From the Archives: John Dean
Here's The Thing with Alec Baldwin
iHeartPodcasts
4.3 • 8.4K Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2026
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When John Dean found his conscience, America found its backbone and impeached a president. The Nixon Administration tried to undermine American democracy during the election of 1972 through now-legendary dirty tricks aimed at their Democrat opponents. They almost got away with it. Dean was Nixon’s White House Counsel, and participated in the cover-up of the Watergate break-in. Then he began cooperating with investigators, and blew the case wide-open. Dean is one of the most complicated and fascinating characters in modern American history. In a frank and funny conversation with Alec Baldwin in front of a live audience, John Dean opens up about how it all went down – and how it could go down now under Trump, who he says shares Nixon's paranoia and authoritarian instincts.
Originally aired December 11th, 2017.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:06.5 | This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing. |
| 0:11.6 | Few people were deeper into the Watergate cover-up than President Nixon's White House |
| 0:16.8 | Council, John Dean. Then he flipped. He was a star witness for the congressional investigation. |
| 0:24.8 | And while some Watergate conspirators had religious conversions in prison, Dean left prison |
| 0:30.3 | with a commitment to teaching in classrooms and beyond the lessons of the scandal and advocating for |
| 0:36.9 | better government. I recently had the opportunity to talk with him in lessons of the scandal and advocating for better government. |
| 0:38.1 | I recently had the opportunity to talk with him in front of a live audience at NYU's |
| 0:43.5 | Skirball Center. |
| 0:48.3 | Tell us the jobs you had in government prior to you becoming counsel to the president. |
| 0:53.8 | I was at the House Judiciary Committee. It was my first job in government prior to you becoming counsel to the president? I was at the House Judiciary Committee. |
| 0:56.6 | It was my first job in government. |
| 0:59.2 | And from there, I went to a commission that was revising the federal criminal code. |
| 1:06.7 | I didn't study enough while they were working on that. |
| 1:10.2 | I have a question about that actually. |
| 1:14.6 | I then went from there to become the associate deputy attorney general |
| 1:19.6 | in the Nixon administration at the outset of the administration. |
| 1:24.6 | And while there, working in justice, I was invited to become |
| 1:29.2 | counsel of the president. |
| 1:30.4 | Who invited you? |
| 1:31.5 | Richard Nixon. |
... |
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