In 1992, NPR reported which former U.S. president would run again?

In 1992, NPR reported as an April Fools' hoax that former president Richard Nixon would run for president again.

The segment appeared on NPR’s Talk of the Nation and used comedian Rich Little, a well-known Nixon impressionist, to make the fictional announcement sound authentic. The imagined campaign even used the slogan “I didn’t do anything wrong, and I won’t do it again,” turning Nixon’s political scandal history into the central joke.

The report briefly sounded plausible because Nixon remained a major and instantly recognisable political figure. Listeners heard what seemed to be a newsworthy announcement, and the programme added discussion that treated the supposed candidacy as a serious political development before revealing the prank.

The common mistake is to treat the item as a genuine Nixon announcement or to credit another former president. Nixon had resigned the presidency in 1974, and he was not actually involved in the broadcast. The voice was Rich Little’s impersonation, while NPR and John Hockenberry helped stage the hoax.