Televised Press Conference Quotes

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Source: Televised Press Conference

Speaker: Richard Nixon

"I am not a crook"

I made my mistakes. But in all of my years of public life, I have never profited - never profited from public service. I've earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. And I think, too, that I can say, that in my years of public life, that I welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got.

Context

This line was spoken by Richard Nixon in a televised press conference in Orlando, Florida. (November 17, 1973).

As Michelle Williams and Kirsten Dunst learned in 1999, Richard Nixon was a crook… but on November 17, 1973, at a press conference about the Watergate scandal, Nixon was still denying it.

On national television.

Where you've heard it

Forty years later, NPR's All Things Considered did a short piece on how pervasive the quote is: it's in everything from Saturday Night Live to Family Guy to Futurama. If someone says it now, you can bet they're guilty.

Additional Notable References

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

It takes a lot of guts to flat-out lie on national TV…or anywhere, for that matter. We guess if you actually aren't a crook, it's a little less pretentious.