Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the chief executive officer of the george w. Bush president ial center, ken hersch. [ applause ] thank you and welcome to the engage series presented by highland capital. Im the introducer in chief. Our goal is to provide content you cant get anywhere else. Were honored today with this session to launch a wonderful insiders look at president ial retreats and a glimpse of what life looks like for a president outside of the white house. Its a fascination that so many people. Were delighted to take a deep dive into camp david, crawford, kennebunkport and the lbj ranch. Tonight, we have a series of guests who can also give us that special insight. To kick us off, i would like to introduce the 43rd president of the United States. [ applause ] thank you all. [ applause ] thank you very much. [ applause ] so this is a special moment for laura and me because we have such fond memories of the president ial retreats. One of the things about the presidency tha
My hope is to use about half of the time to talk about questions ive got for these two, then spend the other half taking questions that you have. If theres one thing i hope you take from this whole session, it is that being a president ial speechwriter is exactly what you would think it would be on the west wing. Thats it. Im kidding, it is much more like veep. Since this is the president ial ideas festival, i will start with a question about the relationship between ideas and speeches. Sometimes what starts off as an idea ends up in a speech, sometimes the speechwriting process starts before you have the idea. Just curious, sarah, what do you think, what would you share about that process, how an idea becomes a speech. I think in a weird way as speechwriters, we are not coming up with the ideas. There are much smarter people in the building that are developing those ideas. But in a way i think that these ideas kind of they dont get crystallized until theyre litigated on the page. So a