>> sam irvin was very shrewd.inced the overconfident sponsors of the equal rights amendment to insert a seven year deadline. if it didn't get ratified by three-fourths of the states within that seven year period the amendment would die. >> male opponents in the senate called it the unisex amendment. they said it would destroy traditional male/woman relationships. weaken family ties. increase homosexuality, violate biblical teaches and undermine states laws designed to protect women's rights. >> it wasn't just member in the senate rallying against the equal rights amendment. a large faction of women felt alienated. >> some of the loudest voices in favor of the equal rights amendment were really degraded towards homemakers and women who made the choice to be home. >> i want to be a mother and housewife. >> i'm very sorry, i don't like it. >> they would use language calling housewives comfortable prostitutes of a comfortable concentration camp. >> a large number of americans said you are insulting me. i'm not impress

sam irvin, senator sam irvin, headed up with howard baker, the republican, a critical committee exploring just what nadler is doing in judiciary, to what happened with the nixon white house. and it was that investigation, the irvin committee, not the special council, but the irvin committee uncovered the phone tapping, and that led to the tapes which led to his resignation. so these committees have a long history. i think for the democrats, the challenge is not to overplay their hands. you know, there are a lot of people in this country that say, listen, if mueller didn't find anything, why the hell are we going to have more and more investigations? aren't you just trying to -- isn't this just a fishing expedition? i think they have to be careful to lay out a persuasive case of why they're taking -- undertaking each one of these investigations. >> garrett, the other big headline today was what boris alluded to. we heard from him as he reported out, the senate now likely has enough votes to block trump's national emergency declaration, or to disapprove of it after rand paul joined three ot

. >> sam irvin in the watergate committee. in 1973, president nixon tried to make history when he decided he tried not to hand over the congress anything that he did not want them to see that pertained to watergate, specifically the white house tapes that they had learned of the existence of. that forced a subpoena on the white house for those tapes. nixon defied the subpoena. that ended up in court. the special prosecutor's demand for those materials, those tapes ended up going all the way to the u.s. supreme court. and this is really famous. i mean, let's say you only know three things about richard nixon. what are the three things you know? you know like nixon had to resign the presidency, had a dog named checkers, supreme court made him hand over the tapes, right? even if you only know three things about richard nixon, even if you know nothing else about richard nixon, you know that unanimously in u.s. v. nixon, the president was not allowed to say no, no, you can't visit. i say you can't. but that no, no, you can't have i

. >> in a letter to senator sam irvin, chairman of the watergate committee, the president said the tapes fall into the category of presidential papers, which, as he has said before, the president won't turn over to another branch of government. and upon receipt of that letter, the senate watergate committee met and unanimously voted to subpoena the tapes. here is some of what senator irvin had to say. >> upon the receipt of this communication from the white house, the select committee held a meeting and unanimously voted to authorize and direct the chairman to issue two subpoens.s one would require the president to produce the tapes. i love my country. i venerate the office of president, and i have the best wishes for the success of the incumbent, the president incumbent of this office because he is the only president this country has at this time. the president not only has constitutional powers which require him to see to it or to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and i think his duty goes beyond circumstances to produce information which would either tend to prove or dis