CBS News' Lesley Stahl has interviewed every president since Nixon and covered countless political stories. Now, she recounts and reflects on one of her first: the Watergate scandal.
In 1972, long before she became a correspondent for 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl was a young reporter at CBS News. Over the last 50 years, she has interviewed every president since Nixon and covered countless political stories. Here, in her own words, she recounts and reflects on one of her first: the Watergate scandal. premiering Friday, June 17 at 9 p.m. ET on CBS. It will also be available to stream on the CBS News app and Paramount+.
Nothing was unreportable from that investigation and then forward, it changed forever, I think, the way the press treats the presidency. After Watergate, everything was on the table. They may not be telling you the truth because they didn't so much in Watergate. So we became skeptical of every word that came out of the White House. Everything began to be questioned, including character, including the personality. We wanted to know what was in the president's mind.
If the tapes had never come out, he'd have survived, no question. The irony that Watergate was about bugging the Democratic Party — the president's undone because he's bugged himself. Broadcast journalist Lesley Stahl makes some notes while she sits in the newsroom during coverage of the 1974 presidential election, November 5, 1974.If you vote for someone, you're invested … you just have an instinct to forgive them. Maybe it's like someone in your family.