richard nixon acted either at the beginning, middle or end of watergate and what we know about donald trump s state of mind? i do see similarities in the personality. it is complex. the similarity they re both authoritarian personalities. nixon much more so in private. and trump very open and clearly ran on his autocratic instirvegts and powerful strong man stances. the differences is and what frightens me most about trumpcy was frightened about nixon. i always thought he would obey the law. i m not so sure about trump. they don t have anywhere near the competence to be president. nixon was highly competent. had been vice president than in the house and senate. when you say in the end you felt nixon would obey the law, you
they gave me too much air time. carly fiorina said i did it in high heels. three hours of that. martha: which is not easy to do. martha: how heated was the prime time debate. many people taking to social media talking about how sweaty many of these candidates looked on stage. apparently it was warm in there. remember the first time the 5:00 shadow and perspiration became an issue in 1960 before they knew too much about makeup and powder and the lights on tv? many viewers thought kennedy was the winner because he looked came and cooler while his oh own end richard nixon looked sweaty and he seemed uncomfortable on camera. but when they talked to people who listened to it on the radio, they felt nixon won.
hostage crisis, did away with that. you pointed to gerald ford making an important speech that boomeranged. when he said our long national nightmare is over. yes. when he took the oath of office, when nixon resigned, he said, the long national nightmare is over. and then a month later, he pardoned nixon, which forwarded that policy, that idea. but a lot of americans felt nixon didn t get enough accountability, that he should have gone through some sort of judicial process or some sort of investigation. ford was just trying to put it behind americans, but a lot of americans felt there was some injustice there. you look at george bush s iraq policy. after the successful invasion, what happened after wasn t going well. in 2006, and a lot of people who supported the war started turning on president bush and the war. but it forced a policy change and that was the surge. that s right. the democrats ran in the 2006
line of thinking and talked to other people. i didn t have a problem with that. i never presented that as i countertruth. this is something film makers do, which drives me crazy, is seeming to want to have it both ways. one way you say it s a countermyth but millions of people will see your movie and come away you know, they re not going to read the warren i hope so because i believe it. i do hope so. you can t we are going behind closed doors. when i made my movie nixon i had dialogue we wrote based on what we thought might happen between closed doors with mr. and mrs. nixon as well as cabinet member. you saw several behind closed door meetings. we based that on our instinct based on research. that s the best we can do. lincoln is the same thing, they go behind doors, they create a man played by an actor. you saw w, the movie i made about mr. bush. again, you know, we don t know what the relationship really is but we sense our way through there. that s the best we can do
historical periods, specific historical actors or specific historical record, specifically zero dark thirty . i heard you the other day. when you approach a film you ve done a number of these, jfk famously, which drew lots of criticism, nixon, what do you believe the responsibility is of the film maker to the fooil fidelity of what actually happened? i think you have to approach it like a college final. you do as much research as can you. i mean, i honestly believed after i went through tons of research that mr. kennedy was killed. so i have no problem with making a movie. i always said at the time, i said, this is a countermyth to the myth of the warren commission. i was very clear about that. i got in a lot of hot water. people said i was trying to distort the truth but it hadn t been established by the warren commission because to me it s a false document, doesn t read logically, so i followed the