Director of speechwriting for president bill clinton, overseeing production of domestic policy speeches. Over a career spanning 40 years he has written for nasa administrator Charles Bowden as well as top executives at ibm, columbia university, time warner, the list goes on. He is a graduate from Morgan State University and is adjunct professor at hofstra university. Our next panelist, sarah hurwitz, served in the white house from 200920 17, first as a speechwriter for president obama before becoming had speechwriter for first Lady Michelle obama. Previously she served as chief speechwriter for Hillary Clinton during her 2008 president ial campaign. She is a graduate of Harvard College and harvard law school, and has an upcoming book about judaism coming out in september. And John Mcconnell served more than 10 years in the white house staff under two administrations. He was a senior speechwriter for president and was responsible for the president s address to the joint session of congress after the 9 11 attacks. During the bush cheney administration, he served as Deputy Assistant to the president and assistant to the Vice President. He is a graduate of Carleton College and yale law school. Todays conversation will be moderated by alicia sands, director of the risk are fellows program. Alicia directed and produced the Emmy Awardwinning film, by the people, the election of barack obama. She is working on a documentary about white house speechwriters. Before the discussion, we will watch some of the panelists work. Give a warm welcome to our panelists. [applause] [video clip] my fellow americans, there are still bridges yet to cross. As long as there are people and places, including neighborhoods in selma, that have not participated in our economic prosperity, we have a bridge to cross. As long as africanamerican income hovers at nearly half that of whites, we have another bridge to cross. [applause] as long as africanamerican and hispanic children are more likely than white children to live in poverty and less likely to attend her graduate from college, we have another bridge to cross. As long as africanamericans and other minorities suffered 2, 3, even four times the rates of heart disease, aids, diabetes and cancer, then we have another bridge to cross. As long as our children continue to die as the victims of mindless violence, we have another bridge to cross. As long as africanamericans and latinos anywhere in america believe they are unfairly targeted by police because of the color of their skin, and Police Believe they are unfairly judged by their communities because of the color of their uniforms, we have another bridge to cross. [applause] as long as the waving symbol of one americans pride is the shameful symbol of another americans pain, we have another bridge to cross. As long as the power of americas diversity remains diminished by discrimination and stained by acts of violence against people just because they are black or hispanic or asian or gay or jewish or muslim, as long as that happens to any american, we have another bridge to cross. [applause] and as long as less than half our eligible voters exercise the right so many here in selma marched and died for, we have got a very large bridge to cross. It is my hope that in the months and years ahead, life will return to almost normal even grief recedes with time and grace. But our resolve must not pass. Each of us will remember what happened that day, and to whom it happened. We will remember the moment the news came, where we were and what we were doing. Some will remember an image of a fire, or a story of a rescue. Some will carry memories of a face, and a voice gone forever. And i will carry this. It is the Police Shield of a men named george howard, who died at the World Trade Center trying to save others. When given to me by his mom, arlene, as a proud memorial to her son, it is my reminder of a life that ended and a task that does not end. [applause] i will not forget the wound to our country, and those who inflicted it. I will not yield. I will not rest. I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the american people. The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and the course of this conflict is not known,cruelty, have always been at war and we know that god is not neutral between them. You see, hilary understands that the president is about one thing and one thing only. It is about leaving Something Better for our kids. That is how we have always moved this country forward, all of us coming together on behalf of our children. Folks who volunteered to teach that sunday school class, to coach that team, because they know it takes a village. [applause] heroes of every color and creed who wear the uniform and risk their lives to keep passing down those blessings of liberty. Police officers and protesters in dallas, who all desperately want to keep our children safe. [applause] people who lined up in orlando to donate blood because it could have been their son, their daughter in that club. [applause] leaders like tim kaine [applause] who show our kids what decency and devotion look like. Leaders like Hillary Clinton, who have the guts and the grace to keep coming back and put those cracks in that highest and hardest Glass Ceiling until she finally breaks through, lifting all of us along with her. [applause] that is the story of this country, the story that has brought me to this stage tonight, the story of generations of people who felt the lash of bondage, the shame of servitude, the sting of segregation, who kept on striving and hoping and doing what needed to be done so that today i wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves. [applause] and i watch my daughters, two beautiful, intelligent, black young women, playing with their dogs on the white house lawn. [applause] thank you. [applause] and belatedly, thank you, kristen, for that kind introduction. So each of these clips is so different, and not just because each person had their own voice and their own vision, but but because but because the bully pulpit has so many different purposes. I would like each of you to talk about why you chose that particular clip and what made that speech important to you, and your goals and challenges in writing them. Sarah, i would like to start with you and your task in this speech. Who did president clinton want to reach, and what kind of guidance did he give you . How did you work with him on this speech . Thank you. And thank you all, for being here tonight. One of president clintons signature commitments and one of his signature accomplishments in the white house, was his focus on building one america, and bringing us together across all lines of division, race, color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and he and i sort of shared that commitment. That is one of the things that drew me close to him, and it was one of the things i was most proud of to work on with him in the white house. Since lyndon johnson, probably, he was focused more on one america and bringing the races together. So that speech was a chance to make that point, and he always tells me that was one of his favorite speeches. And it was a great day, because we actually walked across the Edmund Pettus bridge to reenact bloody sunday. And it was a great occasion. Host did he stick to your speech . He pretty much did. He liked that, we have another bridge to cross refrain. That was one of the simpatico things with me, because he had sort of an appreciation for the black church and for the black cadence. Some of you might recall, sometimes he called himself the first black president. [laughter] of course, until the obamas showed up. He really took that mission to heart. And again, as i said, it was one of my proudest moments working with him. Host john, that was one of the most challenging moments in our recent history. Can you talk a little bit about the white house in the immediate aftermath of september 11 and the difficulties the president had to show leadership as both commanderinchief and healer in chief. What was the thought process around that speech . Well, it was a moment of national unity, if you are old enough to remember that time. A moment of greatly mixed feelings. People were shocked and grieving , but the country was also angry and the country was also terrified of what might be coming next, and the decision was made on monday morning, september 17, six days after the attack, that the president would address the joint session of congress on thursday night. Colleagues, the three of us were working together on virtually all of the major addresses for the president , and we were given the instruction mike was given the instruction on monday morning, the president is probably going to speak to congress, but he will make a decision when he sees the draft, which he is expected to see today. [laughter] i said, i dont think we can do that. Karen said well, the president give aif he is going to speech on thursday, monday is a reasonable day to look at it. I said we couldnt do it, but we were not given any option. We got to work on it, and we were not lacking for subject matter, obviously. We knew what he speech was going to be about and we had some general guidance, of course. Early that afternoon, we got a call to go over to the oval office, so the three of us went over there. Im sure karen hughes was also in the carter chief of that is when president bush said that americans have questions. They want to know who attacked what is expected of us now and how do we fight and win this from then on, we had an organizational principle for the speech, and that is what the speech did. It went through those questions as the president described them to us in the oval office. All speechwriters know, one of your Biggest Challenges in writing is organization how is this thing going to come together, how will i lay this out and make it compelling . Because we have that sense of momentum with the questions if we did finish the draft that ay, everything but conclusion, but we did have a draft for the president to look for that day. It was such a memorable moment because it collected all of those different emotions. And you had to articulate a vision very quickly. Most people, the president s develops over time. How did you interact with him around the tough challenges of interacting with the path forward . Well, it definitely was not on the speechwriters. Who was ourresident guiding force. We knew the man. We wanted he wanted us he never said this, but i got the feeling he wanted us to know him and how his mind works. He was a very close editor of speeches. In that speech, although it was still in the first year, we had reached a Comfort Level with president bush where we knew his mind, we knew once we had the concept that we were going to express in the speech, we had a pretty good sense of how he would want to express that. If we got it wrong, he would tell us. Host did you learn more about him and that period . In the general sense of the tragedy that has come over the country and now we are a country of war. It is not that i saw a new person, but i definitely saw some of his strengths. I basically understood him to have those coming more to the forefront. What stuck with me was his steadiness at the time. I saw him the morning after 9 11 , did not see him the morning of, but it was not at all clear to anybody what was going to happen next. Anxiety, tolot of put it lightly, but i just remember being struck by the steadiness of nerve. Was an awesome historic moment. Writing for the nomination of the first woman for president , and that seems to capture ms. Obamas values and the hope of the nation for her daughters. How did you come to understand her and her voice in the process of the eight years you worked . Times, funny a lot of people ask me how did you get her voice . I think they are being polite, and what they would like to ask the is how did you, a white jewish woman, get the voice of an africanamerican lady . [laughter] i am struck by terry talking about clinton, and i think at the end of the day, you might be very different from the person you write for in terms of background, which i certainly am for mrs. Obama. You might have grown up differently, had different race, gender, sexual orientation, at etc. ,op orientation, but we had the same sensibilities about how you persuade, how you reach peoples hearts, and i think ms. Obama and i did. In terms of this particular speech, she is a woman who knows who she is and knows what she wants to say, and that was true of every speech that i worked with her on. This one in particular, where she so clearly knew that this was going to be about our kids, and the election is about the future we want for our kids. She started the speech talking about her own kids, talking to the white house, the first day of school, putting them in the big cars with the men with guns, and she is thinking, what have i done . Takes this personal story and started broadening it out, talking about how all of us are worried about our kids. That was the whole theme for the speech. By the time she got to this card, it was very big. She was talking about people who Teach Sunday School because they care about their kids, people who lined up because their kids could have been in that nightclub where people were killed. When she comes back to her daughters playing on the white house lawn, it is the meeting of both. The small story of her daughters and the big story of the arc of American History. I think she woke those themes together throughout the speech in a way that was personal, it was her story, but she brought it into the american story. That is why that speech felt personal to her, but also a lot of people responded, feeling it was personal to them as well. Why did it matter to you . Why did you use this clip tonight . Mostthink this is the beautiful articulation of a very uplifting idea of what american his three can be, as to what the american story can be. I am actually struck by how similar the clips we chose are in that respect. They are aspirational and leaders saying ok, we are not perfect but here is what we can be. It is really helpful. I see a sense of Kindred Spirit ship with both of these guys. We might be different parties, but very similar sensibilities about the american democracy, patriotism and politics. And in that way, these three aspirational speeches are often referred to as storytelling in the administration. But there is stepping back, a sort of more mundane, classical application of speechwriting. , what was a day in your office in the white house like . Jerry, you ran the office. Can you give us a bit of the highs and lows . I would sayall, there is no typical day in the white house. Every day is different and you have to be ready for the unexpected. Youmay have a schedule that want to follow, but then some , theing news will come out Oklahoma City bombing happened when i was there, or some breaking news. To reactto be ready and to produce quickly. Leads time,u have like a couple of weeks or a week or so to write a speech. Other times you have only minutes to produce something. But the no typical day, types of speeches range from the state of the union, which is the speeches. Of [laughter] to pardoning the thanksgiving day turkey. [laughter] ready tove to be produce that range of speaking. Another thing i would say, you mentioned that speechwriters are storytellers. Hat is very true one of the things that irks me, when people think we are just wordsmiths. We are not just wordsmiths, we are part of the policymaking policy comes, no to light unless it is written down or spoken. Especially by the president. So as director of speechwriting, i was at thejob, table every morning with the chief of staff and the senior staff of the white house, plotting out the message of the day, how will we get it across, what speeches should the president give those kinds of things. We were part of the policymaking apparatus of the white house and not just wordsmiths. Host was it similar for you, sarah . I totally agree with terry, policies dont come alive until they articulated to the american people. That is an important aspect of it. Job, onen terms of my thing that struck me, as my colleagues said, you never have the day you are thinking you are going to have. That is true in traveling. I do not know what it was like with you guys, but we tend to travel with the president and the first lady. When you are doing that, it is this realtime unfolding and you are writing a speech in a plane a a helicopter, in plane, a helicopter, the floor of a hotel room a lot of logistics that people do not think about. You are trying to post it on the back of the plane before it lands. The hardest part that i found was the last minute crisis, where the first lady is not the first responder, that is the president , but if unfortunately something terrible happens, she has to acknowledge it, and it is often stressful to type out the lastminute paragraph and acknowledge it, say the right thing, make sure you are saying what is true and not contradicting the president it can be pretty intense. I remember being with the president in europe. We were about to fly back to washington, and were derived that Pope John Paul was in the hospital and not well at all. So if the pope were to die that day while the president was crossing the atlantic, when he landed, he would get off the plane and read a statement. It was my job on that flight to prepare a statement for the president to read. Usually when you are coming back , you have something, but i heard a rumor that came to me by telephone on the plane that president ford was dying. Card, the chief formerf, since president s obviously had secret service, if we could find out where president ford was. The director of secret Service Called the command post in california and happily found that president ford was just fine. [laughter] and the pope also did not die that day. [laughter] but these things, and you have to be ready. At least you had it for next time. [laughter] youeople would ask us, do have things in the can, so to speak, for things that are going to happen . We knew president reagan was not well we did not have anything ready for things like that. Whenever you have spare time, you will not sit down and write something. You need the moment. I got a call saturday night of Labor Day Weekend close to midnight, and it was brett kavanaugh, the stack separate terry staff secretary in the white house, telling me that chief Justice Rehnquist had just preparing awould be 10 00 statement. I was back on duty. We had, of course, so many Different Things happen. Asthere and carry both in sarah and terry both indicated, things happened all the time. Of course i had a plan, i started my day, every monday lapping it out mapping it out, but you have to be ready, and the day you can deal with that is the day you should find another line of work. Host can you tell us a little bit about maybe some of the weird things that ever happened to you . [applause] wow. Turkey pardons are fun. One of the weirdest things that happened to me, we were preparing president clinton for a state of the union address, and we were in the oval office. Totook a tape recorder in bounce ideas off of him and hear him speak extemporaneously and sometimes those were the best snippets of the speech, just hearing him talk. We were in there for about two i was in charge of the tape recorder. Office, got back to the it was about three speechwriters and myself, i turned on the tape recorder and realized it wasnt recording. [laughter] i had not recorded anything. Luckily we were all trained notetakers, so we took notes in addition to having the invisible recorder. [laughter] so we were able to reconstruct it. That was kind of a scary moment, which we laughed about later. [laughter] how much later . Yeah, yeah. Told,l, as you have been i was also working for Vice President cheney. It was a very interesting contrast in personalities to work for, but a very similar process. One day i got a call from the Vice President , and my colleague said you know, the little window on your phone will say when they areotus calling, or sometimes it is an asterisk. But i knew it was the Vice President , and i say yes sir, and i hear that signature deep voice on the other end of the line john, i got us in trouble. [laughter] and i said oh . [laughter] and he said yeah, the president has got to go to europe and hes got to miss the radio tv correspondents dinner, so i have to be his replacement tomorrow. I have to go there and be funny. [laughter] says, i dont do funny. [laughter] is a really modest statement for Vice President cheney to make, because he has a very good sense of humor and always delivered, as he did at that dinner the next night and other events like it. Humor, very good delivery, and that was a quick turnaround project that i could never have done alone. Colleague, my able helped out on that. That was another quick turnaround. A time mrs. Obama was going to japan to announce the partnership with the japanese government to fund Girls Education around the world. I thought it would be really neat to end the speech with a japanese proverb, to honor ure of the country we were visiting. Proverbro that was a long road is a good companion i was very proud of myself, our fact checker said yes, said yes, it is a japanese proverb, but i said i want to triple check this. We send this to our embassy, and all of our embassies around the world have local staffers there, people who live in the country and are natives in the country who work for our embassies. They had a japanese woman review the speech, and i get a call from someone very see more very senior in the embassy, saying we need to talk about the proverb. Our members saying what, you guys are antifriendship . She said i appreciate you think this is a beautiful proverb about friendship, but in our culture, this is a proverb about suicide. [laughter] like oh, you convinced me. I will have to take this out. How am i going to explain to mrs. Obama that i had in her speech a proverb about suicide . Very casualo be about it, we had a good laugh about it, but it would have not been funny at all had that gone through. Fact checking really gets annoying. Longo not have to do it before you get that first phone call after a speech is done and they say, where did you get such and such . You dont remember because you are onto the next thing, and you have a pile of paper on your desk i dont know, it is in here. We had to regularize that. Fix, the it on a real fact checkers. There was a nice anecdote about john philip sousa, the composer, whose name at birth was not was so. T there was a joke about him adding usa due to his patriotism, but that is not true. [laughter] and it is in a respectable book. The fact checker said, we ran it to ground and there is nothing there. Saving you from those veep moments. It reminds me of the ted sorensen story, when john kennedy was at the wall in berlin. Berliner, right . It really chance laid it translated into i am a jelly doughnut. [laughter] sorensen would be at these dinners, and you could tell that still irked him later. Said, there is a magazine called the new yorker. Said, if i said to you right now, i am a new yorker, you would not understand me to be saying i am a weekly magazine. [laughter] you could tell it annoyed him. So we do have a lot of competing voices in the white house though, right . Not just the president. How did you navigate all the things like the state of the union, the special interest and the different agendas that maybe will try to creep into his speech . What is the back room dynamic . I think it is different for every administration, of ors. President clinton was especially, he liked to gather thoughts and ideas from everybody. Roommates toege the first lady, everybody. Advisors,had outside pollsters, and cabinet secretaries who especially during the state of the union time, the speech writer would get a call from the secretary of education and say, youve got to put my program in the state of the union and you have to put this line in the state of the union. Traffic cop. A sometimes you have to disappoint people, sometimes you had to acquiesce to what they wanted. Especially when there was a major president ial address, you would get solicited and , from alld advice corners of the universe. It was quite a job to separate the wheat from the chaff and decide what to put in and what to take out. Of course, the president was the final decisionmaker on what he wanted to say. That was a big part of the job, pare it out, all of that advice. As a speechwriter, you have to realize you are representing that each and you are protecting your principles from a lot of people who want them to say things. The number of times i have heard someone say, mrs. Obama needs to say all 18 points of this policy speech to it is a middle school students. He would have to come back and say i am sorry. The president would not be comfortable saying this. The first lady would not want to do this, so how are we going to fix this . One thing i learned, oftentimes people have legitimate concerns. They were trying to articulate it, but the edit they made was not right. Add these 18o points why is that . Ok, it is important that people know we have a plan. I can do that without articulating all that in the speech. It was hard to get beyond the suggestions without trying to figure out what is your actual interest here . President bush reminded us that our name and phone number was at the bottom of any draft we worked on. He said, he told us never to blame anyone for something that was in this age that had our name on it. He said we were responsible for it, and he also explained to us, this meant we had authority, that if we knew something was not right for a speech, we could keep it out. We could not preempt dr. Rice or do that sort of thing, we had to defer to the obvious people. Terry was important was an assistant to the president , which was the highest rank on the white house staff. My colleague was an assistant. When the head of speechwriting is standing, that makes for a cleaner process dick cheney told me a story about when he was on president fords staff. He ended up chief of staff, but this was before that. There was factionalism when it came to new speeches, and for had a longtime aide going back to his days in the house. This was when Donald Rumsfeld was chief of staff. He said at one point, i do not remember what the speech was. There was a big speech by the president , but they got two competing speech drafts. He spent all night reconciling the speech drafts, and according to dick cheney, he was there and just said, the president came to the oval office the next morning and indicated that he would never be put in this situation again. [laughter] host but it really speaks to the power of the bully pulpit, doesnt it . In your experience, how does the bully pulpit become an effective tool of leadership . Well, it is. When you are president of the united states, you have the strongest bully pulpit in the world. You can articulate the values that you think are most country, andn the admireues that you most and are most committed to. I was fortunate to work for a president who exemplifies the highest values, i thought, as far as the economy, as far as bringing the country together, and just in so many areas. Care, all ofalth those important issues, even if you didnt have a specific , youy to change things could use your voice to move the conversation along. President clinton did that exceedingly well. Especially, again, on the issue of race. President it do not know if anyone else did created an office in the white house called the office of one america. He used that office to focus. Focus an initiative on race inch was very effective changing peoples attitudes about race and bringing the country together as one america. So the bully pulpit is very effective. Think that is also true for the president. The first lady is a little bit different. Something mrs. Obama did so well, she really met people where they were. People watch ellen, read people magazine, and mrs. Obama was not a snob. That is great. Ellen is wonderful, i am going on there and speaking to an important issue. She would do carpool karaoke, goal on colbert go on colbert , do the vine videos, whatever social media think it was, she did that but there was a requirement there should be a substantive purpose. I will get in your car for carpool karaoke, but we are going to spend the time talking about global Girls Education. She would use these very fun, innovative, edgy, cool venues to talk about real substantive issues, and i think the combination was really interesting and surprising, and i think she reached a lot of didnt consider themselves engaged in politics. She was hitting them at a venue where it was like wait a second, this is not a place i would see a first lady or president , but there she was. That was a great way to use the bully pulpit of the first ladys office. I got to know a speechwriter for president truman, and before that a military aid to roosevelt. He lived to his 90th year, and i used to have lunch with him at the white house. Wanted to talk about what i was doing and i wanted to talk thet what he was doing with Truman Administration in the 1940s and 1950s. Numerous times, george said the president talks too much. He did not mean president bush, he met the president in the 21st century, whoever it is. Truman would go days and days if not on occasion weeks without giving a speech. Well, i would like to go back to that. [laughter] they would have these weekly radio addresses, the weekly speedbump in the speechwriters to talk about get anything . No, we have a radio address. Terrific. [laughter] factoint is that given the that it is the presidency and we live in an age where you can go on all of these different forms of media, it is going to be used by the president and by the white house staff, and i think speeches are very important. Reason thather there are moments where you need to find exactly what you want to say and you say it in the best way you know how. The only way to do that is through concentrated discipline effort. That does not mean we cannot do all these other things, but this will always be important. Just because of the posture of the office, we will always kind of have outside influence. Are about to take questions, so lineup at the mic. We will do a lightning round. We are heading into the 2020 campaign, and a lot of students are not only interested in working on campaigns, but speechwriting. What is the first piece of advice you would give to someone who is interested in becoming you . First piece of advice, go work on a campaign. Get a job in a campaign. Out they have a writer on their hands and it is you, i will virtually guarantee they will use you. It does not matter what office you are in. Up to the chief speechwriter or maybe the press secretary and say, if you ever need help on drafting press releases or a statement for the candidates, i would like to take something off your hands. If you would ever like a little help. They are always looking for good writers in these situations, always. The hardest thing about president ial speechwriting is when you are responsible for hiring another one. Because it is really hard. If that is what you do, if that is your thing, sharpen that tool in any way you know how, and again, go to work on a campaign and they will find you, if you are a writer. In addition to that, i would add, the white house has an internship program. Startof folks got their by being interns in the white house. Fact, i believe josh, who is now a congressman, was one of my interns. He is now a congressman. To, if youreat way can get one of those internships, i would highly recommend that you try to go for one of those. We love internships at the iop. First question . Graduate firstyear student in creative writing. I noticed the commonality between the generality and specificity. So a wrong movement with some more things that people notice in their everyday life the candidacy and what that would mean to people versus the specificity of senior children, and especially the specificity of the badge versus where you were when you knew it or other wording that made me think of friends parents who died in 9 11, stuff like that. How do you choose when is a good detail,o use a specific or try to appeal to peoples individual experiences as a whole . I think you do both. You always wants to have an example or a real life story to bring your point to life. In mostyou might notice of the modern state of the union addresses, they have people in the gallery who represent different parts of the speech and they asked him to stand up at the appropriate time. Campaignn most modern speeches and in policy speeches, you want to have a real life example to bring it to life. You want to be specific as well as make a general point. I remember working with my colleagues, mike and matthew, on a speech that president bush gave at normandy on june 6, 2004. The 60th anniversary of the landings on dday. You have plenty of material to describe the event and the aftermath, but i remember in there air quote from bernie pile, who was known to everyone in america during that war. He had written a daily column in the 1930s, and during the war i think he wrote daily. Very frequently. Every time he met an american soldier, he gave their name, rank, and street address and town they were from. All of the country people were reading bernie pile. The point is, it was very nice to put some of those descriptive into a speechwriter born decades after the war, none of the terms that speechwriter might come up with, but in the terms of bernie pile, who was there. Thank you. High. Year inmy third sociology. Thank you for coming and sharing this inspiration. Behind all these words of inspiration and memorable lines, are there moments when you or the president you serve find that the words pale in comparison and you feel some sort of cynicism . If so, how did you absorb that moment and overcome cynicism . Never had that problem. Nothing i saw or experienced on the campaign or in the white house ever fed any kind of cynical side to me. To death whentart i was in the white house, the cynical side. Intoof the people you run in politics, does not matter whether you agree with them or not, you will find you are very similar to them. If it is what you are into and it is what they are into, and you work on campaigns sarah and i have had these conversations, and terry of recent events, and there is so much commonality. Then you get into the government, if you have that privilege, and to work for a president. With very goode intentions and they want to do the right thing and that is really what you spend most of your time trying to do. Campaigns are rough and divisive and everything else, but even then you are trying to appeal to a broad enough segment of the , and it really brings out the best in people and the position that we had, it seems to me. But there are moments when you get tired. It is a tough slog. For me, getting to actually meet the people whose stories we were telling, you cannot be cynical when you are traveling to some country and you are meeting teenage girls who walk two miles every morning to get to school and stay up all night doing work and caring for their siblings. Then they get up the next morning at clean their house you are hearing these extraordinary stories, or the Military Spouse that has moved every two years for the past 15 years. You meetwo jobs these people who are doing such extraordinary things, i think a constantly reinspire me. They constantly help me realize that the stakes here were very real, there were high human stakes to what we were doing and it is hard to get cynical when you actually meet the people you are serving. Is chase. Name i am a first year at the college, thinking about studying Public Policy and sociology. You guys talked about a bunch of different skill sets that you have to have for this job, from writing a speech after a traumatic event, writing a speech after a death to writing or trying to mitigate the amount in a speech. Int experiences helped you your job as a speechwriter, and what made you guys wants to become speechwriters . That is a very good question. Your whole Life Experience to the job and hopefully your Life Experience is compatible or somewhat resonating with your principal, with the president. Up in alf, i grew working class family. I lived in the project in baltimore and have always been interested in civil rights and in Public Policy, current events. I was a voice of first reader as it should voices for us child,erous reader as a and one thing i saw as a child was to always be reading and trying to emulate some of the values that i saw in literature. So again, that is one of the things that sort of rock the president and i together, because he had a similar background growing up. Somewhat in a workingclass environment himself. And also having those values of trying to lift himself up as well as lift those around him up. We shared that commitment. Yes, you bring your whole life job, but you also remember that you are not writing for yourself, you are writing for someone else and you are trying to find their voice. To help them get their message out. Addition to being a good writer, having a good grasp of American History is really important. Also one of the most important skills or aptitude that any speechwriter could have is the ability to be moved. A real sense of open heartedness and the ability to be moved by the stories and struggles of other people. I am not a Military Spouse. No one in my family is in the hearing stories from women who are Military Spouses and their partners who are being deployed for months, years on and, they are raising kids on their own and working, wondering if their spouse is going to come back, i was very moved by these stories. I had the ability to be moved so i could write and tell their stories and share them with others. If you are cynical and hardhearted and closed off, i do not think speech writing is a job. It is a good job for people who are openhearted and willing to be affected by other peoples stories. I always liked listening to speeches from the time when i was a kid, interested in politics and listening to speeches all the time. The best way to sharpen the tool is to read. Tool toe, writing is a be sharpened as well, but just to stock your mind. Stock yourd mind with a sense of what good writing is. It does not matter what the subject is. If it interests you, read it, and you will develop a sense of what is good writing and what is not, and the distinction between the two. Haveof the best advice i repeated many times about speech , it camei internalized from david mccullen, the historian. He has written so many books about so many Different Things, and the question was put to him how do you decide what your next book is . He said, i write the book i want to read. He wanted to read a book about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge and found that there wasnt one, so he spent eight years of his life writing it. Sense, my favorite speech would be a speech i would like to listen to. If you get bored writing it, i guarantee the listener is going to get bored reading it. Its something you can get good at. It is something you can continuously get better at. Token, there is no secret to it. Just what works, what is credible, what is interesting. Over time, if you listen to speeches and become a discerning reader, you will develop an eye for all of those things. Thank you. Hi, my name is devon. I am also first year in the history anddying possibly filmmaking, screenwriting, one of those. Mediastion is, what other so prose, poetry, playwriting or screenwriting, even wrap or song lyrics rap or song lyrics you think speech writing is closest to . Thats an interesting question. A script . [laughter] all of the above. Poetry is my first love. I always try to infuse the speeches that i write with some lyricism and rhythm. But it is also storytelling and all kinds of it is journalism, its everything. Depending on the audience. Yeah. Having a love of literature is really important. Whethere of literature, it is poetry, prose, fiction or nonfiction. We all draw from those disciplines to do our job. I would say oftentimes journalists have a hard time making the transition to speech writing, because writing to be heard is very different from writing to be read. There are two different parts. You have to make this transition. So i just said you know, you have to make this transition. In anad written that oped in a newspaper article, that would have been bizarre. But i dont think anyone said well, that was bizarre. We speak very differently from how we write. I would say anyone that involves words being spoken from someones mouth will be closer than something written. I think peggy noonan used to write the news scripts for dan rather, right . That is how she got her start. She was writing to be spoken. Anything spoken is going to be the closest. Clarity is so important in that. My colleague always pointed out that so much of writing is the process of elimination. Especially in a political context, you are making a case. Lawyering in the technical sense, but you are making a case. Important, and president bush really got after a on this never skipping logical step, because if you do that, someone who is not necessarily persuaded of what it is you are saying, they will know if you skipped a step and glossed over something, so it weakens your point. And so so much of what work is just making it clear and trying to do away with the clutter. There is so much obvious station in politics, so many euphemisms in politics, so many euphemisms, and people giving these speeches think they are pulling something off by using euphemisms and baby talk and things like that. It doesnt work. We live in a conversational age, so i am not advocating for , im just advocating for simpler city and clarity, and as , assumeeagan always did an intelligent listener. We have two more questions and not a lot of time, so why dont you all asterisk question and then you will take them . [laughter] i guess continue with the theme of good writing as opposed to good reading. I suppose a good speechwriter comes from watching speeches and learning from them. What speech have you found is remarkably effective in terms of, pushing its goals . In terms of how pushing its goals . What is a speech that did not accomplish its goals, and where is the rhetorical failure . I notice that two of you went to law school, so my question is , how do you think your haveiences at law school informed her capacity as speechwriters, and did you ever see yourself on a clear path to the white house from speech writing in the white house in law school . Thank you. Speeches inspire a lot of people, so im curious who inspires you. Have you ever felt that posedic posted an ethical dilemma to your message, and if so, what did you do in that situation . Ok. [laughter] inspiration, you want to listen to great speeches Franklin Roosevelt and kennedy, ronald reagan, Martin Luther , to maket in terms of another point as well when we talk about authenticity and nowadays theres so much talk on theuthenticity being top of your head, it is authentic. So when Martin Luther king was writing these speeches and sermons, he put a lot of effort into them. When he got up there, no one said hey, throw that aside and give that some authenticity, would you . There was nothing more authentic. The president s i mentioned were very serious about speeches, and in my own case, working with president bush, he did a lot of aliving add living dlibbing with his speeches, but it was always what he wanted to say. He always got high marks for authenticity there. Would add Bobby Kennedy to your list of people who inspired me. I will tell you one story about course,uther king of when we came up there were not many courses in college in speech writing. I think most of us probably just fell into it. We did not really i never started out wanting to be a speech writer. I wanted to be a journalist, actually. That is another story. I started writing in the Clinton Administration for the health of he for the secretary of health and human services. A great inspiration for me was Martin Luther king i have a dream. So i started writing my speeches in the cadence of Martin Luther king. Finding the voice of your speaker is one of the key things to being successful as each writer as a speechwriter. After a while, she pulled me aside and said terry, i like Martin Luther king, but i am a short, punchy lady who likes short, punchy sentences. I am not Martin Luther king. That was a great lesson to me in finding the voice. You can find great writers and great speeches, but you have to always remember the person that you are writing for, that style might not be suited to that person. We have to always find their voice, their authentic voice. I totally agree with that. I totally agree with that. Lawsuit, never used it. Being a speechwriter. It just was not it was a separate moment in my life. Sorry for anyone in terms of authenticity, i want to echo what john said, i always say to students, what is more authentic, the paper that she wrote two weeks, agonizing over, or the one where you dashed off an hour before the deadline. I have zero patients of people who do not do the work of riffing beforehand. Spent a lot of time pouring themselves into their speeches, editing, editing, so by the time they get up, it was exactly what they want to say. I just think that is so important. I am just going to rip up my speech and speak from the heart. If you are like dr. Martin luther king junior, go ahead. If not, chances are it will not go well. In terms of speeches that extraordinary,t and you look at her speech for the u. N. , she is such a powerful, moral voice and speak so beautifully and movingly. I am a big fan of hers. School point, i have never applied specific knowledge that i picked up in law school either. I am a big believer in studying what you want to study. I could not categorize the best writers and i know, according to what they studied only that they are smart and they studied what interested them. Some of the clearest writers you will ever meet our mathematicians, the logic and everything else. I wanted to add one more thing about the writing process and the difference. One thing i have always done is to read the speech allowed before handing it in. Colleague, weh my had a speech we were working on for the president and there was one part we really liked and we could not wait for the president to read it. Not wait to hear it. Those words sent forth into the stream of history. [laughter] we got to the point where it was time to finish the draft, and sit in, and we got to our favorite part, and it rhymes. [laughter] said wehew thought we were church hill, but we were dr. Seuss. [laughter] avoiding rhetorical. Anybody want to take ethical dilemma . Uh, no. Lot of concerns, you had a lot of things that worried you, you had a lot of things that you hope would turn out well, but i do not remember any ethical struggles. The only thing i would say is i did not write that speech about that woman. [laughter] thank you very much. That is a perfect cut. You all for coming and thank you, you are a great audience. [applause] congress is in recess for the july 4 holiday, but both chambers return next week. The house returns to consider a policy bill for 2020. After the Senate Passed its own version last week. The Senate Returns to begin work on civil, judicial, and executive nominations including assistant secretaries for the education and labor departments. Follow the house live on cspan and the senate live on cspan2. Cspans three president ial leadership surveys taken between 2000 and 2017, Andrew Jackson dropped from 13th to 18th place. Dwight eisenhower rises from the ninth to the fifth spot. Where it your favorite president drank . Learned that and more about the lives and leadership skills in cspans the president. Wherever books are sold or on cspan. Org the president s. The House Oversight and Reform Committee on the environment is looking into the impact of climate change. A talk with former fema director james witt and science professors about efforts to prepare for National Disasters which might result in changes in weather patterns. This is about one hour and 10 minutes
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