Vice (I) (2018)

Barbara Walters: Self

Quotes 

• Kurt : [narration]  And as the new Chief of Staff and with the Presidency weakened by Watergate, Dick Cheney wanted to find out exactly how much power did the President have.

  Dick Cheney : I would like to reinstate Executive Authority... How?

  Kurt : Antonin Scalia, a young lawyer with the justice department who would later go on to serve on the Supreme Court, rocked Dick's world.

  Antonin Scalia : Interesting you should ask. Are you familiar with the theory of the unitary executive?

  Dick Cheney : No. Tell me about it.

  Antonin Scalia : Uh... it is an interpretation that few like myself happen to believe, in Article II of the Constitution that vests the President with absolute executive authority. And I mean absolute.

  Kurt : [...]  The Unitary Executive Theory. Certain legal scholars believed that, if the President does anything it must be legal, because it's the President. To hell with checks and balances, especially during times of war. This was the power of kings, pharaohs, dictators.

  Dick Cheney : This is perfect.

  [dryly chuckles] 

  Kurt : Dick Cheney was a foot soldier in the power games of Washington DC. But with the Unitary Executive Theory, he could become Galactus, devourer of planets. But then, it was election night. And there was one big problem...

  Barbara Walters : [television broadcast]  the winner with two hundred and seventy two electoral votes... we have wondered which of us gonna make this announcement James Earl Carter, the next President of the United States.

  Kurt : And just like that... it was all over.

  Barbara Walters : Dick Cheney, the president's chief of staff, ah... he does not have a job. At one point, he was a broker

  [overlapping dialogue] 

  Lynne Cheney : It can't be. It's got to be some sort of a mistake, or miscalculation.

  Donald Rumsfeld : There goes the neighborhood.

  Gerald Ford : Well... thank you all.

  Reporter : The Republicans have lost the Presidency. They are the minority in Congress in most states. With America demanding change...

  Reporter 2 : The GOP is a party in disarray. Clearly Watergate, the Vietnam war...