"Why write original material when Nixon can write it for you?" remarked cable television host Joe Scarborough on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Thursday.
After Vice President Mike Pence called for an end to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe of the Trump campaign and administration in an interview with NBC's "Today" show on Thursday, "Morning Joe" pointed out the striking similarities between his remarks and those of former President Richard Nixon in the midst of the infamous Watergate investigation.
Watch:
Nixon Playbook pic.twitter.com/yt4lZptxqX
— John Chavez (@jchavezfbnm) May 10, 2018
"Our administration has been fully cooperating with the special counsel and will continue to," Pence said Thursday. "What I think is that it's been about a year since this investigation began. Our administration has provided over a million documents, we've fully cooperated in it and in the interest of the country, I think it's time to wrap it up. And I would very respectfully encourage the special counsel and his team to bring their work to completion."
In Nixon's State of the Union Address on January 30, 1974, the former president had said: "As you know, I have provided to the special prosecutor voluntarily a great deal of material. I believe that I have provided all the material that he needs to conclude his investigations and to proceed to prosecute the guilty and to clear the innocent. I believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the other investigations of this matter to an end. One year of Watergate is enough."
As Pence's "Today" show interviewed aired, critics and historians took to Twitter to note how the current vice president had apparently taken a page out of the "Nixon Playbook."
After a year of the Mueller investigation, Pence says it's time to wrap it up.
After a year of the Watergate investigation, Nixon said the same thing. pic.twitter.com/TWHRaT6Ws0
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) May 10, 2018
Watch the full "Morning Joe" segment:
