By Sheeva Azma
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Reading presidential speechwriters’ memoirs, you will get a really interesting view on what it’s like to work in the fast-paced, chaotic White House.
I love reading memoirs from White House staffers and getting insights about what it’s like behind the scenes. learning about the behind-the-scenes aspect of White House administrations. It is also cool to read several different memoirs from a single presidential administration and gain many different perspectives. You really get some depth of experience reading about the same few years from different viewpoints, and it tells you a lot about the way the White House operates.
Presidents have a full staff of speechwriters. There is a lead one, often, that writes key speeches, and others that each contribute. Donald Trump’s chief speechwriter was Stephen Miller, who has not written a memoir, to my knowledge, but did write Trump’s 2016 speech at the Republican National Convention. Here is a Wall Street Journal article about that, in case you are interested in a deep dive.
There is surprisingly little information on Google about who President Trump’s speechwriters were! Kellyanne Conway and Jared Kushner also likely wrote or contributed to speeches due to their advisory role in the White House. Kellyanne Conway’s memoir is called Here’s the Deal, and she talks about political messaging a lot – her work in the realm is an outgrowth of her work as a pollster. Kushner’s memoir is called Breaking History, and he talks about the many jobs he had at the White House.
The Biden Administration’s lead speechwriter is Vinay Reddy, since January 20, 2021, but I assume he (and the rest of President Biden’s speechwriting staff) is too busy writing speeches to write any books.
On the other hand, basically every member of the Obama Administration’s speechwriting team has written a memoir on speechwriting. If you are a Democrat, and love learning about speechwriting and the White House, I recommend reading them all! You will get a really interesting view on what it’s like to work in the fast-paced, chaotic White House.
Memoirs by Obama Speechwriters
Three Obama speechwriter memoirs I have read – the three that I knew existed which led me to write this post – are by Cody Keenan, who served as lead speechwriter; Terry Szuplat, and David Litt. Jon Favreau was also an Obama speechwriter (and actually led everyone as White House Director of Speechwriting from 2009-2013, after which point Cody Keenan took over) but he did not write a memoir. Others who advised the president, such as national security advisor Ben Rhodes, have written memoirs of their time at the White House as well.
This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of speechwriters, but as a list of memoirs written by speechwriting staff, it can be an interesting starting point for learning about political speechwriting. By far, the coolest thing about reading multiple memoirs about the same timeframe and job is that it’s like having different informational interviews with people. Here are some quick reflections on each of the Obama-era speechwriter memoirs I have read.
Say It Well: Find Your Voice, Speak Your Mind, Inspire Any Audience by Terry Szuplat
Terry Szuplat was an Obama speechwriter from 2009 to 2017. He got his start in speechwriting by working with the Republican Secretary of Defense William Cohen. At the Pentagon, Szuplat became chief speechwriter at the age of 25. In his book Say It Well, Szuplat talks about the lessons learned working as a speechwriter. Interestingly, despite being a speechwriter, he used to have a fear of public speaking, as he recently explained on his Say It Well book tour. He also describes speechwriters as “ghosts” which is an apt description since we rarely ever hear about the speechwriters themselves; we only hear the speeches. I haven’t read this whole book fully, but hope to make time to soon.
Thanks, Obama: My Hopey, Changey White House Years by David Litt
David Litt is the youngest member of the Obama speechwriting team. He is a Millennial who worked his way up into the White House from writing boring crisis communications speeches, as he details in Thanks, Obama. Litt’s memoir is lighthearted and humorous, much like his speechwriting style, owing to the fact that he interned at The Onion when he was a college student at Yale. In the book, Litt also humorously describes his colleague, Terry Szuplat, as both a regular at the White House gym and someone whose terse feedback cuts frighteningly deep. It is interesting to get these perspectives by reading different memoirs and getting the full White House speechwriting experience.
Grace: President Obama and Ten Days in the Battle for America by Cody Keenan
Keenan wrote Grace to talk about the ten days in June 2015 when he and Obama worked together to write a series of important speeches following the Charleston, SC church shooting. You can watch Obama’s full eulogy here – this was a speech where Obama went off-the-cuff to sing “Amazing Grace.” I enjoyed this book and though it dealt with some tough issues, it was interesting to read about the challenges and ways Keenan worked with Obama to talk about difficult issues.
The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House by Ben Rhodes
I haven’t read The World as It Is, but found it over the course of writing this blog post. Rhodes was Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting under President Barack Obama. He is one of the few speechwriters I have heard about to break party lines in his work, as he volunteered for Rudy Giuliani’s campaign in 2007. You might want to check it out!
What I’ve Learned Reading Obama Speechwriter Memoirs
I’ve learned quite a few things reading these memoirs. Firstly, I learned that Obama often received speech drafts from his writers, but then he would make them his own speech, reworking them with the speechwriter on a short timeframe or even writing his own bits and pieces of the speech.
Secondly, being a White House speechwriter is not a glamorous job. It’s high-stress and requires a lot of independence and quick turnarounds. Both Keenan and Litt talked about the short timeframe, on the order of two or three days, that they had to write speeches. It did not help that things were constantly happening in the world – big things which required presidential comment. Litt describes the effect of responding to such national and international crises on himself as well as Obama.
Lastly, sometimes speeches do not go as well as planned. David Litt, who has more of a comedic voice than the other speeches, talks a lot about the jokes he wrote into Obama’s speeches, and how they sometimes fell flat. Another example of a speech that did not go well was Obama’s now-famous 2012 presidential debate performance against then-Republican candidate Mitt Romney. Despite Obama’s lackluster and low-energy performance at the debate, he went on to be reelected to a second term as president.
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