Episode Details

In this episode, we explore how duct tape toppled richard nixon. You know, usually when we think about the fall of a superpower's government, we imagine something cinematic, right? Like a massive invading army or a sudden dramatic revolution in the streets. Right, yeah. A grand historical catalyst. feels necessary to topple an entire administration. I mean, the dominoes are supposed to start falling because of a giant, undeniable push. Exactly. But then you step into the world of 1970s American politics, and suddenly that grand historical catalyst is, well, it's a piece of duct tape. A literal piece of duct tape. Yeah. I mean, we are looking at a constitutional crisis, the complete unraveling of a presidency. triggered by something you'd buy at a hardware store for like two bucks. It is the absolute definition of history turning on the mundane. You know, a tiny sticky mistake that brought down the most powerful man in the world. Yeah. So welcome unnoticed. OK, so they did it. They did, but the intelligence they gather is terrible. John Mitchell actually called the transcripts shitty. Yeah. They were mostly just capturing personal gossip from secretaries using the phone of a minor staffer named Spencer Oliver. Because the boss is unhappy, they decide they have to go back in to fix the bugs and photograph documents. This is the fatal return on the night of June 17th. Exactly. And to keep the doors in the stairwell from locking behind them while they work, McCord tapes the door latches. But he tapes them horizontally, leaving pieces of the tape highly visible from the outside. Just sticking right out. Right out. And a security guard named Frank Wills is doing his rounds. He spots this tape, assumes the maintenance worker left it, takes it off, and goes across the street for a coffee. OK. When he