It was brought to public attention by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in All the President's Men (1974), the book that chronicled their investigative reporting of the Watergate scandal.
R. Haldeman (pre-1948),[citation needed] Donald Segretti (early 1960s), White House aide Tim Elbourne, Ronald Louis Ziegler, and Dwight Chapin—had attended the University of Southern California (USC) and participated in the highly competitive student elections there.
At USC, future Watergate scandal participants Chapin, Ziegler, Elbourne, Segretti, Gordon Strachan, and Herbert Porter were members of Trojans for Representative Government.
[6][7] During the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries, candidate Ted Cruz said that "Trump may be a rat, but I have no desire to copulate with him", a euphemized reference to the term.
While saying this, Oliver displayed an image of rats engaged in sexual intercourse titled Stay Up Late and the online link to the voter fraud hotline's website.