Youve written for some of the most powerful people in the world. Can you treat us about your earlier life and tell us more about how you get to be a president ial speechwriter. I went on for a phd in Communication Studies very focused on aristotle rhetoric and the institute of oratory. All postings are incorporate the incorporated in the speechwriting craft. I then became a professor of Communication Studies focusing on the rhetoric and public address. I was invited down to the university of Carolina Chapel Hill to give a lecture it is so rare these days and it is not good. So i went back to charlottesville and i couldnt sleep so i got a single space iavepage letter and the next morning they mailed it off to the president o at the white hoe 1600 pennsylvania avenue and i didnt sleep and i didnt think anything else would come of it. The. What happened is when the letter came in, somebody in the mail room remembered they jus remembd a speechwriter and so my letter was sent up to the white house personnel and i came up for the interview and began my h intervw with him and he then took me to the editor. I realized if i screwed up at any point i would be at the front door of the white house. He then took me to the counselor of the president and we went for interview about how i would write speeches if i wrote is and so on and so work and at the end of the key asked if i could wait here for just a minute. His office was the old office that nixons secretary had and then he came back in and took me into the oval office andnd there was gerald ford puffing on a pipe. They havent done very well here they make it sound more eloquent and ithan i am and they dont mt deadlines. Im going to be efficient and do everything i can for you and they said please just make me speak the language of the common man and thats how i got hired starting at the top and ive never written a speech for anybody else but myself. How did it that the that bear od practice and did you have to adjust your expectations and how . I went in after i did all that and i went in to see Robert Hartman and said what do you think of the president s style and he said i dont think ite he one. They said we have a speech for you. Following jimmy carter. We have a catholic writing for the president whose an episcopalian so i consult the ministers and worked up this speech and let it sit for a day and rewrote it into the art of writing is rewriting. We went through maybe five or six drafts. He went to deliver the speech and was three sentences into the speech and was interrupted by applause. And then the Washington Post the next day said the president hit a home run and the reputation was made and then on i had a bigger hand in the process for writing for the president. If the speeches on Agricultural Policy then have to go to the Agricultural Department and they have to check that out and make sure the policy is right. Its on foreignpolicy attempts to go to the state department a problem with that and peggy makes it very clear what the problem is, whoever getsts to do the staffing and see that the policy is right becomes a speechwriter. They know about how that works having been in the cia he worked with gerald ford during the campaign. How was that different from or was it different. You adjust the speech to the situation to the venue and for example i was in charge of the bicentennial speeches. We didnt want to use those for political purposes, thisr was a big consideration for the independence. I was the main writer at the speech of valley forge and when the president went to monticello which traditionally every year has a ceremony for immigrants when we came over to the arena for the acceptance speech in 1976, bat that was a political prspeech that began on a very electric mode where they challenged him to debate three times which got a lot of headlines and attention from the speech and that was a political speech and was very different. Today there is more of a melding of the political statesman side of speeches. After we lost the election closely to carter i created a Communication Department at the alabama for birmingham and i was yearning to get back into politics. I got on the alabama Central Committee and at that time in 1977 only 6 identified as republicans. That is the change that we have gone through in the south so we needed to raise money and get people to come in to birmingham and raise money for the party and we ask John Connally and he said though there wasnt a chance. So we asked george h. W. Bush if he would come over. I was at table and there was a dirty blond young man next to me and said i understand you were a speech writer for president ford. The man is obviously sincere and authentic but he Needs Organization and stylistic devices and so on and so forth he said my name is carl rove, and i work for him and i said my gosh im sorry. We heard from gerald ford you are a good writer and he would like to talk with you. So he was coincidental. He was my favorite client of all time. I had to clear this with other friends, Jennifer Fitzgerald and was flown to houston to do another interview at the house so i showed up at the threepiece suit and the door opens on the side of the house and out comes george bush in his tshirt and he looks at me and says if you get out of that silly vest i will cook you breakfast and thats the kind of guy he was. So we would go into the kitchen, he gets a cup of coffee if hes cooking eggs and incomes barbara bush, she looks at me and looks at bush and looks at me and looks at georget and says geor, if a man spills a drop of that coffee on the floor i will never forgive you because the chinese delegation is coming to stay with us tonight for dinner and i dont know what got into me that i said i came to your door in a threepiece suit. I wont spill anything. She laughed and he laughed andii spent the rest of the day with them. Those are the kind of people they were. She was so supportive of the staff and very protective and that is understandable that she was on the side of the better angels that were around george bush or around any president and also you have to fight with them and that is always fun. I cant think of one actually in the east room of the white house for the pennsylvania location on the way to the convention and it was up for grabs and eventually Ronald Reagan would name richer as the Vice President ial candidatcandidates trying to ste delegation so forgot to give tha speech and he suddenly deviated from the text. Eventually Nelson Rockefeller got up and applauded and got him off the stage and got away with it. As a speechwriter did you have any input or influence over the venue or other production details in which your state was delivered . Once you get credibility of the glory a is you can sometimes influence policy. I began to suggest certain campaign changes that the president speak less but speak on certain topics because the strength is transcendent and im not going to lie about you. There was a debate over the proposal between various people and it w was stunning. Thank you for the suggestion this would have been nice but we didnt win the election but you have to be credible first and have successful speeches. I think it is a collaborative observation the speech writers want to be as effective as possible. The political people wanting to say what the justice to the data so there is the tension between those things where we think certain things should be set in a certain way and there is aialways that tension that i talked to a friend of mine who was a writer for Richard Nixon and they were very good at adapting the data. Nixon had a group and 68 and the question is what is the most important question facing america and once they answered they went to a second step and said what is your suggested solution so in 1968 number one was vietnam, number two is the economy and number three is crime. They wanted to withdraw and half the people wanted to escalate so what they did is sent four paragraphs o in the problem of vietnam therefore needing the expectation of the audience but he doesnt suggest a solution because the audience is divided. Because we are in a negotiation with peres i promise you peace with honor. Then when he went to the economy is one short paragraph on the problem and develop solutions because hes got 70 of the audience on his side the same with crime. Ev at the end of the speech if you flash back to it, there is a wonderful peroration and the American Dream and nixon comes to embody the American Dream so the speechwriters get to go full force by giving in to the pollsters at the top of the speech. Those are the kind of things that are exciting and difficult would you weigh in on one of your greatest president ial speeches in yourea estimation . For me and im probably agreeing with this i think the second inaugural lincoln is wonderful but bringing the country together. The inaugural election is horribly bitter between jefferson and john adams and the federalists and all kinds of dirty politics that have gone on. We are all antifederalists and he tries to bring the country together a speech during the bicentennial i start by talking about the soldiers surviving around the fires had been looking forward to what the calls us and how we need to honor that as we move forward. How does that relate to speechwriting . Its very difficult and i coached president with other people you just dont know whats going to happen. And its all about the expectation. When ford went into the first debate the expectation is ford was going to lose because carper was a Nuclear Engineer when he went to annapolis and mispronounce words and ford came out of the debate beating expectations and beating carter then we went to the second debate and new which questions were going to be on the Foreign Policy at the palace of the arts in San Francisco and they prepped for president but remember Ronald Reagan had criticized for it fords policyh the soviet union. Reagan wanted a tougher policy so we knew that was going to be a question and the next one came from the New York Times and he said president ford, how do you defend what they soviet union when there there is such a brul nation romania is moving towards freedom and they dont dominate poland and. Went on. Did you see the soviet union doesnt dominate and i said thats what ie said so after te debate we ran up to the president and said you said the soviet union doesnt dominate poland. You need to hold a press conference and say that you misspoke. He says but i didnt say that. Then what do you think he said, i told you what we rehearsed. It doesnt, made the hearts and minds of the polish people. Then kissinger came u out and sd whats going on. Im trying toie get them out of the soviet union and if you insult the soviet union hour talks will collapse. They debated it for five days and finally in california for a corrected the record but it was too late and it slipped away so these debates are just mind boggling and tends. In the three debates we did it because she did very well in have to for he got into the senate by winning a debate so we thought he was going to be okay when he went into the debate that during the practice session he interrupted what was going on you need to tell them you are more qualified than john kennedy was when he was running for president. You are just running for Vice President and we have water was there and said you cant say that, you cant compare yourself to john kennedy. Whatever you do, dont do it. So the debate goes forward and we are all sitting out there watching whats happening and outcomes than quayle. Outcomes dan quayle. Its like a deer in the headlights. They are stunned and cant say anything right. Hes a little discombobulated. Then comes the inevitable question if the president were incapacitated to bring the cabinet together and then its a different question than we had expected the that he gave his qualifications and went through a fewe more questions he dodged it again. The president is incapacitated and dan quayle said listen im more qualified than john kennedy was when he ran for president and lloyd benson said you can see him lick his lips. So now whats going to happen with the data. People just dont vote for Vice President. So we go off with about one but the debates are tough to coach. I helped with w. Bush in the 1984 and that is a very tough thing to do. They are soft and they are not yet up to the presidency so handling the situation for a woman is very difficult and i coached some women in the debate. On the other hand when we were coaching george h. W. Bush, we told him he had to be careful. You dont want to be named for female opponent. Do not respond or direct anything to geraldine for barro and that worked until three quarters of the way. Let me help you with that, geraldine and then answer thema question. Other situations did you ever do any writing for the Crisis Response . Its very different. I dont know if you recall that one time in the Ford Administration and 76, cambodia seized the vessel. We are writing a speech for the president and hes going to deliver that too the nation from the oval office while all this other stuff is going on how are we going to respond and its a very different writing experience because what are we do and then how is the president goingo to express tht there was nothing in terms of there could be some patriotism we seized the ship and a special forces did a terrific job writing that but they always try to keep those things out of the political arena because if you get those things into the political arena than they are open to attack from the other side and it becomes a political football. I have no problem with somebody attacking the handling of this if we are in a war that we shouldnt be in. A president that is a successful speech delivered and speechwriter crafting a broad narrative were you able to do that relatively early in your time in the presidency or was that something you felt default overtime overtime i think it evolved over time. One of the things you try to work out is what is the delivery style that works for these people best as your crafting this narrative of where they are going to. We are going to bounce off watergate we are going to try to bring america back into the bicentennial is a wonderful excuse to do that. But in terms of style, barack obama for example. Because of what they had experienced in his lifetime bill clinton was very different and was talking to you all the time. Ronald reagan had and so finding that style for your candidates, for your clients is very different. Its very plainspoken with george h. W. Bush when i started working with him i realized she was a very kind gentle man she was sophisticated and witty so i wrote a speech which he delivered in philadelphia during the pennsylvania primary and there was a line about how he wanted to create a kinder gentler nation. So everybody remembered the economic side so we got up to 1988 and he was accepting the nomination. You have the tough guy on the one side and a kinder gentler bush there is more than one tone and that shouldnt happen. Two more question questions in e turnover to the audience. It is a collaborative effort that is a team effort and you are only as good as the staff around you. The president has to say im going with these people and with this advice. God help us if we ever have a president doesn that doesnt sd himself with good people, god help us if we ever have a president who fires the good people and keeps the bad people. 250 years since the birth of america if youre going toan wre a symphony all speech, anything that you would want to get on . One of the things that we did that was successful for the speeches the president said i want them to s be like six chapters of the book. I want them to be interrelated and look forward, not backward. I think it worked very well. At the end of the bicentennial speeches, the president gave us the president ial yacht for the n night and we sailed down the potomac and this was a historicale yacht where Frankln Roosevelt and churchill had conferences. Mix in retreated when he wanted to get away from everybody and so we were on this and it goes down you go down the potomac and they play the National Anthem and it brings tears to your eyes you have dinner as you come back up and about by the washington monument. That was incredible. I hope that in 25 250 years its that kind of attitude that it is a celebration of American Values and we look at the values and display the values that we talk about and we not only refer to them that we display th but we s that we talk about. Questions from the audience. When president ford asks you to make him sound like the common man, did that cause you to write his speeches as if you were the one speaking at . I think we have an appreciation of the. H. W. Served. He was the youngest pilot in world war ii. And so, speaking the language of the common man i think is something i can resonate with but i think Franklin Roosevelt spoke the language of the common man and what that means you are not using these words. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. They are all small words. You can speak the language and be memorable and actually heroic more than a few try to be eloquent and use the words that turn people off. Im curious do you have any kind of contact with the person or persons that write speeches for donald trump, and if you do, im anxious to hear about the challenge of reactions to his somewhat robust i o and is that exciting for them or is it a completely frustrating experience as a speechwriter for thank you for the question. Imir not in contact with them, steve is the speechwriter and what you think of the words hes putting in the president s mouth, he is a talented speechwriter. If you look at the speech donald trump gave after accepting the nomination of the Republican Convention it was 75 minutes long which is probably a 25 minutes too much and needed to be edited. The convention every day was based on the theme everything was unified the last four lines of the speech with the same as s those for days made america safe again and make america work again. That workedak very well i thougt in terms of effectiveness. Im not talking about the morality of it. Very often he doesnt stick to the text and doesnt have one at the rallies which are populist in oldstyl the oldstyle hofstr talked about that is just trump spouting off and doing what he does that som but some of his as like. The inaugural address is very dark and miller wrote it that way because they wanted to say these are dark times and now we are going to make America Great again. Its got to bthats got to be be are describing here. So the speeches from then on are trying to build this up. If you look at the state of the Union Address, this strategy is really interesting. In 1988, Ronald Reagan gave his last state of the Union Address right before it, the plane had taken off and went into the 14th street bridge. They jumped in the river and started pulling people out. When reagan got up to make his state of the Union Address, he invented recognizing somebody and recognized this person as an American Hero and from that point on every president said somebody inom the galleries were taking this to the division. Thereve been ten, 15 people in the galleries. If you are a democrat sitting in the audience and you dont want to applaud for this president and he is pointing to a hero in the gallery and you are not applauding, you are in trouble so that is the strategy. I think they have a hard job writing for trump and it would be mind blowing to keep him on track. When he is on the floor he says things that are unverifiable. The first one relates to the comment about president ford and youve shared he mentioned he would move you to the Political Group and of course that didnt happen. My question there is have you had a moment in your career where you felt like you were able to shoehorn in and get a little bit of your politics asserted into the message you were hoping someone else deliver . The agricultural surpluses and letting all the milk goes away and take those things to ever cut and asia and the president said we will do that right after the election, which was nice. When you get to the credible point with your client, you can influence the policy. Thats the difference between the campaign and the president. Elizabeth warren and probably only has one. He only had one or two into the white house to have a big staff. If you get the trust and have a good idea you get input into policy and that is a wonderful benefit ofst the job when it wos out. Did you have a second question asked we will come back to it. Social media as a tool, use it or not use it . For youve got to use it and hopefully for good. I think for social media theres a lot of problems with it. We all know what they are but a few considerate like chemistry that it can be used for good or evil barack obama is very effective with social media. The president is a very effective with tweets. Thats one of the problems we ophave with social media in thii believe in something crazy, i can make somebody out there that also is saying the same thing on a cable station somewhere and that is the problem we have with social media. Its much harder now to break through as a speechwriter to get the candidates to break through all of the social media and affirmation thats going on. If people are watching these democratic debates and it looks like they are, that is a way to break through. You can have a good town hall meeting early on and suddenly you are there where you were not there before so they are breaking through. In the campaign i would have a Strategy Group on social media and how to use them because if you dont youre excludin you an audience you could be reaching in somed way. You eluted briefly to writing for women and i wonder if he would approach that differently than you have previously with male president s. One of the things i would do a female democratic candidate you havent seen, correct a me f im wrong, wearing a dress. They are in a pants suit or a variation if it is to make them more manly or president ial. She did very well in her debate. One of the things attributed to women that they wantim to avoid, so lets have a very factbased policy oriented highly documented approach and she has done well with that on occasion. Unfortunately she contradicted herself were changed her position on the medicare for all and that got her in a little trouble but that is where she was going. Now, Amy Klobuchar when successful she contradicts the rules at little bit but it seed authentic when she stated icu and identified with the audien audience. If i were writing for women it would be factbased and very organized because you are not supposed to be able to read a map. [laughter] just nonsense. We have time for two more here. I know when im writing i have moments i cannot put a word on a page and as a writer yourself especially with the speeches are sthat are so important, how do you go about not having Writers Block in handling the pressure that comes withca it . I am one of those strange people that never had Writers Block. Theyat advice Ernest Hemingway days, he had Writers Block for a long time and he said what he did is to write one important truth sentence and then right back to it. There is a novel published against his wishes after he was dead called the garden of eden and its based on the short story thats the first chapter and the last line in the chapter is independent he never could love her again and then the whole chapter leads up to that end when you read that line and it hits you like somebody slapped you in the face. Its incredible. If you get Writers Block, try to write one true important sentence and then Everything Else will flow after the. If you could write one more president ial speech, what woulds it be some of the state of the union and why . Since i was never able to do that, i would like to write an inaugural address and call people to the values that i believe in. An. Join us next week for another discussion from the Communications Department to talk about comparing president reagan and obama and we are excited for that we look forward to seeing you next week. [applause]