Richard Nixon's son-in-law, Ed Cox, compared the relentless pressure that forced Nixon out of office to the ongoing "lawfare" against Donald Trump.

Cox, who runs the New York GOP, told local radio show The Cats Roundtable that there are "absolutely" parallels between the media-driven push to remove Nixon from office and the endless witch hunts against Trump half a century later.

Trump and Nixon

Nixon resigned in 1974 as Congress moved to impeach him over the Watergate scandal. Before Watergate, Nixon had won re-election in a massive landslide.

“[Nixon] saw it as a Greek tragedy because he didn’t understand … forces that were bigger than him were at work. But he knew, for the good of the country, he had to resign,” Cox said.

In recent years, some have challenged the mainstream history of Nixon as a villainous president, arguing he was pressured out of office by interests opposed to his agenda in Congress, the media, and U.S. intelligence.

In particular, Nixon had plans to subordinate the federal bureaucracy that some speculate led to his downfall. President Trump similarly pledged to "drain the swamp" and faced ruthless pushback during his presidency, which was consumed by a baseless FBI investigation into "Russian collusion." Trump was also impeached twice, once after he left office.

Democrat playbook "not succeeding"

Cox said Trump once told him that Nixon could have survived the scandal if he fought harder. But Trump had some advantages compared to Nixon, Cox said, noting the press was "monolithic and Democratic" in the 1970s and Congress was controlled by Democrats.

“The minority [under Nixon] had been in the minority, the Republican minority, for 40 years. They had developed … Stockholm Syndrome.”

"There was no Fox News back then. There was no other outlet that would be supportive of a Republican president.”

As a presidential candidate in 2024, Trump has faced multiple criminal prosecutions all run by Democrats.

Happening again

On the campaign trail, Democrats have referred to Trump repeatedly as a criminal, citing his sole conviction in Democrat-controlled New York on bookkeeping offenses.

"It’s happening again, but this time it’s not succeeding," Cox said.

“We have control of one House of Congress, the House of Representatives thanks to New York,” he said. "I don’t think [Democrats] will succeed with respect to President Trump. He has the tools available to him that President Nixon didn’t have.”