target, is there anything wrong with it? is there anything illegal? illegal is a question. in terms of shattering precedence and shattering things that presidents have been doing before ever since that day that you just showed with alexander butterfield in july of 1973, nixon had to immediately stop taping and pull out the system and later presidents have all said i will never do such a thing because it reminds people of nixon who behaved badly, but it violates people s civil liberties to record conversations with the president that are supposed to be private without their knowledge. and the other thing is that presidents have felt that if people even had the suspension that when they go into the oval office or talk to a president on the telephone that they are being taped they are not going to give a president unvarnished advice and that will wind up hurting the president. our thanks for joining us late on a friday night. to our viewers to hear what the recordings sound like the b
of the water gate scandal. the press or media didn t know anything about the taping systems. until alexander butterfield, white house aide, in july of 1973, told the senate water gate committee, told the staff, that there was a taping system. that point, richard nixon had the opportunity to destroy the tapes. he decided not to. as for one on onebetween tru white house, former staffers tell us they don t know of any built in systems in the dining rooms to tape conversations. they say the president could bring in a recording device or have an aide take notes on the conversation but it is unlikely he would. could comey have taped the phone conversations on his end? we got no comment from the fbi. former top bureau officials tell us that would only be allowed if the president himself was under investigation. which trump says he s not. and if the fbi chief got a warrant to tape him.
recently declassified material. well, the secretly recorded phone calls at meetings cover a period from april 9th to july 12th, 1973. that was right in the middle of watergate, and included discussions on vietnam, the soviet union, and conversations with heads of state. during one meeting on may 16th, 1973, we hear president nixon talking to treasury secretary john conley about the u.s. soviet summit. these recordings capped the chronological release of 3,000 hours of tapes from february 1971 to july of 1973. i know, chris, when you were writing one of your books kennedy and mnixon, you listened to a lot of those
my greatest love to nancy. how did you ever marry such a pretty girl? good god. reporter: then george h.w. bush also a future president does the same half an hour later. i really was proud of you. by golly i know it was tough. i just want to tell you that. reporter: now this final installment of the nixon tapes covers april to july of 1973. capturing nearly 3,000 conversations. and not just about watergate but about a wide range of topics from redskins football to the most serious subjects of the day. fascinating stuff. thank you for wading through as much as you could in a short amount of time. that s it for me, the next hour the situation room begins now with my colleague, jake tapper. thank you. happening now the words that helped prevent a shooting massacre. he told me that he was going
joe. a lot of questions. it s interesting you start with the richard nixon/donald trump mash-up. it s interesting when richard nixon was sitting there saying it s time to bring this investigation to an end. that was in january of 1974. that investigation would go on another seven or eight months. and when nixon was saying nothing to see here, move along, move along, saying that this is nothing more than a witch hunt and nixon was saying that in july of 1973. that was a year, that was a year before we even learned of the nixon tapes. which of course eventually made the supreme court demand that he turn over the tapes and that s what nixon did. knowing that it would bring an end to his presidency. so we have a long way to go in this investigation. there are things that we re learning every day. there are only, only the most partisan donald trump supporters are suggesting that robert