In a devastating defeat, Nixon loses one of the closest presidential elections in history to John F. Kennedy. Down but not out, Nixon soon runs for what should be an easily winnable governor’s seat in California, only to be again defeated and profoundly humiliated.  Nixon retreats from politics for the first time in his life and takes a back seat to the tumult of the 1960s. In 1968, with a country in turmoil at home and abroad, Nixon senses an opportunity for a comeback. Determined to shed his loser’s image, he wages a calculated crusade for the presidency in one of the most dramatic and heart-wrenching elections to date.

In a historic landslide, Nixon is re-elected to the Oval Office. But shortly into his second term, the cover-up of a break-in at the Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate complex starts to fall apart. As the President wages a battle in the press and in the courts, a desperate man becomes his own worst enemy, leaving the American public to pick up the pieces.