Skip to Content ‘If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions tried to do to Donald Trump,’ Vance said U.S. President Richard Nixon announces his resignation from the White House, on Aug. 9, 1974. U.S. Vice President JD Vance called it “crazy” that the Watergate scandal toppled Richard Nixon’s presidency, saying it would have barely registered in today’s political environment.