'I'm convinced that Nixon would never have said what he said to anybody else'

As David Frost’s interview with disgraced Richard Nixon is broadcast again on Sky, it serves as a prophecy for Donald Trump who believes he’s above the law, writes Guy Walters

- Guy Walters

In the spring of 1977, Richard Nixon leaned back in a comfortable armchair in a seaside house in Orange County in California and uttered 13 words that would define his post Watergate legacy: “Well, when the president does it … that means that it is not illegal.” Delivered with a matter-of-fact defiance of a man still convinced of his own righteousness, Nixon’s statement crystallised the pathology of unchecked power.

The person to whom he made that extraordinary statement was, of course, David Frost, who interviewed Nixon for some 28 hours over March and April of that year. The full story behind that encounter is now being shown on Sky as part of a series called David Frost vs..., which is partly produced by Frost’s son, Wilfred, who is a presenter for the channel.

Nearly half a century later, those same words hang like a warning over American democracy. In the age of Donald Trump – a man who has not only embraced Nixon’s imperial posture but has surpassed it in bravado and disregard for democratic norms – the Frost/Nixon interviews feel less like historical artefact and more like prophecy.

The interviews, famously bought for $600,000 by Frost’s production team after US networks turned them down, were dismissed by many as a folly. It was widely felt that Frost lacked the gravitas or journalistic rigour to interrogate the disgraced president meaningfully. Yet what unfolded across four weeks of interviews stunned the public.