you know, the Australian parliament was built so that the lawn meant that you could basically walk on top of parliament. And, you know, the people were above parliament. The politicians will always remember, you know, it's symbolic. If I'm remembering this, right. Yeah. And then a couple of years ago they put up a fence so people couldn't do that anymore. They had to close it off for security reasons.

Yeah. So you sort of go, wow, I kind of get that, yeah, maybe there'd be security reasons. But also it is the parliament house. where, yeah, it's a curious thing. Do you think, how often do you think politicians get told I pay your wages? As much as people who work for Trul J. I know, that actually has never happened to me there, but it happened to me working at a call center one time.

I pay your way. What? I was like, I don't think you do, mate. I bought a dishwasher. I pay your wages. It wasn't even a, yeah, it wasn't even like a call center, call center. Anyway, yeah, it was like a, it's a multi-million dollar. I think now a billion dollar company in Australia.

That's fine. And this one customer who'd placed a couple of ads was like, I pay your wage. I don't think you do, mate. Wait, hang on. Are you Greg in accounts? Oh, good. Hey, Greg.

You finally put a voice to the name. Thanks for always. Pay it on time. So, yeah, so now we know hunts this guy at the CIA. Woodward then spoke to an unnamed source who was high up in a government agency, unclear who. and they confirmed that Hunt was involved, though the source only gave information on the understanding

that he couldn't be quoted even anonymously, and this source would later be known as Deep Throat. If you know him, he's one of the famous parts of this story, but I'll get into their relationship a little bit later. But it also runs throughout. Woodward is continuously meeting on and off with him in the classic sort of way in a car park

smoking a cigarette I think it's probably where a lot of tropes have come from and at least from the movie version of this story they even have a character in X-Files you remember called Deep Throat in the first season Yeah exactly Meeting him like in front of like the Lincoln Memorial or something at 3am

Yes Both wearing black trench coats And the Simpsons spoof it a bit Yeah we're smithers Remember he's going to give them away and then just blast him with the lights. Headlights on. The Post published another story.

This one titled White House Consultant, Link to Bugging Suspects. Flows off the time. Beautiful. The morning the story came out, presidential press secretary. Now you've probably... CJ. CJ, yes, great.

But this time, it wasn't CJ. This is before CJ got the job. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's 70s. She was a baby. Ronald Ziegler. Um, he sounds, wasn't there a character? Toby Ziegler? Yeah. Yeah. So I wonder, that's probably not a coincidence. They probably named him after him, I guess. So the president,

press secretary Ronald Ziegler was asked a question about the break in. He replied dismissively saying certain elements may try to stretch this beyond what it is before describing the incident as a third rate burglary attempt that did not warrant further White House comment. This is no big deal. I mean, they might be trying to draw some conclusions that aren't there. God, slow news day or something. For you guys, what are you like? You're a joke. You're a joke.

You're a joke. You're a joke. Get out of my press gallery or whatever this room's called. I should know that. Make a note. Let me check that. Get back to you in our briefs afternoon. I'll take that I'll notice.

See you back here at 4 o'clock. With a better attitude. And you? you better have fucked off. The current one, Kaylee McEnany's attitude, and back of all with the press, is genuinely almost that antagonist. Oh, really?

Yeah. Yeah, right. If you would report the truth in your papers, it's very, it's amazing. I mean, that is, if that is what she's asking, that feels like that's, that's reasonable. That's reasonable. Yeah, and as a, as a general as a major,

I think that's probably what should be happening, yeah. And if that's not what's happening, I imagine she would be in frustrated. What's being reported then? Fake things. Lame stream media-style stuff. Oh, not fake news. What?

Honestly, that does stuff. It does suck when fake news is reported. According to a later report in the Washington Post, quote the next day, Nixon and Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman privately discussed how to get the CIA to tell the FBI to back off from the burglary investigation. Nixon's in it. He's in it.

Yeah. But they're just denying, deny, deny, deny. Always a good move, I think. Yes. Deny, deny, deny. But what has he done? He's having private discussions about how to cover it all off and also getting the FBI to back off via the CIA.

Right. Can you call the FBI and talk to back off? Please, I don't listen when I call it. I was going to talk to Greg. And Greg scares me. He's kind of mean. Greg from account? Yes.

He never pays me on time. The president's not getting paid on top. How much does the president make? Like half a million dollars a year? Yeah, they get paid like well for a normal person, but not well for like a real famous person. They're so famous. Kanye would get more for sure.

He'd be taking a pay card if he got that gig. What about like... He's probably glad he didn't. What about now? Like, is Obama set for... Because he can't get a job, can he? They make so... I think it's like a lot of apologies.

It makes so much on speaking tours and like deal. And like... Bill Netflix deal. Yeah, just... Michelle's got the Spotify deal. They do have a gravy train anyway, but then they can cash in on all sorts of things. But they do have some sort of pension, though, don't it? Yeah, yeah.

They'll never have to work in. They have a staff forever, I think. I think they did a $50 million book deal. Hmm, so they're probably okay. There's a little cream on top. They're probably all right then. You have been worrying. Is that why I haven't been sleeping?

Yeah, I'm so worried about Barack Obama. I'm worried about the Obama. Why would someone, what are you thinking of the Obama? Let's wrap this up so I can go to bed. Do you think he invested well? Because in my mind, he didn't exist until he was president. Yeah. So it's like, you've got like four years, man.

Maybe eight. You only work for four years, man. What about Trump? Where was he before this? Does he have any money? I don't know. Is he planned well? I'm pretty sure, like, it would almost,

there'd be maybe nearly no exceptions where it wasn't a pay cut to become president. Yeah, wow. So normally rich people get the gig. They have to be in some way to, I'm speaking very naively from the other side of the world. Yeah, I believe that to be true. Well, if you step up for Joe Biden because he's been senator, I know. Imagine a president gets paid more for us. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point.

But even senators, aren't they not like often from wealth? And they have lots of money and stuff. I think he's the first non-Ivy league person to be president. Someone was saying it was it was noteworthy that he's Catholic. Yeah, I saw that too. It's like the second ever since JFK. Which is interesting. What, JFK was the first?

Yeah. And I think it was at. the time that was like controversial. Wow. Yeah. I did see it noted that he was Catholic and I was like, okay. Yeah. I just, I can't say I think about Catholicism must be more mainstream here or something. I believe so, yeah. Because I think a lot of our prime ministers have been Catholic. Maybe it's more on the Labor side. Is that the classic thing? Anyway, we've made sidetrack where we'd so be in. Sorry. That's funny. It's like, we don't, our kind of Christianity doesn't like their slightly different kind of Christianity.

So at the press conference on the afternoon of June 22, President Nixon made his first public comment about the incident saying, The White House has no involvement whatsoever in this particular incident. I mean, turned in a Larry David. That was Bernie Sanders doing Donald Duck. But I loved it. Closer than my Donald Duck on.

That was closer to your Donald Duck than your genuine attempt out of Donald Duck. When was that Donald? That was on a Patreon. Yeah, definitely worth you having a Craig. Bernstein and Woodward both found the phrasing in this particular incident interesting. They're like, oh, it's a weird way to phrase it. Say it again, but not in a dumb voice. The White House has no involvement, whatever, in this particular incident.

In this particular incident. Oh, we've got involved in other incidents. Of course. Which makes sense. And is it a phrase like this? There's no involvement. Whatever. Yeah, that's how it sounds.

Despite still working hard on the story and feeling like it was a big one, around a month later, according to the book, the Watergate story had stalled, maybe even died. The reporters could not understand why. They're like, this is a big thing, but it was just getting sort of squashed from inside the government. They were getting the CIA to stop the FBI. investigating and also just sort of stopping people talking a bit and the pressure was on to

get it spot on but the higher ups even at the Washington Post who did seem to believe in the story were starting to move on as well despite Bernstein's protests he was made to go back to reporting on what he was doing before this Virginia state politics and at the same time Wood was like I'm taking a vacation yeah You know what? You need a break. It's been full on for a little bit, but... I'm going to go sit in a beach.

Yeah. You know, have a cocktail. Yeah, mahitos. Oh. All right. Take me there. No. Take me with you, Woodward.

It's my holiday. It's my holiday. Me, Mr. Woodward. I want to say Bob? Bob Woodward. Bob. On the day that Woodward left on his vacation, another key player in the scandal would come into the frame.

This happened when, quote, the Long Island Afternoon Paper Newsday, which is another one that seemed to be in on the story. Not a lot of the mainstream media seem to be in it as much as Washington Post. Mainstream typical. But a few, I think the New York Times seems to have been in it a bit and Newsday, but it does seem like the Washington Post was the biggest player. So anyway, when the Long Island Afternoon Paper Newsday reported that the former White House aide named Gordon Liddy, who had been working as a lawyer for the campaign committee,

had been fired by John Mitchell in June for refusing to answer FBI questions about Watergate. And I'm like, oh, this Liddy guy, Gordon Liddy. Interesting. Three days later, the higher ups at the post called Bernstein Back said, stories ago again. Only three days later, though, I had the break for. The New York Times had a story linking Liddy to one of the burglars, Bernard Barker, and things were heating up again.

Is Woodward on holiday? Yeah, Woodward's on holiday. So he's about to come back going. I guess we're doing it again. Through all of this, the FBI were also conducting their own investigation, although it sounds like CIA were not making that easy, but they were supposedly having a wide-ranging investigation of their own. I am focusing a bit more on the journalist's investigation because it is probably better documented because they wrote a book about it. And that's the document that I'm mainly using.

Yes. Anyhow, the work they'd been doing meant that Woodward and Bernstein and the FBI had now identified two co-conspirators in the burglary, Hunt and Liddy. The investigation took Bernstein down to Miami where he was collaborating with an investigator employed by a Miami district attorney.

This is one of the many leads. He's bouncing all the way around the country. One thing they talk about a bit in the book is that he has this ability to always make his plane, but he always gets there at the nick of time. He's always stressful. He's always dashing onto the plane at the last second. And that's what he did on this time as well

when he went down to Miami. When he was down there, working with this investigator, they found a $25,000 check, which he was able to connect to creep with one of the burglars, Bernard Barker. So directly from one of the burglars to the committee for the re-election. $25,000. And how did he find that?

this check with you, he's walking to a bank and say, hello, any checks cast in any of these people's names lately? And I'm, sir, please write this way. Yeah, yeah, just check out of the back. Yeah, you want to see the vault? Here's the key. Yeah, go. We're going to go at the back. Drop them back when you're done, though. Okay. We've only got 18 copies of that key. We were about to go for a sandwich, sir. This was, he was working with an investigator who was working with a Miami district attorney. So they had some ins to get information that they needed.

So into the vault of the bank? Yeah. Yeah. With the case. This was the first time the Post was able to directly link the burglary and the Nixon campaign funds. They also found evidence of many more tens of thousands of dollars being involved. The following day on August 1st, the Post published a story titled Bug Suspect got campaign funds. and part of the article reads,

the check was made out by a Florida bank to Kenneth H. Dahlberg, the president's campaign finance chairman for the Midwest, so very directly linking to the campaign finance there. Dahlberg said that last night that in early April, he turned the check over to the treasurer of the committee for the re-election of the president, or to Morris Stans himself.

Stan's another guy, another one of the big players. I don't talk about him too much, but he's like one of the money men. he's holding a lot of this cash, this secret sort of slush fund cash. Stan's former secretary of commerce under Mr Nixon is now the finance chief of the president's re-election effort. Dahlberg said he didn't have the vaguest idea how the check got into the bank account of the real estate firm owned by Bernard Barker, one of the breaking suspects, and Stan's

could not be reached for comment. According to a court testimony by government prosecutors, Barker's bank account in which the 25 grand was deposited, was the same account from which Barker later withdrew a large number of $100 bills. About 53 of these $100 bills were found on the five men after they were arrested at Watergate. So, you know, I guess that's why it was important that they were those sequentially noted bills because they were able to trace them directly now through the re-election fund. That basically shows pretty clearly that the campaign. They got the campaign Funds.

Funds paid them to do this bugging and it goes all the way to the top. A lot of the money... No, hang on. You've been saying that from the start. Well, you know, I've got a little bit of a high inside up my sleeve. You should have been there, Matt. You've got to crack this baby wide open. Yeah, it's interesting.

A lot of this money, they would be sending it down to Mexico. They had this Mexican guy, put it in a bank account and then sending it back up. And that was how they were helping launder it. But in this instant, it was just a... check. Yes. That's easily traceable. Easily traceable.

So it doesn't sound like they didn't do too much to cover their tracks. No. Amazing. God damn it. Well, Matt, this is an absolutely riveting tale, but would you mind if I interrupt you just for one moment? Please. I've got to tell you and the good people at home that this week's episode is brought to

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Well, it connects automatically and you don't worry about it. But it doesn't log your data. Lots of really cheap or free VPNs make money by selling your data to add companies, which is the opposite of what you want. What, is Nixon working for them? Sounds like it goes all the way to the top. Yeah. Another great thing about ExpressVPN is its speed. Other VPNs, a lot of those slow your connection down and make your device sluggish.

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and get an extra three months free on a one year package. That sounds like value. Now back to the report that I assume you wrote whilst using ExpressVPN. I did. So on the 15th of September, indictments were handed down by a grand jury to the five men arrested at the Watergate, as well as Hunt Liddy, who were now seen as being key planners in it all as well. According to the book, the seven men were charged with as many as eight separate counts each, all related to conspiracy, burglary, and the federal wiretelling.

tapping statute prohibiting electronic interception of oral communications. Bernstein and Woodward were despondent. The charges didn't go further and didn't take down anyone higher up the chain, despite mounting evidence. They're like, wow, why, this is all small stuff. Why aren't they? Like the break-in was big news and that kicked it all off, but it wasn't the biggest thing.

What it revealed was went all the way to the top. Okay. So you keep saying that. I'm still not entirely sure what it means. The top, right up the top. Of the tree? In the White House, more powerful that you are, the higher level you're on. How many levels are there on the White House?

I think there's like 14. Right. And there's 14 people in there. If I Google the White House floor plan, don't you think I'd end up on a list? Yeah, don't do it. Don't do it unless you're using ExpressVPN. again. Woodward continued to communicate with his anonymous source. Deep throat. According to the book, his identity was unknown to anyone else. Woodward knew him. He knew he was, but he did not,

even Bernstein, even his editors, he didn't tell anyone. He's literally meeting him in a car park. Yes. And this is how it all went down. This is their system. His identity was unknown to anyone else. He could be contacted only on very important occasions. Woodward had promised he would never... Queen's birthday, New Year's Day. Yeah. Most public holidays. Yeah, he wanted a penalty, right?

Yeah, I don't blame him. So Woodward had promised he would never identify him or his position to anyone. And further, he had agreed never to quote the man even as an anonymous source. That was always, you know, that's underlined all the time. The discussions would be only to confirm information that had been obtained elsewhere and to add some perspective. So basically, he's just got this guy who knows. the whole story pretty much.

And if you go to them and you say, is this right? And you'll say, yeah, you're on the right track. Keep looking in this way. Follow the money. That sort of stuff. Yeah. These are these catch raisers.

Yeah. Boom. Bingo. You got it. You're out of here. Stepping on their cigarette. Hey, batter, bad, bad. Better up.

And you're like, I don't, I'm sorry. last me at that one. Let me just say Woodward, strike three. What does that mean? I don't know. All right, I'll call Babe Ruth. Yeah. Am I in trouble or something?

It goes on in the book to say, in newspaper terminology, the fact that he wouldn't be quoted or anything, it meant that the discussions were a deep background. That's what it was known as. Woodward explained the arrangement to the managing editor Howard Simons one day. He had taken to calling the source my friend. That's what Woodward was going.

My friend told me, my friend agrees. That's a way. You're all right. We get it, Woodward. You got a phone. Okay. Not all of us are so lucky, all right? But Simmons dubbed him Deep Throat, the title of a celebrated pornographic movie, and the name stuck.

A celebrated pornographic movie. I really celebrated. Hmm. It's a big, like it was a mainstream box office hit at the time. Right. Which was. But it was pornographic. Well, this is the Golden Age pornography.

Oh, yeah. And I guess he's just taking deep background. Deep Throat. I'm going to see what he's done. Initially, the two spoke only over the phone, but soon Deep Throat said it wasn't safe to do that anymore and said if they were to talk in person, if they were to talk, it had to be in person.

The book continues. Deep Throat didn't want to use the phone even to set up the meetings. He suggested that Woodward would open the drapes in his apartment as a signal. Deep Throat could check each day, If the drapes were open, the two would meet that night. But Woodward liked to let the sun in at time and suggested another signal. Yeah, that does make sense. I've got plants, man.

He's going to tell his family not to open the drapes under any circumstance. It's funny that you say he's got plants because that's what he used. Instead, when Woodward had an urgent inquiry to make, he would move a flower pot with a red flag to the rear of his balcony. During the day, Deep Throat would check to see if the pot had been moved, If it had, he and Woodward would meet at around 2am in a pre-designated underground parking garage. Woodward would leave his 6'4 apartment and walk down the back stairs into an alley. Walking and taking two or more taxis to the garage, he could be reasonably sure that no one had followed him.

In the garage, the two could talk for an hour or more without being seen. So that was the system. That makes me anxious. Yeah. And really it was a similar sort of thing again in X-Files. He puts an X. He tapes a black X in the window when he wants to meet. Wow.

The molder puts the, yeah, that's his signal. And then maybe puts a lamp over it, so it's quite obvious. Yeah, so it's similar. Again, that feels like that's probably where it came from. So it sounds like, that's complicated anyway, right? But walking and taking two or more taxis was the best case scenario. If taxis were hard to find, as they often were at night, it might take Woodward almost two hours to get there on foot, which he had to do sometimes.

Just at the two hour walk. I mean, he'd always have to leave two hours just in case he had to walk. He'd always have to leave at midnight, just in case, I guess. Does he have a family? I don't think so. Just going out for another four-hour walk? I would have left him. Going to see my friend.

I would have left him after the second walk. Yeah. P.S. baby, keep those drapes close. Frustratingly, on two occasions, the meeting had been set, and then the man had not shown up. A depressing and frightening experience is Woodward had waited for more than an hour alone in an underground garage in the middle of the night. And one occasion he thought he was being followed as well. He was shitting himself. Oh my God. This is from the book still. If Deep Throat wanted a meeting on the other hand, which was rare, but did happen sometimes,

there was a different procedure. Each morning, Woodward would check page 20 of his New York Times delivered to his apartment house before 7 a.m. If a meeting was requested, the page number would be circled and the hands of a clock indicating the time of the rendezvous would appear in a lower corner of the page. Woodward did not know how Deep Throat got to his paper, but he did. I guess he just... He was the White House Paperboy. He was the paper boy.

All the way to the top. Paperboy sits just above. President. President. According to Britannica, with Deep Throat's help, Woodward and Bernstein kept up a steady stream of scoops demonstrating. So this is where I'm skipping through a lot of stuff here. The direct involvement of Nixon's intimates,

which is, I think, what they mean to say close allies in Watergate activities. No, it's his underwear. Underwear. What is he wearing? He's wearing G-strings? Nixon's underwear was involved in Watergate activities? They're all, the crew can go, but they've all got to wear my G-Barras. They also found that the Watergate wiretapping and break-in

had been financed through illegally laundered campaign contributions, and in a blockbuster, October 10, front page article that the Watergate bugging incidents stem from a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of President Nixon's re-election and directed by officials of the White House, part of a, quote, basic strategy of the Nixon re-election effort. This article, this huge bombshell, what seemingly bombshell article, was titled, FBI finds Nixon aides, sabotage Democrats. I'll catch you on.

And I went on to say, intelligence work is normal during a campaign and is said to be carried out by both political parties. But federal investigators said what they uncovered being done by the Nixon forces is unprecedented in scope and intensity. They said it included, following members of Democratic candidates' families and assembling dossiers on their personal lives,

forging letters and distributing them under the candidate's letterheads, leaking false and manufactured items to the press, throwing campaign schedules in a disarray, seizing confidential campaign files, and investigating the lives of dozens of democratic campaign workers. In addition, investigators said that the activities included planting provocateurs in the ranks of organizations expected to demonstrate at the Republican and Democratic conventions.

It was a big team. certainly there were people across the country working in amongst it. But amazingly, this story, this huge bombshell story, didn't create that much havoc at all. As the election campaign, and this is all like in the closing stages of an election campaign, you'd be like, well, that's going to hurt Nixon. No. But as the election campaign continued to ramp up,

not many other media outlets were really following the case, apart from some of those ones I was doing it before, and the White House continued to attack the post coverage as biased and misleading from a liberal newspaper, making out like the Post was basically working for the Democratic election campaign, fake news, landstream media, that sort of stuff. And I think the speaker, not the speaker, the spokes, what was his name? The press secretary? The press secretary. I think he was pretty much on the front foot with a lot of this sort of stuff.

In the run-up to election day, Bernstein and Walsh. Woodward were looking forward to it being all over. They're like, we just want to get this election out of the way now. They are increasingly frustrated running into one stone wall after another. As they got closer, the election insiders weren't talking to them much anymore, though multiple suggested they would open up again after Nixon's inevitable election victory, which he seemed to be cruising towards. None of the stories published by the Post seemed to make a dint in the Nixon campaign.

The general public loved him and trusted him, so much so that amongst the post coverage, an election eve poll showed respondents overwhelmingly trusted Nixon over Democratic candidate and opponent, George McGovern. Isn't that so funny because now, post 50 years later, I don't know about you guys, but I think of him. You imagine him is so untrustful. Yeah, you think of corruption. But like, it's like, oh, he was really, really popular. Yeah, so popular. Yeah, so popular.

Amazing. The White House's insistent that the Post was quietly working for McGovern's campaign must have frustrated Woodward, because according to the book, Woodward was a registered Republican. But he did not vote in this election. He couldn't decide whether he was more uneasy with the disorganization and naive idealism of McGovern's campaign or with Richard Nixon's conduct. Isn't that funny? I don't know. This McGovern guy, he seems to be a bit idealist. Nixon, who I know is super dodgy.

I don't want to vote for a pretty little. So it's tough. One of them is disorganised. Got to remember that. So equally bad. There's bad people on both sides. And he believed that not voting enabled him to be more objective in reporting on Watergate, which I think maybe that makes sense to me on some level.

But that view Bernstein regarded as silly. Bernstein voted for McGovern, unenthusiastically and unhesitatingly. then bet in the office pool that Nixon would win with 54%. He's like, it's going to be a strong win to Nixon. And Nixon did go on to win the 1972 election, but with an even bigger landslide, he won, guess how many of the states he won? More than 12, for sure.

Well, this could be slower than I was expecting. 34, 49. Wow. What? Holy shit. McGarvan only won Massachusetts. I'm like, well, I was looking at the map. I'm like, whoa, it's just a full red map with this little blip of blue on the, I was going to say top right, the north east.

Don't look at me. But I mean, in the popular vote, it was 47 million to 29 million. Huge. It's about 60, a bit over 60%. much like this topic one in a landslide. According to the book, the self-confidence that flowed from the electoral triumph had emboldened the president's men.

The post-election offensive was led by Charles Colson, who we talked about before, the 41-year-old former Marine Corps captain and White House commandant on political warfare. About a week after the election, Coulson traveled to Maine to address the New England Society of Newspaper editors. He opened the speech by noting that his home state,

Massachusetts. was the only one that had gone for George McGovern. The president, he joked, had decided to mend some fences and locate a new federal installation in Massachusetts and nuclear waste disposal center in Harvard Square. Bit of a funny joke there. Assuring his audience that the First Amendment is alive and well in Washington, which one's that?

Is that free speech? Thou shalt not. You know the 25th? You don't know the first? Well, the 25th is different. And it came up in the news this week. Okay, let's see here. First Amendment, the old first.

No. No. Pleading the first, though. Fifth is where you don't have to talk, I think. Yeah, incriminate yourself. It protects freedom of speech. That's the first. Oh, yep.

Yes. So he was assuring his audience that the First Amendment is alive and well in Washington. He accused the post of McCarthy. and called Bradley the self-appointed leader of that tiny little fringe of arrogant elitists. Oh, Bradley, sorry, is one of the posts. He's another key player that I hardly mention, but he's one of the big dogs at the post. Gotcha. He calls Bradley the self-appointed leader of that tiny little fringe of arrogant elitists

who affect the healthy mainstream of American journalism with their own peculiar view of the world. And my best friend. I love him. He says, and the rest of the country isn't just sitting out here waiting to be told what they're supposed to think. It's funny. It's like it's stuff that you still, you hear all the time now still. We, you know, this is all fake news kind of stuff. Well, we know Colson knew he was talking shit as well because he knew that a lot of their stories or their stories were basically all spot on.

But he was saying, oh, lies. Yeah, there's probably elitist over here. Yeah. The journalists were frustrated. it obviously, but not deterred, and their investigation continued in earnest. They spoke to many more key insiders and continued to break the case open. I won't go into all the details of all these people. There were so many.

There was a bookkeeper who was big key partner. She gave a lot of great info, and there was someone on, they were talking to someone in a jury at one point who they weren't really meant to, and they got in a bit of trouble. But it's okay, not too much trouble. Anyway, I'm not going into any of that. So the audio book of all the president's man is great. The voice actor and it's great. He's got a, he's that big, slightly gravelly American voice.

And he does, he does a slight Nixon. He doesn't go full Nixon like I can and do. Well, that's the thing. I think it's about knowing your limitations. Yeah. And if you can't go full Nixon, don't go full Nixon. Yeah. No.

So that audio book goes for about 10 hours. And at one point I'm like, oh, if I just keep summarizing all of it, so will our episode. It's already probably going to be a longish one. But anyway, yeah, so definitely recommend listening to that. And there's a movie of that as well if people are keen with a pretty hot cast. Oh. Anyhow, one key player I will talk about is a judge name, John Syrika.

He was the one who didn't know. He sort of told him off a bit for talking about Jura. But he didn't sell him out. Nauty. So he was the chief judge of the United States District Court for the District. District of Columbia. According to Britannica, the trial of the five arrested burglars, so he was the judge in this case, and two accomplices began in federal court less than two weeks before Nixon's second term inauguration. The relatively narrow indictment on charges of burglary

conspiracy and violation of federal wiretapping laws itself spoke to the success of the White House and containing the scandal. This is what frustrated the journalist. They're like, these charges are such small time for what, you know, this is just the tiny tip of the icebergs sort of thing. The presiding judge, John J. Sirica, however, kept badgering defendants and witnesses on matters not covered in the indictment, namely the financial and institutional involvement of the White House and the re-election campaign. Sounds like, I don't know how ethical or how, I think he was sort of using his court to almost have his own investigation, which wasn't directly linked to it. So, yeah, I imagine that would have annoyed many people as well, but

he helped crack this thing wide open. Except for Liddy and McCord, all the defendants pleaded guilty, and after a 16-day trial, Lydia and McCord were also found guilty. Britannica goes on to say that the judge's tactics landed a big win when he was handed an extraordinary letter by McCord prior to sentencing saying in the letter he explained that the defendants had been pressured to plead guilty and purged themselves about the involvement of higher-ups. On March 23, Syrika read the letter in a letter.

open court. So this is now McCord, this ex-CIA guy, who's the government man. He's gone. He's confessed, basically. And he said, we've been thrown under the bus, but this is bigger than what is going on here. In the meantime, the Senate had voted 77 to nothing to set up a special investigating committee looking into abuses in the 1972 presidential campaign.

The committee was to be overseen by a well-respected conservative North Carolina Democrat Samuel Irvin Jr. North Carolina should not have mentioned that, but they do have blue fire engine. Yes. Sorry, for new listeners, that's just a fun fact I like to drop in when North Carolina comes up. And I should double check it. I never have. With impending indictments of many of his top aides, Nixon announced a result. of his own investigation.

Okay. And you know what? It's interesting. I've been investigating for a while now and I didn't find anything. Oh my God. And if anything, I actually found out

that my penis is above average. I found it's bigger than even I thought. Even I thought I would be very humble about it, apparently, and I also found $2 in an old jacket. I've been investigating all pockets. Case closed. No, that's not that far off.

I never am. His own investigation found. No one in this administration presently employed was involved in this very bizarre incident. Honestly, it's weird. I don't even understand it. It's so weird. But certainly none of us were involved. And I did a pretty thorough investigation to figure that out.

According to Britannica, on April 17th, presidential spokesman Ziegler infamously told the press that all previous White House statements about Watergate were now, quote, inoperative. Sort of like saying not canon anymore, I guess. It's a strange. So anything that we've said before, don't worry about that. This is the real story. Yeah, forget, just none of that counts anymore. What?

I guess it's a weirdly phrase, inoperative. Two weeks later, on April 30, 1973, Nixon gave a major televised address announcing the resignations of little-known. own White House legal aid named John Wesley Dean the third is another big player. He also helped break this thing wide open. His two closest aides, his chief of staff, Haldeman and John D. Enrolickman and Attorney General Richard Klein Dynast. Nixon protested his... I wine, I, Klein Dines. Nixon protested his own innocent and promised cooperation with future investigations, even while including legalistic language that implied strong limits to that cooperation.

So he, sorry, these are the other people, he's, they've resigned and he's, well, we got rid of the bad apples. Yeah, he's just slowly throwing more people under the bus. And, yeah, it does have that kind of feel like he's going, you know, he's in a hot air balloon and he's running out of sandbags to drop. Yeah, he's about hit the ground. He's going to have to dump himself eventually. This is what he said.

This is a bit long to do his voice. I'll start off and then I'll go into a neutral Matt accent. I want to talk to you tonight about my heart. There had been an effort to conceal the facts both from the public, from you and from me. I wanted to be fair. Today, in one of the most difficult decisions of my presidency, I accepted the resignations of two of my closest associates. It's Bob Holderman and John Andrew Lachman, two of the finest public servants.

It has been my privilege to know. The easiest course would be me to blame those who I delegated the responsibility to run this campaign. But that would be the cowardly thing to do. In brackets, I'm a hero. In any organisation, the man at the top must bear the responsibility. Wait, hang on, is he going to, sounds like he's going to resign. No, it's still very much sounding like he's saying. I didn't know what they were up to.

But he's saying he's bearing the responsibility. That means, I guess. Ultimate responsibility. Yeah, okay. Good. So, you know, this is all solved. So it's my responsibility to accept their resignation. Yeah, I think that's basically what he said.

That responsibility, therefore, belongs here in this office. I accept it. It was the system that has brought the facts to light. A system that in this case has included a determined grand jury, honest prosecutors, a courageous judge, John Syrica, and vigorous free press. I must now turn my full attention once again to the larger duties of this office.

I owe it to this great office that I hold and I owe it to you to our country. There can be no whitewash at the White House. Two wrongs, don't make a right. He just started like losing his mind. I love America. God bless America and God bless each and every one of you. Ice cream for all.

A burden hand is worth two in the bush. What? Yeah, so he lost his mind. But he's just going. But he's just said that. People closer and closer to me, they're going under the bus. But he's like, I have to accept full sensibility, but now I have to go back and do my job. Yeah, I'm going to do my job.

That's what being president is, is doing the job. Code of the book, White House Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler publicly apologized to the Washington Post. This was, I think the next day. and two of its reporters for his earlier criticism of their investigation, investigative reporting of the West Watergate conspiracy. At the White House briefing, a reporter asked Ziegler, if the White House didn't owe the post an apology. Ziegler said, in thinking of it all at this point in time,

yes, I would like to apologise to the post, and I would apologize to Mr. Woodward and Mr. Bernstein. We would all have to say that mistakes were made in terms of comments. I was overenthusiastic in my comments about the post, particularly if you look at them in the context of developments that have taken place, now that I know that I was, they were right, I guess, that context. When we are wrong, we are wrong, as we were in this case. A Ziegler finished, he started to say, but, but then he was cut off by a reporter who said,

now don't take it back, Ron. He was about to butt it. That's pretty, apparently I think Woodward called him and thanked him for the apology. then when Irving, so now the big committee hearing is kicking off, this big Senate committee. And this began on May 17th. And they were fully televised by three major networks. The country was glued to the coverage. According to Britannica, trading volume shot down on the New York Stock Exchange.

Housewives threatened not to do a stitch of housework for as long as the hearings lasted. College students gathered around TV sets in corridors. and between and sometimes during classes. High school TVs set up TVs in the cafeteria for all-day civics lessons. Never have I enjoyed watching television more than in the past two weeks, one Washington Post letter writer testified, with the spectacle of a high human drama interwoven with the finest possible example of the democratic process at work.

Unfolding before my eyes, hour after hour, with no rehearsal, no canned laughter, very little commentary, bracket. Unneeded. And best of all, almost no commercial interruption. That person sucks. God bless America. I've never seen better television. Really?

Really. Hours and hours and hours of people going on, so on this date. Sorry, let me just find that note here. Looking through pages. Fascinating. Apparently, though, Britannica says the feeling was not universal. Sticklers, including independent prosecutor Archibald Cox, who we will talk about soon, decried the unfairness of what he characterised as trying the principles in the media.

It's like this shouldn't be a trial by media. This should be done behind closed doors, I think. Game show and soap opera fans also complained about the preemption of their favorite programs that were taken off the air so that they could watch. And other fun game show. The news. People talking slow. Yay.

Most significantly for the later ideological direction of the country, though hardly noticed by elites at the time, large portions of Americans derided the entire business as a political witch hunt and would continue to do so into the 21st century. So they're saying, and I think, I guess they're saying that sort of led into some of this Trumpism in the very divided country now, maybe, is how I kind of read that. Still, some 35 million or so Americans watched the urban hearings at one time or another. So a lot of, you know, more than all of Australia's population watched it at some point.

So much came out of the hearing, including in the spring of 1969, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, wire tapped his staffers. In 1970, the White House set up an illegal money laundering operation to fund its favoured Senate candidates. It was revealed that as the 1972 campaign season rolled around roving cells of saboteurs devised ways to weaken individual democratic presidential campaigns while making it look like the campaigns were actually sabotaging each other. The questioning of young Nixon aides left senators incredulous with their explanations that ends justify the means morality had become semi-official White House policy. Like the young AIDS weren't, they were like, yeah, we did some illegal stuff.

What was the problem? But that was the point, right? I would say the problem here. Yeah, why are you even asking about it? Another continuing thread was the examination of illegal sources of the money that funded the various clandestine operations. and the drama was further intensified by ongoing investigation of the White House's attempts at stifling the panel's investigation even as it was still underway.

So the White House was still trying to make it harder even. I guess that, yeah, they must have seen the writing on the wall, but still he was holding on the power through all of this. The committee tried to get to the bottom of how much Nixon knew, or as Vice Chairman Baker put it, what did the president know and when did he know? Oh, see, that's an important question. People don't always ask. That sounds like another one of those game shows. What did the president know and when?

Did he know it right after this? Nixon maintained basically, he knew nothing. Sure. Hey, buck stops with me, but I didn't know about it. Yeah, what's, oh, wow, what happened? I don't know. It's impossible to do something about it if I don't know about it, which I didn't. Otherwise, I would have done something about it. And my fingers in my ears, a lot.

La la la la. But then on June, the 2. 25th, 1973, this idea was thrown into doubt when recently resigned White House aide. John Wesley Dean III gave a seven-hour statement followed by five days of cross-examination. According to Britannica, Dean's account established the president as the prime mover behind the scandal and cover-up. However, these revelations were greeted with skepticism by many. It appeared that the entire extraordinary business would devolve into a stalemate.

the president's word against one of his aides. This only lasted until the following month, though, when on the 16th of July, former White House staffer Alexander P. Butterfield revealed that Nixon secretly had conversations in his offices recorded. All of them. All conversations in his offices were recorded, and all those tapes were sitting there.

Holy shit. He was apparently very paranoid guy. And so that's what a lot of this stuff was about. He was cruising to victory, and it was still so paranoid about it all, and that's why he had all these, I mean, this whole thing that he was doing sounds like it was born out of some paranoia. He's presumably making this recordings in case other people screw him over, but now he's just screwed himself. He screwed himself. Oh, no. The Senate committee, as well as Judge Syriker, and an independent special prosecutor, I mentioned before, Archibald Cox, also subpoenaed the tapes,

but Nixon refused to provide them. He said, executive privilege. I don't know. have to, I'm president, I don't have to do it, I got executive. Surely you would have destroyed the tapes as well, right? Are you wondering why the fuck you didn't do that? Yeah. On day one of this? Oh yeah, I don't. Yeah. That's what I would wonder as well. Right, but he said I'm the president. I don't recall any tapes.

But yeah, instead he said, no, I'm president, so I don't have to. He said, I'll provide written summaries of the tapes instead. And written summaries where I can redact anything that I want to. Yeah, well, just make it up. Yeah. Oh, yeah. This offer was

rejected by Cox. Anyway, so here's a conversation with this guy, so he came in, he said, hello, Mr. President. I said, hello, how are you? He says, wow, your penis looks incredibly big today. Wow, way bigger than average, maybe. Even bigger than I remember, and it was already quite big. Yeah, my goodness, Mr. President. Mr. President, do you want to explain to us why you were a penis is about during this meeting? No comment. Well, that's what I was trying to protect myself from all along. That's right. I'm embarrassing one time. My fly was done. And I flop the chop.

My massive hog just poked through. I'm really horrible. Sorry about that. I'm really sorry that the hog got out, you know? It's very distracting for everybody else. I understand. Like, how work. Sometimes the hog's got to get out of the sty.

It cannot be tamed. It's good to refer to your underpens as a star. It's either that or a pig pen. Yeah. Stey's good. Stey's the limit. All right. All right.

Time bun. Yeah. Thubbubbub. Then on October 20th, Nixon took the extraordinary step of ordering his Attorney General Elliot Richardson to sack special prosecutor Cox. Cox is going, I need the tapes. Nixon goes, let's sack Cox. Surely that does not look good for you publicly.

This kicked off what became dramatically known as the Saturday Night Massacre, where both Richardson and the Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckel-Shouse resigned instead of carrying out the order. Holy shit. So Cox was finally dismissed by Solicitor General named Robert Bork. According to Britannica, it was another extraordinary historical moment. Many responsible American officials literally feared a White House coup d'etat. One day coup d'etat.

Amongst all this, on October the 10th, 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew, I haven't mentioned at all and never heard of before. He resigned before pleading no contest to charges of tax evasion and money laundering. It's just fish rots of the head or whatever. It's just like everyone involved seems to be a bit dicey. Wow. This opened the door for Gerald Ford to become the new vice president.

Do you like beer and nachos? Hello, Homer. Ford accepted the offer, apparently telling his wife that the vice presidency would be a nice way to end his political career. He had told her before this, he'd been trying to become the majority leader in the House. I was the Senator, I think in the House. But he was a minority leader. So he was campaigning for a long time trying to get more Republican numbers in

so that he'd be the majority leader. And then he told his wife, I'm going to have one last cracker at the next election. After that, I'm retiring. And then this happened. He's like, well, vice president. That's not a bad way to finish up. Some would argue that's even better than being majority leader. So some would say.

Some would say, maybe less powerful. I don't know. I don't understand the system. I don't fully get it. I mean, I'm only Joe Ford. I'm here for the title and that's all. Yeah. Public pressure grew over the following days,

leading to Nixon finally agreeing to handing over the nine tapes on October 23. Despite agreeing to hand over the nine tapes, he only handed over seven. and one of those tapes had a strange 18 and a half minute silent spot. Maybe Richard was just sitting at his desk reading for a bit. Maybe no one was in the room. Yeah. Anybody think of that? Yeah, I don't understand why they don't even think of that.

Why do you think it's so suspicious that people were chatting and then it goes really quiet for 18 minutes and then those same two people are chatting again? Yeah, so the last thing that said before the silence is, so the illegal thing we're going to do is, and then science for eight and a half minutes and then, all right, we'll do that illegal thing. See it later. I don't know why he didn't eliminate the illegal part as well. Seems like even still,

he kind of incriminated himself. In November at Disney World in Florida, the president told an audience of editors on national TV, I didn't realize this is a real quote, but it is he told them in November, I am not a crook. Yeah, yeah. I thought that was just like a Simpsons thing or something.

Formal impeachment proceeding. were launched in May of 1974. That sounds like six months later. Yeah, it was dragged out a fair bit. And are they listing to the tapes in the hearing? Yeah, it's all just moving slow, I think, if I've got my dates right. No guarantee on that. And Nixon was made to hand over further tapes, according to Britannica.

On August 5th, the president supplied transcripts of three tapes that clearly implicated him in the cover up with these revelations that Nixon's last supporting Congress evaporated basically the Republicans Cameron said I think that was sort of saying the impeachment vote will get up Yeah

So just fall on your sword And he announced his resignation on August the 8th stating that he no longer had a strong enough political base with which to govern Nixon left office at noon the following day on August the 9th

When Nixon resigned Gerald Ford Hey Homer Was sworn Isn't that weird That's all we know about him He put on the Simpsons once Right at the end of an episode

Yeah Well now we know this about him as well Nixon resigned Gerald Ford was sworn in As the 38th president of the United States Not a bad way to finish his career Yeah not bad And his wife's like

I just wanted to go to fucking Hawaii I agree to the VP thing Yeah But that was the final straw Didn't agree to the P Now I'm the FL I'm the NFL now. What?

He made history, I mean, by becoming president, but he also made history becoming the first president to have gotten the gig without having first won an election as either president or vice president. Sometimes vice presidents had to step up to presidency, but he wasn't elected either way. Then on September the, and apparently it was still quite popular. Yeah, right, that I was going to ask that. And then I thought, don't ask questions.

But that's good that they, he was popular. Don't ask questions. I don't want to tell you where I were. It's definitely not the CIA if that's what you're thinking. So then on September the 8th, Ford granted Nixon a full and unconditional pardon for any crimes he may have committed while president. May have committed. What? And then he can come up and be like, I killed 11 people.

Yeah. And Ford's like, he was fully pardoned. Fully pardoned, yeah. That sounds like Dolly Parton too. He's fully pardoned. I never promised you. No, that's a different thing. Dolly Parton sing a song about being put in a Rose Garden?

I don't think so. I've confused myself again. So he was lucky in that way, but not everyone else was so lucky. The Watergate scandal resulted in 69 government officials being charged. Nice. And 48 being found guilty. What a nice amount. According to Britannica, by the time of the pardon,

enough Americans had become convinced that Nixon was guilty of crimes that when Ford had pardoned him as quid pro quo for becoming president, that was what they were thinking. Then the approval rating of the otherwise popular new president collapsed overnight. Yeah. And I was sort of, sound that that was kind of the end of his, that was the beginning of the end of it for him. Nixon lived on.

There's interviews you can watch with him where he's been like post-president, being a bit more open about stuff. I can't mean. I can't, I feel like I can't watch things or I watch and I go, hey, he seems all right. I just got to, I feel. You would definitely end up in a cult. Yeah.

Dave would be leading it, but you'd be in it. Yeah. You'd be drinking the Kool-Aid. Yeah, some good ideas. Sure. Sure he did some crimes, but I mean, haven't we all? I'd have to be with him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He died. All good things, Muscat. coming on end and Nixon died in 1994, after which the rest of the tapes were released and are now available to the public. Apparently, people have been going through them and people still find interesting tidbits. This one is the one that stood out to me the most. This is from Britannica again, including the discovery in these tapes, was that Nixon ordered the firebombing of the Washington DC think tank, the Brookings Institution, which was never carried out, in an attempt

to remove records suggesting that he had conspired to sabotage the 1968 Paris peace talks so that his democratic opponent in that year's presidential election, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, could not run on a record of having helped end the Vietnam War. So to help get a little edge in the election, he ordered a building be firebombed. Farkin now. Whoa. Which was never carried out. So I don't know if he had second thoughts or I don't know why it wasn't carried out.

Didn't have enough fire. That blew my mind. Like, isn't it funny because it's ego crimes where it's like moving money around and stuff that hurt a lot of people in different ways, subverting justice and all these sort of things. These are bad things. But that's just like, you know. And you want to have a beer with this guy.

Well, I forgot about that. He's dead. He seems all right. He's not. Before we finish up, I figure I should talk about the identity of Deep Throat on May 31st, 2005, it was finally revealed. Vanity Fair magazine identified a former top FBI official named Mark Felt as Deep Threat.

He was a second in charge at the time. So he was a big dog. Wow. So how did he know all that? So he was, I mean, he was, the FBI investigations were happening, but they were being quashed a bit, if I'm using that word, right? But he was, he was keen to get the truth. So that's why he was sort of motivated to help the journalists a bit.

It is what my reading of it is. So Felt's identity is Washington's most celebrated secret source had been an object of speculation for more than 30 years, wrote post reporter David von Driel the next day. According to the post, his true identity, the object of countless guesses over the years, remained secret until Vanity Fair's story. I'm the guy they call Deep Throat, Felt told family members.

He's like an old man. He was telling people. Well, I think, no, I think once it was out. That was sort of. And was, was it out with his permission? Or was it like a... I think so, yeah. I think it was out with his permission.

He was quite, I think he was in his 90s at this point. So even if he was saying it, his family, like, uh-huh. Yeah. I'm deep throat. Yes. All right, Grafoy, he's falling out. All right. Oh, okay, Grafellon.

I'm deep throat. Okay. Oh, my gosh. And now everyone in the nursing homes, you're like, I'm deep throat. It's like, oh, God. Oh, no. Here, have some jelly. Woodward wrote at the time,

I was thankful for any morsel of information, confirmation or assistance felt gave me while Carl and I were attempting to understand the many-headed monster of Watergate. Because of his position, virtually atop the chief investigative agency, his words and guidance had immense and at times even staggering authority.

But as the post noted, Woodward and Bernstein also expressed a concern that the Deep Throat story has over the years come to obscure the many other elements that went into exposing the Watergate story, including other sources, other investigators, high-impact Senate hearings, a shocking trove of secret White House tape recordings, and the decisive intervention of a unanimous US Supreme Court. It feels like they're saying deep throats getting too much credit. We did a lot of work, okay.

That is what they're saying, but they're also spreading around bit. And I think Bernstein especially, because he never even talked to Deep Throat. So he was like, I did a lot of work as well. It wasn't just deep throat giving woodward stuff. He was only confirming somebody. How many times did you move a pot plant and then walk two hours to meet someone in a car park? That's the cool part of the story. Yes.

This is from Bernstein and sort of basically saying, Felt's role in all this can be overstated. So what Bernstein said. But he goes on to say, when we wrote the book, we didn't think his role would achieve such mythical dimensions. You see there that Felt slash Deep Throat largely. confirmed information we had already gotten from other sources. He confirmed it. He wasn't the one. We got the info and then he helped confirm it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think, I mean, the name Deep Throat definitely would have helped on that as well. And the fact that it turned out to be second in charge at the FBI. Yeah, huge. Fun fact to finish. Well, fact to finish. Thank you. I'll decide.

The term follow the money was popularized by the 1979s film. All the President's Man. which was based on the book by Bernstein and Woodward. The film stars Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Woodward and Bernstein. And the phrase is now shorthand for suggesting corruption can be uncovered by examining money transfers between parties. Follow the money. That's a fact. That's cool.

How was that fun? How was that fun? You'd say that around at a dinner party, would you? Yeah. And I'm pretty sure that's what Waylon Smith says when they're parroting in as well. Follow the money. Follow the money. Like chomping on a cigarette, follow the money.

Yeah, so I thought that was fun because I didn't know that. Well, it's not your call to make. That is on my call. You do grim facts. There's nothing grim about that, though, surely, man. And I do fun about us. No, nothing grimm around it. That's the important point to mind.

I believe it is a fact. It is a fact. And I'm just the fact guy. And I agree that that is just a plain fact. That is a fact. It's just a fact. Dave. The film was a huge box.

box office success as well. And apparently the book that they were writing, initially Bernstein and Woodward, was going to be more about, it was going to be less about their investigation and more about what Nixon was up to and said it was sort of more from their perspective and how the investigation unfolded. But then as they were into writing it, Redford approached them and said, I want to make a film out of it. If you tell it from this perspective, I'll buy the, I'll option it. So they changed the direction then apparently. Ah. Yeah.

So it would have had a budget of 8.5 million and it made over 70 million. Wow. That's a big hit. I'm going to watch it. I was planning on watching it before we did this episode. Yeah, I haven't heard of it, but that's a good cast. You're right, a hot cast. Hot cast.

Robert Redford. God damn. Even as an old man, you're like, oh, I would. Never not hot. Never not. Not his value. Not his value. Not his value at all.

Of course. Of course, but it doesn't hurt. I mean, you wouldn't say no. I wouldn't say no. Did you guys know much of that story? No, I knew absolutely none of it. I knew none of it. Which is crazy.

I knew it was brought Nixon undone and that was it. Yeah, that was it. And I wonder if, because this won in a landslide in the voting. Yeah. So I wonder if it was people also thinking that. Like, I actually don't know anything about that. So hopefully that was a good sort of jumping off point for them. Yes.

Yeah. Because like I say, there's, you know, it's so much. It was years of day-to-day-day investigation. Yeah. And they were zigzagging across the country, following that money. Following that money. It's not fun. Stop trying to convince me it's fun.

Walk into the garage. Yeah, that's crazy. Walking back from the garage, moving the pop plan around. Oh, walking back from the garage, imagine after he hasn't trained for two hours. That's a five-hour journey now. I should say, I'm pretty sure during it he moved to be closer to the garage. That makes more, that makes sense. Yeah.

Don't choose a different garage. He moved to be above. Yeah. You moved above the garage. He bought one of those storage things in the garage and he lived in there. So anyway, that brings us to everyone's favorite part of the show, the fact quote of question section, which I think has a jingle that goes similar like this. Fat quote or question.

Bees. I always remembers the ding. I did this part of the show by myself for last week's episode and I had to do the preamble of setting it up that I played with a little dinglog and then I had to sing it and then I had to do the ding and I was like this this is so much work. Yeah, I did it all the week before and I was losing my mind. I was sitting in bed down in Jersey after having a few beers and I've like it was one take obviously. Yeah. And I reckon I lost my mind during. I hated it. Did you?

I felt like things weren't right. I've never missed you guys more. Did you do the Trip Ditch Club? Yes. Did you hype them up and then I did it all. And then hyped yourself? I did it all, yeah. I did every single bit. I got a list.

I totally lost my head. I drew the line. I was like, I can't, I couldn't possibly do it. I didn't want them to feel like they'd been ripped off. I know, but I said if you felt ripped off. Oh, great. Send us an email. If you care about this and if this is something really important to you, let's know.

You really should. Did they let you know? Nobody has. Well, that makes me feel absolutely redundant. Yeah. And Dave, we've been saying that for years. Well, the hype man is an essential part. Yes, I am.

that I am the hype man for you. Yeah, but I'm the essential bit. Who are you hyping if I'm not here? Oh. Exactly. And you proved that by not having anyone to hype last week. All right. Well, let's do some facts, some quotes and some quotes.

Yeah, so you can get involved in this by going to patreon.com slash dugonpod. Yeah, this is very bizarre if you've never heard it before. Or you can go to dogo onpod.com and it's all explained there. And you get involved at the Sydney-Sharmberg Deluxe Memorial Edition Wrestling in peace level and then you can get involved with all sorts of rewards at different levels. I mean, get on there and you'll see. It explains it pretty well. But we're talking three bonus episodes.

You can be in the Facebook group. You get pre-sell tickets to live streams and also live shows. You also get little discounts. Their weekly newsletter. On some of the higher things, we get a monthly video message. There's all sorts of things, depending on where you are on level. The Sydney Sean-Bear one is one of the higher ones. you get nearly all that stuff from a video message,

but you also get to give us a fact, a quote, or a question. You also get to give yourself a title. This week, Sasha Einstadt has given herself the title of Animal Rangler and has offered up a quote. And Sasha's quote is, a reporter. Did you visit the Parthion during your trip to Greece? Shaquille O'Neill. I can't really remember the names of the clubs of boys.

We went too. What's one of his nicknames? Shack Fu. Shack Fu. Shack foe, you've done it again. So good. Here it comes the Shack attack. That's a fun quote.

I don't remember the names of the clubs. The Parthenon. Very good stuff. I can't tell if he's in on that or not. He's a very funny guy. Yeah, I reckon he's in on that for sure. Thank you so much, Satcha. Great quote.

I don't read these so I read them. So when I slightly butcher it like I did then, that's not my fault. No, that's not your fault. I mean, I've just done a whole episode of slightly butchering my own report. That's just your eyes not communicating with your brain. That's not your fault. Not my fault. It's my eyes and my brain.

Tell it to them. Take it upstairs. Yeah, good luck. It goes all right at the top. Yeah. This problem. Do you think I'm involved with those guys? I mean, my eyes have worked with me sometimes, sure.

Sure. But my eyes have looked at a lot of things. My eyes work with a lot of people. next one's from Paul McNally Maybe I wonder if you're any relation to Rand Rand McNally And Paul's title is official environmental Disaster Assessor of the Do Go On Report Universe

Brackett Still working through the Halifax explosion Holy moly That's big, that's big work Yeah, sorry about that Paul Hopefully you've been paid or a lot of clean up Paul asks a question Here is his question.

This question is specifically for Matt. Sorry, Jess and Dave. Oh, great. I'll sit this one out. I'm going to have a nap. Matt, can you please say thank you to my fellow Patreon and now brother-in-law, Ian Marr, as in Ray Marr, you were correct? How did he know? Oh, yeah, okay.

For the congrats video, he got you to do for myself and my wife. It was great, very loose and very fun. I did a cameo video for welcoming him into the family, Ian Mar. And what a funny way to thank me. Wait, what's the question? Oh, this is good. The question is, can you? Oh, can you please say thank you to my fellow?

Oh, yes, okay. And the answer is no. I've been so confused by that. Absolutely not. So next. How funny that that absolutely confused me. All of a sudden I thought I was talking to Ian Marr, but no, this is from Paul McNally. Yes.

Paul wants me to thank Ian Marr. Thank you so much. Because Ian, welcome to Paul into the family. Yes. Through you. That's very nice. Do they talk exclusively through you now? Yeah, Ian, you should maybe learn to communicate, my bro.

I love it. I think it's so funny. Can you ask Ian to pass the salt? But like there's a time difference, so Paul's really gone without salt for a long time. I love it. that they talked exclusively through Patreon and cameo shoutouts. Great work, Paul. Thank you very much.

And obviously great work, Ian Mar. Next one comes from Kevin Vincent, who's given himself the title of Chief Engineer for DoGo on Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, doing God's work there. Kevin has offered us a fact. Jess and Dave are laughing. Sorry. Oh, that's very funny.

I did a silent little clap because I made me laugh so much and then just imitated my clap. I put my, like, to bottom of my... You're clapping your wrists together. You can't hear this. Well done. I love it. I love it so much. Sorry.

So Kevin's given us a fact and his fact is the square kilometre array or SKA radio telescope being built in Western Australia is so sensitive it could detect an airport radar at a distance of 10 light years. 10 light years covers 10 to 12 stars. Whoa, that's big. I reckon I have a funny feeling that because you shorten square kilometer array to scar, I reckon that might be where that fact came from.

My favorite. My favorite music. And favorite? Is that also? your favourite radio telescope. Yes. That's, um, those kind of facts I can never get my head around.

Yeah, I don't, I don't understand that at all. But that sounds amazing. It's a long, long way that it can detect a little signal. And Kevin, you're obvious, I think he's, I'm guessing he works in that field. So, um, great, great work. Great work. Like I say, don't God's work. Keep watching the skis.

I mean, skies. This final one comes from Zach Dobran, who is the president of Verizon. reminders for the day one quote. Day one. Who knows what you were talking about when you said it? There were some listeners who seemed to think they made sense. They are obviously off their rockers. You didn't know.

Yeah, that was the main thing. I don't know where you were going with that. Oh. Did you? Where was I going with that? I can't even remember what that episode was. No, me either. Zach Dobran has a question.

What is one cultural slash social norm in the? the world that you would change if you could and why. Oh, that's a hard love. They're clapping with wrists. Yeah, people not clapping with wrists. Oh, that's really bad. Oh, okay. Them insisting they have to wash your hair at the hairdressers.

Do not like that. I love. I love getting my hair wash. Do not like that. It's like a head massage bonus. I think it should be optional. Okay. A lot of places it doesn't seem optional.

Feels weird if I say, please don't touch me. I've got a weird one and people make fun of me for this. But I would stop people. blowing out candles on birthday cakes. Oh, because it's a bit gross. Yeah. I agree. More so now with, you know, COVID-type stuff.

Oh, yeah. But you think you're an earlier doctor. We know you're blowing spittle onto the cake and they're going to want some. Especially a child. Yeah, I was going to say, it should be like a certain age. It takes like, sometimes they're taking, what, 10, 11 dozen goes. To do it because they don't know how to blow air yet. No.

Yeah. That's a good one. Oh, yeah. I thought I was really expecting you to turn on me there. Oh, okay, the birthday Grinch is here. Oh, bloody. I think that's, I do feel a bit like that as well. I like to lick my fingers and put them out like that.

I like to lick my fingers and rub it on top of the cake. I finger the cake. Will not blow on it, but I'll finger it. How do you, are you so staunch about that that you will not eat a cake that's had been blown now? I don't tend to eat cakes that much anyway, but yeah, I pretty much won't eat those cakes. It makes it an easy decision. What if it looks fucking good? Oh, it'd be tricky.

Yeah. And yeah, it depends on where I am in my head. More cake for me. But I agree that if it's something that you could silently change. Yeah. For me, the hairdresser thing, I love that. Just make the, either you get the candles, it's a bit of fun blowing out of the candles. Maybe there could be like a birthday candle stick.

And it's a separate tradition where people go and blow out a candle. I mean, that sounds. We'll keep the fun. That sounds joyful. Kids will live. love it. Hey kids, go get the stick. It's time to blow out the stick. And then they can go best of both worlds. Or your owner is like the birthday grinch. Before they light the candles, they cut out a small segment, put it in a bowl, and you're holding it. You've got like a piece

of glad rubber over the top of it. And then they go, all right, right, now little Jesse, now you can blow Oh, you cake. All right, Jess, do you have an idea for something? No, I can't think of anything. I think I must just be incredibly easygoing. Yeah, you just love tradition. I love everyone and everything. I don't care about spit.

Yeah, I think, I mean, you know, like most people would say, it doesn't really hurt anyone. It's just meant that some people have had colds that they didn't need to get. Yeah, absolutely. No, I think you're right on that one, but I can't think of anything. Hmm. Good examples, though. But no, I can't think of anything.

nothing. I've heard people talking about getting rid of handshakes for good and hugs with people unless you're real close or even altogether. I don't always like you'll meet someone for the first time and they'll go for the hug. I'm like, I don't fucking know you. Well, they're going for the cheek kiss. Yeah. I don't like that.

I only like that with people that really know. And their cheeks. And even then, go for my mouth. You know what I mean? Yeah. If you're going to kiss. Don't. Let's not waste this.

But I know you incredibly. incredibly well and I would hug you, but I've never kissed you on the cheek. I think, no, I think a hug is more than, I agree with you that it shouldn't be just given away to a stranger. I think the kiss on the cheek is an old school thing, right? We don't do it really, yeah. That's an Arnie's thing. Yeah. I definitely hate it as a kid.

Every family gathering, like it would, you know, the kisses, the handshakes, I'd be like, oh. Yeah, it might be dying out, maybe this. But it can be a little bit, I don't know, I find it really annoying when you'll meet. you'll meet someone for the first time and they'll shake everyone's hands and then kiss the lady. I'm like, shake my fucking hand. Yeah, I agree.

You're allowed to shake women's hands. Yeah, that's interesting. Just shake my hand and say nice to meet you. I don't want to hug you. You're a stranger. I don't want you to kiss me on the cheek. Yeah, it's obviously that's just like a taught thing. But yeah, I wouldn't, I would not do.

I shake everyone's hands. Yeah, I definitely do that. It's fine. We have hands. But it's funny because I know some. people like Joshua, I'm sure I've heard him say that he'll never go back to shaking hands again. He never really liked it anyway, any of that stuff. But I always, I don't know if some reason the shaking hands doesn't really matter, even though

that would be equally trans transporting, let's say. I, um, what about. Can we say that? Can we say James? Thinking of sharing, what about the convention of people that sometimes you'll have one flavor of chip in a bowl and we'll get down to a certain level? Then they'll top it up with another phyker. Oh, you are a fucking psychopath.

Never. I would make that illegal if I could. You finish those chips? What the fuck? Or if it's just like crumbs and nobody's touch them for ages, clean out that fucking bowl. I don't want Doritos mixed with salt and vinegar chips. What are you doing?

Yes. I'm glad I'm not weird in this. I mean, that's an extreme. I was even thinking like light and tangy and salt and vinegar. Yeah, people do it. Yeah. I want to know what I'm getting. You're going Doritos to fucking S and V.

I went for an extreme example to win you over to my side, but you obviously didn't need any winning. I was already on side. That's ridiculous. We should move. Thank you so much for the question. What a fantastic question that was. I really kicked off some heated debate. That's right.

No, fuck you. Thanks Kevin, Paul and Sasha as well for their quotes and questions and facts. We got one of each today, which is nice. Love that. But we also like to thank a few of our other patrons. We normally do it by some little game somehow to do with the episode we just had. Jess, any thoughts today? Well, something we said a lot today is it went all the way to the top.

And I want to know. Which it did. In the end. It really did. It truly did. So it was baffling for a long time for me. I was like, what does he mean? What's he getting at?

So this time the top was the president. So now I want to know. And there was also a foggy bottom. Foggy bottom. Is that any? From the foggy bottom to the president. I don't think that's anything. This is going all the way down to the foggy bottom.

I don't think that's anything. But thank you for. It started from the foggy bottom and it made it to the top all the way to the top. I think that's almost something. The whole thing started at the foggy bottom and I made it all the way to the top. I think that's something. Should you get t-shirts made? Guess what's your idea?

I was like, who's at the top? So, like, I don't know how to explain what I mean. Great, let's just go with an example. All right, you do the first one. Okay. And then we'll understand what you mean. So if I could kick it off, I'd love to thank from Stourbridge, in England, Claire Johnson.

And Claire Johnson is, she's investigating something and it's going all the way to the top, Santa Claus. Oh, man, he knows some stuff. Okay, no, I still didn't get it, but Santa Claus is the next in this case. Exactly right, yes. So this goes, the elves, a few elves have been caught. Yeah.

But this one actually goes. And for a long time, they're like, well, I don't know what these elves are, how these elves are acting this way, but Santa told them. Yeah. Oh, I am not a crook. Okay. Yes, you are. We have to do an impression of each of them.

Okay, all right. Great, love it. Ho, ho, ho, no, no, no comment. I would have just gone, ho, ho, no comment. Yeah, just no, no comment would have. Could we edit that? Could that be edited?

I mean, that's entirely up to you. I'm editing this week's episode, and I think that people might find that all of that remains. Not by choice. All right, so I'd also love to thank from Bantsted dead in Surrey in Great Britain, William Townsend. Oh, I think he goes all the way of the top, and by that I mean, Greg from the Wiggles.

Oh, stinky Greg! Well, the front man. Bloody Greg. That's interesting because from the outside in, it always seems like the blue wiggles the top. Yeah, you'd think that. He wants you to think that. But yellow is the puppet people, behind the scenes.

Exactly, yeah. He's one of the puppet people. He's one of the puppet people. Papa people? Wow, William Townsend. So he, uh, I'm going to say, what's happening? Wake up, Jeff. I am not a crook, yeah.

Beautiful, beautiful. And William Townsend is involved somehow in this. Or he's cracked open. He's cracked at wide open. He's been watching the Wiggles for years and he's like, hang on a second. I'm loving that phrase cracked at wide open. I said it to you guys. I was saying, without you knowing what the topic was, I was saying I was finding it hard to write the report.

It was so dense. I didn't know how to get into it. And then I sent you a message. late last night I said, I think I've cracked it wide open. It makes complete sense now. Yeah, now you get wild.

I'm having no idea what you were talking about. William Townsend, well done. Great work. Cracking Greg open, wide open. And finally,

I'd love to thank from Greenock, or Greenock in Inverclyde in Great Britain, Scott Coventry. Scott Coventry, obviously, goes all the way

to the top to Her Majesty, the Queen. Oh, no. She's in on it. Yeah. Oh no. But he's broken it open.

That name did sound Scottish like. And I reckon that Scott would love. Yeah, you'd take that, wouldn't you? It would be pretty stoked. Bringing down the queen. It is in Scotland. Mm. Yeah.

New, I am not a crook. They're great, yeah. New. Tea? I'm not a crook. Tea. Tea. Saying it to the investigator's who there.

no I'm not a crook tea It definitely has something to do with the corgis as well Yeah The corgis Yeah something like They shat upy farm They shat something like Buckingham pellets is a puppy farm

For corgis One of the corgis shits out some poppy seeds And at first it seems like Wait what did you say I thought you meant like A puppy farm Like a baby dog What does poppies make heroin or coke

Heroin Heroin Heroin I'm sorry. Hi, Ron. How mozy on here? You're like, and Jess just look at you and you said,

all right, one of them eats up, she sheds out a puppy, a puppy seed. What the hell are you talking about? I was like, where's he going with this? No,

she's selling black market puppies. Oh, wow. Jeez, you would, yeah, that's surprising. Yeah. There you go.

Well, money's tight. Yeah, money talks. Follow it. Follow the money. Follow the money. Okay.

Now I get that that's a fun fact. Okay. I'm lying. That's still a boring fact. All right, who's going next? Thanks, Scott. Thanks, William. Thanks, Claire.

I would love to go. I would love to thank from Daventre. Ooh. Cool. Charmed, I'm sure. I would love to thank Louis Williams. Louis Williams, all the way to the top. Could also be Lewis, but it's probably, I don't know.

We're talking all the way to the top. Gil McLaughlin. No. No. Head of the AFL. You are joking. And I mean, you know, I would not be all that surprised if something was found out that went all the way to the top there. Yeah.

He was involved in one of those O-Pair scandals, I'm pretty sure. Oh, yeah, there's always an Opaire scandal. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. I mean, what I love what Louis's done there is as an Englishman. Come in. Yeah.

Gill has no idea that he knows who it is. he even is. Yeah. But he's come in, possibly as an opair. Yeah. Because the opair scandal, if you don't know, it wasn't like they weren't trading opairs or anything. It was they used their influence to get a visa for their opier.

Yeah, they got a visa through to, you know, call up relevant ministers and stuff like that. But Louis, he's cracked it wide open. Whoa, the opair scandal. You don't see an Englishman coming for the AFL head. And what's the saying here? Uh, oh, hang on. goal six points I'm not a crook

goal six points that's what I say goal six points what's a football phrase goal six points yeah goal six points everyone says that all the time goal six points

I say oh come on come on dusty oh okay goal six points gives you goal six points they chant

and that's definitely what Gil McLaughlin the head of the NFL he's also a goal umpire. So far... Sorry Matt, he's a goal six points umpire. Goal six points umpire.

Just because you might not know that if you get a goal, you get six points. I would also love to thank from Greensboro in North Carolina. Oh, where the fire engines are blue. God, it's a nice short fact now. Thank God. I would love to thank Tomahawk Estridge. Wow. Strong name.

That's a great. Tomahawk Eastridge. One of Mike Patton's bands. Mike Patton's record label maybe goes all the way to the top there, what do you think? Oh, wow. I've never said it out loud.

Ippercac. Is that how you said? Ippac. I think. Hippercack. Wow. And Mike Patton, this is it. I am not a crook.

Perfect. Thank you. He's getting better and better, honestly. Honestly, it was very difficult to do an impression of Gil McLaughlin, so I'm glad we brought it back to someone who vaguely, I know what they sound like. Yeah. And also,

a past topic of the show. Well, so was that, it felt. That's right. We didn't talk enough about the girl. And the queen? Yes. Who did the queen? I did very early on over five years ago.

Fuck, and now. Good that I have no idea then. And you talked about it because I watched The Crown this season, one of the episodes was dedicated to that guy broke in. Oh, yes, I just watched that. It was a good app. I was sad to say that was fairly fictionalized. Yes, the scene.

He got quite a diatribe off. I'm like, did this happen? Yeah, the scene between the. and it was really good, but... Not accurate. Yeah, it was Netflix. And finally, for me, I'd love to thank, from Dublin, in Dublin, in Ireland. I would love to thank Connor, Tyrell, Tyrol, Tyrol.

Connor, Tyrell. It goes all the way to the top and there's only one Irish person that it goes all the way to the top too. Oh, no, don't do it. You better believe it. You better believe it. You better believe it. Yeah, it goes all the way. Connor's a big sportsman.

Pick an Irish sports star. Who are you talking to? Let me think of one. Owen Morgan. Owen Morgan. The cricketer. The cricketer. Who would you have said for an Irish sports?

No, that's a good one. I would have said St. Patrick. Didn't he play polo or something? Surely at some point, St. Patrick. St. Patrick. There you go. St. Patrick. Tycinelli, maybe.

Jim Stearns. These are all Australian. Oh, okay. Even the one I name. to play cricket for England. Okay. Let's go with St. Patrick. It goes all the way to St. Patrick.

Who sounds like? Woo! I'm wasted on St. Patrick's Day. I'm not a crook. Man, you know he's telling the truth because he's wasted. Yeah. Yes. I think that does say, that says a lot about it, isn't it?

So thank you so much to Connor Tyrol there. On your, Connor? I would like to thank from Barrow Infanis, Cumbria, Great Britain, fantastic there, Jack Hall. Jack Hall, that's a name you can set your watch too. Yeah, Jack Hall. Four and four. Jack Hall.

Jack Hall from where? Cumbria. Don't know anything about it. What's Cumbria? Tell me about Cumbria, Dave. Barrow-Infinez is there. Okay. Jack lives there.

Oh, Jack Daniels. It goes all right at the top. Jack Daniels. Yeah. Top of what? Tennessee bourbon industry. Oh, wow. Is that a Tennessee whiskey?

Yeah. Yeah, whiskey. No. I don't know. Yeah. That's bourbon whiskey. And what is it? The old number 49.

Is that the number? What's the number? Yeah. Yeah, it's the certain recipe, isn't it? Old number seven. Old number seven. Oh, I don't know. Seven seven is a 49.

All right, whatever. And I drink seven bottles a night. Yeah. Old number seven. It's the top. selling American whiskey in the world. Oh, and I'm not a crook. Perfect.

Perfection. Thank you, Jack Hall. Hey, you mean more than Jack Hall to us. Beautiful. I would like to thank another one from Dublin in Dublin, Claire Mulhall. Claire Mulholl, another Dubliner. What about it goes all the way to the top and above the top. I'm talking about the edge.

Whoa. You think Bono's calling the shots. No, no, no. It's all about The Edge. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The Edge. Real name.

Something like Greg Partridge or something. Oh, it was Greg Edge. Greg Edge. Greg Edge. Sean Greggidge, Danad. Oh, I'm Greggidge. I play the guitar. Yeah.

I'm putting on an accent here. Actually, I'm Irish. I'm Irish. Oh, and not a crook. How did he say that? Not a crook. I'm Greg Edge. I'm not a crook.

Oh, that's good. I thought he'd speak like this. I thought he let his guitar. I do the talking. Yeah. For example. For example. Claire Mullell, thank you so much.

And that was a perfect example too. Thank you. And finally for this week, I'd like to think from Manchester in the greatest of Britain's, Juliet Curran. Juliet Curran. Shakespeare. Oh. It goes all the way to the top.

Take that. Right. Wow. So is that sort of the top of the, you know, theater? Does he sort of the head of theater? Yes, he's the head of theater. Bloody hell. And it goes all the way back to him.

Yes. So now is the winter of our discontent. I am not a crook. Perfect. Thou is not a crooketh. Thou shalt not a crooketh. Well, that just brings us to the end of that section of the Patreon. It's thank you to everyone that does support us on Patreon.

And Matt, there's only one thing left to do before we boot this baby home. Well, that's to get into the trip to check. Club. See who we've got to welcome in this week and we have a few inductees. The way the Triptitch Club works is if you are signed up to support us on the shoutout level or above for three plus years, you get inducted into the Triptage Club, a beautiful club where we've really been curating a sweet vibe in here for a little while now. I'm on the door with the checklist. I got the door list here on a clipboard. Jess is putting together some hors d'oeuvres, some cocktails. Dave's booked a band.

Who have you booked this week, Dave? We've got West Life. Okay. Wow. Irish boy band? Yeah, hell yeah. Is that Ronan Keating's band? Yes.

Yep. Oh, there's also the other... Boy Town? Boy zone. Boy zone, yeah, which is West Life. West Life. West Life, best life. The other one's Brian McFadden, right?

Holy shit. What did you believe? The first person to be inducted this week. Before we induct them, though, Jess, what are you serving here today? West life is Brian McFadden. Okay, fantastic. I love it.

And the great song, swear it again. This week, in honor of the topic, Watergate, we are serving water. You are shitting me. No, people have been asking for a while, but it didn't feel appropriate. And today's the day,

we can actually serve water now. As for food, I have pulled down a gate. From out the front, it's a little wooden gate. Wooden. So everyone just help yourself to bits of wood. Yum. Love wood. Yep.

All right. I mean, all the other food is still up. And other bands are next to playing. Why do you need more food? I've got bits of wood. I mean, this is the worst combination of music, food and drink from that. Come on, mate. I got water and wood for you.

What do you want? What are you? What are you? I'm so sorry. Sorry, we can get Ronan Keating. We'll get him next week. Brian and Fadden went out with Delta Gondra for ages.

He's like, ugh. We got him. Well, shit. Oh, no, who we got?

Who we got? All right. I'm going to hide. Yeah, we're hyped. The way it works is what we're talking about. I'll hype up these people and just will hype me out. I was looking ahead.

There's a Ronan coming up, but he's not here today. Who we've got today? Firstly, we've got three, Dave, okay? Oh, God. So start strong and strong, please,

and middle strong. Oh, brilliant. Yeah, very strong. From Mayfield Heights. in Ohio, God's country. It's Nicholas Gilbert. Oh, I pronounce you not Gilbert. Yes.

God's guilty. That's a pun. Thanks, Judge. Thanks, Judge. Sometimes I need just to explain it. Otherwise, it does make any sense. I might have forgot to explain that Dave hypes them up as they come in, enter the club, and then Jess hipes up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's momentum. Yeah, all right. Second up from Hewnville in Tasmania. Go, absolutely beautiful country down there. Zach Luellen. Zach, attack, Llewellyn, yeah Yes, Zach middle name, attack

Llewellyn, comma, yeah. Thank you, thank you so much. Are you really carrying this segment? Finally, from Medford in Oregon in the United States, it's Connor Smith. Well, let's put this to Medford. Yeah, put it to bed, put it to me. Was there not four?

No, it's just the three. Three of the best. You did it. Start strong and strong. Middle wasn't that great, but I feel like we brought it home. Yes, absolutely, yes. Put it to Medford, yes.

Oh, my throat is horse from all that hyping. Well, that brings us to the end of the episode. You can rest those golden tonsils for the knife for, you know, 10 minutes or whatever you're doing. Thank you so much. Because that is the end. If people want to find us, they can find us at DoGoOnPod on all the major things, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook at gmail.com. Dot com for our website.

Patreon.com slash do you go on pod. or available in all these places. Please get in contact if you want to. Support us on Patreon on all sorts of levels you can, different rewards depending on where you are. Patreon.com slash do go on pod. Thanks so much to all our supporters. I really do mean that very much.

Now Dave, beat his baby home. Well, thank you so much for listening. And until next week, I'll say thank you. And goodbye. Later. Bye! This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates.

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