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CNN: 'Worse than Watergate': Bernstein says Trump tape the ultimate smoking gun (January 3, 2021)

Carl Bernstein, one of the two famous Watergate investigative journalists (i.e., Woodward-Bernstein), condemns Trump in this video and states that both political parties should demand his immediate resignation.

Below is the transcript of what Bernstein said in the above video in his interview with CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield:

WHITFIELD: Carl, I mean, is this deja vu for you to hear this kind of audio tape of the President of the United States, a sitting president, who is trying to change the truth, who is trying to instigate overturning of election results in Georgia?

CARL BERNSTEIN: It's not deja vu. This is something far worse than occurred in Watergate. We have both a criminal President of the United States in Donald Trump and a subversive President of the United States, at the same time in this one person, subverting the very basis of our democracy, and willing to act criminally in that subversion.

But more important, what we hear on this tape, this is the ultimate smoking gun tape. It is the tape with the evidence of what this president is willing to do to undermine the electoral system, and illegally, improperly, and immorally try to instigate a coup in which he remains the President of the United States.

And in any other presidency, any other presidency, this tape would be evidence enough to result in the impeachment of the President of the United States, his conviction in the Senate of the United States and really, an immediate call by the members of Congress, including of his own party, that he resign immediately. That’s really what we ought to be hearing from Republicans at this moment.

Mr. President, resign! Leave the White House! This is unconscionable. It is wrong, and we, of your party, will not permit it!

Now, we’re not going to hear that. We might from a few Republicans, but that’s what’s really called for here. And the one thing we should recall from Watergate is that the heroes of Watergate were Republicans who would not tolerate Richard Nixon's conduct.

[See the rest of the transcript below the cut.]

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD And then, to a parallel then, perhaps a hero here would be your Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, who is willing to stand up to, you listen to this audio recording, he is standing up to the President saying, No, Mr. President, you know, our numbers, say this; your numbers might be different. And then you go to the court and the courts have already seen fit, that our numbers are correct.

But the President continues on the tape defiant and he threatens the Secretary of State and the attorney saying point blank, It would be a great risk to you, you know, to do something other than what I'm instructing.

CARL BERNSTEIN: First of all, your implication is absolutely correct. This is a threat, a real threat, but not just for some general purpose, but a very specific criminal purpose. For the Secretary of State to come up with a certain number of votes plus one to deliver illegally an election to the President of the United States. We've never had a tape like this before, including the Nixon tapes. But as the heroes, yes, the Secretary of State in Georgia is a hero, but so are hundreds of other election officials and state officials who have done their job, counted the ballots, stuck with it despite threats, including to their safety and health. We've had a lot of heroes here. Where we have not had heroes is in the Senate in the United States, particularly Republican members of the Senate of the United States, except for a few who have been craven in refusing to condemn this kind of conduct by an out of control President of the United States. And the real disgrace in the House of Representatives, more than 140, probably a majority of the Republicans in the House willing to promulgate and continue this idea despite the evidence of upending a legal proper election in which the evidence is clear. The results are clear. This is fantasy. It's not delusion, because they know what they're doing. And the question really is, is some real leader of the Republican Party -- Liz Cheney has done it and I hope she continues to -- but is there a leader in the Senate? Could McConnell -- miracle, no, I doubt it -- get up and say, Now, Mr. President, you have gone too far. That would put somewhat -- not an end, but would certainly curtail some of the craziness and the outrages that we are seeing from the Republican Party.

And also in the long run -- look, I don't have a crystal ball, but I would think that the Republican Party that this presidency and particularly it's end and supporting what this President is doing in the final days of his presidency, may be the end of the Republican Party as we know it as a constructive decent force in our politics in this country. And all of these Republicans from Cruz, all the rest of them who have participated in this sham, really ought to be made to pay by history as should their party. This is not some kind of forgivable act. This is not about two simple equal sides of an equation. There are no two sides to this question. This is about democracy, fundamental principle and the astonishing thing is to see one of the parties, one of the great political parties, the party of Lincoln, the party of Eisenhower, et cetera, et cetera, what was also for a while the party of McCarthy; and now we have a first -- for the first time, a President of the United States who has exceeded McCarthy in his authoritarianism and his disrespect for the Constitution, the rule of law and the Republican Party of our time, with McConnell's leadership, with McCarthy's leadership, has gone along with it to their disgrace.

_______________

Note: Some minor punctuation was changed and some word errors were corrected from the CNN transcript to make it align better with the video.

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