Watergate Was a Coup? The Nixon Tapes, CIA Links & the Unelected President

Watergate wasn’t just a “third-rate burglary.” It may have been the most consequential power struggle in modern American history—one that ended with Richard Nixon resigning and Gerald Ford becoming the only unelected President in U.S. history.

In this episode, Jeremy Ryan Slate sits down with Tony Arterburn to dig into the hidden forces behind Watergate: the Plumbers, the Pentagon Papers aftershocks, Deep Throat (Mark Felt), intelligence-world overlaps, and why this story keeps resurfacing in the modern zeitgeist.

We trace Nixon’s rise (Hiss case, Checkers speech, Cold War ops), then follow the threads: E. Howard Hunt, the “Bay of Pigs” references on the tapes, and the question that still matters:

Was Watergate political incompetence… or a controlled demolition of a presidency?

👇 Drop your take in the comments: Was Watergate a scandal—or a coup?

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