did barack obama write his own speeches

How Obama Writes His Speeches

U.S. Senator and Presidential Candidate Barack Obama works on his election night speech in his room at the Hyatt Hotel in Chicago, IL.

Barack Obama is usually the candidate who begs his staff to let him take one more question at every event, but this week he hasn't been a man to linger. Even though his public schedule was relatively light, behind the scenes he was racing his own internal clock to finish what is the most important speech of his career.

Four years ago Obama spent months writing the convention speech that would catapult him onto the national stage. Even though he was busy with his day job in the Illinois State Senate and was running for the U.S. Senate, Obama would find time to scribble thoughts, often sneaking off the State Senate floor to the men's room to jot down ideas, or writing in the car as he campaigned across southern Illinois. It took him months to gather all those fleeting ideas and craft his acclaimed keynote speech.

This time around, Obama has been a tad busier and hasn't had the luxury of time. "The difference here is, you know, he's got a few other things going," Obama's top strategist David Axelrod told reporters Wednesday on Obama's flight into Denver. "It's hard to find the quality time to do this." The first draft wasn't finished until last week, and as of Wednesday his staff couldn't say how long the speech was running or when it might be finished. The looming deadline has led to a lot of late nights and bleary-eyed mornings for Obama, who instead of practicing delivery has been focused on the writing, even during his walk-through of Invesco Field Wednesday night.

The toughest aspect of writing a speech isn't so much the rhetoric, it's the ideas—which take time to incubate and develop, says Andrei Cherny, editor of the journal Democracy and a former White House speechwriter under Clinton. "The hardest part about writing a speech like this is not the mechanics of it but what you want to say and how you're going to say it, the strategy of it," Cherny says. For a speech of this magnitude it's not uncommon for politicians and their staffs to work on language for months, going into double-digit drafts, according to Cherny.

Obama takes an unusually hands-on approach to his speech writing, more so than most politicians. His best writing time comes late at night when he's all alone, scribbling on yellow legal pads. He then logs these thoughts into his laptop, editing as he goes along. This is how he wrote both of his two best selling books— Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope —staying up after Michelle and his two young daughters had long gone to bed, reveling in the late night quiet. For this speech Obama removed himself from the distractions at home and spent many nights in a room in the Park Hyatt Hotel in Chicago. These late-night sessions produced long, meandering texts that were then circulated to a close group of advisers, including Axelrod and Obama's speechwriter Jon Favreau—a 27-year-old wunderkind wordsmith. "When you're working with Senator Obama the main player on a speech is Senator Obama," Axelrod said. "He is the best speechwriter in the group and he knows what he wants to say and he generally says it better than anybody else would."

The time constraint may have led Obama to sacrifice his famed rhetorical flourishes for cold, hard facts. He told reporters in Illinois earlier this week that he isn't aiming for the polished, soaring language that is his hallmark, but rather a more nuts and bolts dissection of the choice voters face. "This is going to be a more workmanlike speech. I'm not aiming for a lot of high rhetoric, I'm much more concerned with communicating how I intend to help middle-class families live their lives," Obama said. He also did his best to dampen expectations for a memorable address, telling reporters in Wisconsin, "I may not be as good as the other headliners the other three nights, but hopefully it'll make clear the choices the American people are going to face in November."

Obama knows well the power of a great speech. When his campaign came under fire before the Pennsylvania primary for controversial statements by Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama delivered a historic speech on race that changed the conversation and stemmed the attacks. This time around Obama needs to turn the conversation away from him—where it has lingered the last month, producing worrying poll numbers for the Democrats—and on to the issues. "This speech and this election is really not about Barack Obama it's about the American people," Axelrod said. "It's about the country, it about the direction that we have to go to get us out of the ditch we're in. He's going to spend the bulk of his time talking about that."

'We Are The Change We Seek' Looks Back At President Obama, In His Own Words

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Barack Obama, then-candidate for the Senate from Illinois, speaks to delegates during the Democratic National Convention at the FleetCenter in Boston on July 27, 2004. (Charlie Neibergall/AP)

Barack Obama was a young U.S. Senate candidate when he burst onto the national stage with his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004.

In 2008, he made history as the first African-American to be elected president. Tuesday night in Chicago, he'll deliver his farewell address.

Here & Now 's Jeremy Hobson talks about the book with E.J. Dionne ( @ejdionne ) and Joy Ann-Reid ( @joyannreid ), editors of " We Are The Change We Seek: The Speeches of Barack Obama ."

Find more great reads on our digital bookshelf

Watch: Obama's Speeches From The Segment

Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention

Obama's Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 2009

Obama's eulogy for Clementa Pinkney in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015

Obama's speech in Cairo in 2009

Obama's speech in Selma, Alabama, on the 50th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday"

Book Excerpt: 'We Are The Change We Seek'

By E.J. Dionne Jr. and Joy-Ann Reid

Barack Obama entered the White House in January 2009 confronting as dismal a constellation of circumstances as any president since Franklin Roosevelt: a global financial meltdown that would come very close to being an economic collapse, skyrocketing rates of unemployment, and unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that showed no signs of being resolved. Despite his fervent campaign promise to ease the country’s political divisions, he discovered that he faced a Republican opposition intent on taking back power by stymieing his program, challenging his mandate to govern, and leaving his dreams of harmony stillborn.

Over time, this meant that Obama had to use his rhetorical gifts to confront and defeat his political adversaries. When circumstances required, Obama could be a highly effective partisan, which further embittered his opponents. Even at his most eloquent, Obama would never win over those who saw him as a dangerous philosophical antagonist.

Yet Obama never dropped the idea that beneath the surface of seething conflict, a country that had elected him as its first African American president was not as torn as it seemed to be.

For his supporters—and, increasingly, as his term concluded, for Americans who had grown weary of the endless partisan wars—Obama remained a figure intent on evoking Abraham Lincoln’s appeal to the “better angels of our nature.” By the time his presidency neared an end, even some among his opponents conceded, sometimes grudgingly, that Obama had a calm fluency they would miss.

Obama always understood that when it came to moving people through the spoken word, he had “it.” He acknowledged as much in 2009 to Harry Reid, then the Senate Majority Leader, after Reid described an Obama floor speech as “phenomenal.” In his memoir, Reid said he would “never forget his response.”

“I have a gift, Harry,” Obama said in a way that seemed quite matter of fact.

Reid insisted that Obama spoke these words “without the barest hint of braggadocio or conceit, and with what I would describe as deep humility.”

The account was published after Obama had become president and Reid, the loyal Democrat, may have been going out of his way to make sure the new president was not seen as arrogant in his certainty about his eloquence. Yet there was a plausibility to Reid’s claim because Obama’s cool detachment often allowed him to tote up his own list of virtues and shortcomings dispassionately. He had simply concluded that being able to persuade, move, and inspire counted as one of his most important assets. He was right about this.

It is surprising that rhetorical genius is not and has never been essential to a successful presidency. Over the last century, the list of presidents we mark out as especially gifted speakers is not long—Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Obama.

Roosevelt and Kennedy belong on the list not only because they spoke powerfully, but also because each mastered a new medium that had come to dominate politics—radio in FDR’s case, television in JFK’s. The demands of the two were different. Radio was warmly intimate, television friendly toward the coolly ironic. Reagan, liberals would always say, profited from his acting skills and from years on the speaking circuit, but he also excelled because he knew his own mind and had a clear sense of where he wanted to move the country. Clinton shared with Reagan a gift for making coherent arguments and the sure knowledge that making those arguments again and again was a central task of a successful presidency. At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, Clinton used his abilities to press the case on behalf of Obama, once his wife’s bitter rival, winning from the man he now supported a new title, “Explainer in Chief.” Proving that even Obama could sometimes be outshone rhetorically, Clinton’s case for Obama’s reelection was widely seen as more persuasive than the one the president made for himself.

In his choice of oratorical ancestors, Obama’s first love was Lincoln, a sensible choice for a politician from Illinois who had declared his presidential candidacy in Lincoln’s adopted hometown of Springfield, and whose election as the first African American president fulfilled the work of the Great Emancipator. (It did so in a way that might have shocked Lincoln, who, especially early in his career, shared many of the racial prejudices of his time.) Obama had something else in common with Lincoln: a view that the trajectory of American history pointed toward justice and inclusion. Here, Obama also followed Martin Luther King Jr. Lincoln, King, and Obama all believed that the best way to redeem the American promise was to insist that from the country’s origins, this promise was inherent in its founding documents, the Declaration of Independence especially. Obama bound himself to the American past in order to change the future.

There was also a great deal of Roosevelt in Obama, both Franklin and Theodore. Obama, like Clinton, saw himself as the president of a new progressive era that shared in common with the original Progressive Era an imperative to deal with radical economic and social changes. If the early progressives sought to write new rules for a country that had moved from farm to factory and from rural areas to big cities, latter-day progressives would bring order and a greater degree of fairness to a nation even more metropolitan, both suburban and urban, and that was replacing manufacturing work with toil in the technological, scientific, and service economies. In one of the most important speeches of Obama’s presidency, in Osawatomie, Kansas, Obama hitched himself firmly to Teddy Roosevelt’s intellectual and political legacies.

A president who took over in the midst of the greatest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression could not avoid embracing FDR, and he also had FDR thrust upon him. A cover of Time magazine depicted Obama as an FDR look-alike, with a confident smile and a jaunty cigarette holder at his lips. It seemed appropriate for a man who struggled with his smoking habit.

There were certainly some echoes of JFK, particularly in Obama’s generational rhetoric. If JFK was the young voice of the World War II generation, Obama was the first president not touched by the turmoil of the 1960s and he saw himself as liberating the country from many of that era’s assumptions, struggles, and discords. Despite what his conservative enemies often said about him, Obama, like Kennedy, was mistrustful of ideology and could sometimes be very tough on allies to his left. (His Osawatomie speech was, in part, an effort to rekindle their faith in him.)

Perhaps the most unexpected reference point for Obama, given the philosophical divide between them, was Reagan. But Obama’s respect for the Gipper shouldn’t surprise. They shared something unusual in our history: Both had used a single speech to push themselves into the highest reaches of American politics. It is hard to find other politicians who have done the same. William Jennings Bryan with his “Cross of Gold” speech in 1896 came closest.

In Reagan’s case, the speech that launched a political career was “A Time for Choosing,” a broadcast Reagan made on behalf of Barry Goldwater’s failing presidential campaign on October 27, 1964. It is doubtful that the speech changed many minds—Goldwater went down to an historically resounding defeat—but it marked Reagan out as a conservative hero into our day. Using the telling quip, the engaging story, and the apt (if sometimes misleading) statistic, Reagan made modern conservatism sing. By the time Reagan closed (with Lincoln’s “the last best hope on earth” formulation), the millions of conservatives who watched him that night knew that they had found the man who would lead them to the White House. Sixteen years later, he did.

Obama opened his door to the American political imagination with a very different speech, his keynote address to the Democratic National Convention on July 27, 2004. What we remember is its call for national unity, its insistence that “there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s a United States of America.” Also: “There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.” A country that, it seemed at the time, yearned for unity had found its champion. What’s forgotten is that the speech was also a partisan address with a political purpose. In a sense, it embodied tensions that were present throughout Obama’s rise to office and his time in the White house. Obama always had to go back and forth between his conciliatory hopes and his need to win pitched battles with a Republican party that resisted his overtures.

If Reagan sought to sharpen ideological divisions, Obama saw ideological divisions themselves—especially around social and moral issues—as both the product of Republican strategizing and a drag on liberal and Democratic hopes. The lead-in to Obama’s peroration on behalf of unity, after all, was an attack on Republican divisive designs. “Now even as we speak,” Obama said, “there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes.” Obama was dividing the country in his own way: between those who would divide the country for political purposes and those who would not.

This segment aired on January 10, 2017.

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Cody Keenan: How I wrote Barack Obama’s speeches

. . .which he then rewrote. the ex-president’s speechwriter reveals their collaborative art.

US president Barack Obama addressing members of the public at Gollege Green, Dublin, during a ceremony as part of his visit to Ireland in May 2011. Photograph: Alan Betson

My family left Ireland for America seven generations ago. To the best of our knowledge, Patrick Keenan left Cork sometime in the 1770s. He was counted in the first American census. His son, Peter Keenan, was born in America. On my mother’s side, John McThomas left Dublin around the same time, fought for America in the Revolution, and was buried in a national cemetery in Ohio.

As far as I know, I was the first in my family, on either side, to return. My first visit was with my best friend back in 2005. We were broke, relied on the kindness of strangers and camped wherever we could – a town park in Kinsale, a beach outside Galway, a farm in Dingle.

My second visit, in May 2011, was a bit different. Surely, it was something my ancestors could not imagine. I flew over in a highly modified 747, crossing the sea they had sailed, with the first black president of a country they helped settle. Hundreds of people were lined up along Moneygall village’s main street, waving Irish and American flags.

Barack Obama is two generations closer to Ireland than I am. And I know people have a laugh at how Moneygall has made the most of that relationship. But it is not a relationship that should be discounted.

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Much has been made of his Kenyan ancestry. But remember, he only met his father twice. He was raised by his white mother and white grandparents. That side of his family is one he holds just as dear. Moneygall’s favourite great-great-great-grandson really does have a soft spot for Ireland and its people. He revealed as much in his address to the people of Ireland that day, delivered to a throng that had gathered along Dublin’s College Green:

It was remarkable to see the small town where a young shoemaker named Falmouth Kearney, my great-great-great-grandfather, lived his early life. He left during the Great Hunger, as so many Irish did, to seek a new life in the New World. He travelled by ship to New York, where he entered himself into the records as a 'labourer'. He married an American girl from Ohio. They settled in the Midwest. They started a family.

It’s a familiar story, one lived and cherished by Americans of all backgrounds. It’s integral to our national identity. It’s who we are – a nation of immigrants from all over the world…

We call it the American Dream. It is the dream that drew Falmouth Kearney to America from a small village in Ireland. It is the dream that drew my own father to America from a small village in Africa. It is a dream that we have carried forward, sometimes through stormy waters, sometimes at great cost, for more than two centuries.

It’s not something he would have imagined when he was a young Chicago politician, bringing up the rear of the St Patrick’s Day parade, followed only by the sanitation workers picking up the pieces. It is not something that, for my first 26 years or so, I could have imagined, either.

Growing up, I had always taken a keen interest in politics, because my parents argued about it on a regular basis – but I began university with plans of becoming a surgeon. Chemistry class altered those plans pretty quickly. I dedicated myself instead to political science, and after graduation, I moved to Washington DC.

Cody Keenan, who served as director of speechwriting for President Barack Obama. ‘In less than 10 years, I went from mailroom intern in Congress to chief speechwriter in the White House,’ he says. Photograph: Lawrence Jackson/The White House

After a dozen failed interviews, I finally became one of 100 interns under someone for whom I will always be grateful: John F Kennedy’s kid brother, Ted. It remains my best political learning experience.

I was at the Democratic Convention in 2004 when a young state senator from Illinois introduced himself to the country. I must have talked about that speech a lot, because that is when I got my shot. One day, my overworked boss poked his head around the corner and asked, “hey, can you write a speech?”

I had never considered speechwriting. But I lied and said yes. I stayed up all night panicking my way through it. That one led to a few more. And eventually, a colleague connected me with senator Obama's chief speechwriter Jon Favreau. We hit it off, and I became an intern all over again, this time in Chicago, on an upstart presidential campaign; this time the only intern.

And as our poll numbers rose, and our crowds grew, so did my opportunities to write. We won and went to the White House. I moved into a West Wing office with Jon. And I never stopped working my tail off so that when he left, and Obama had to choose a new chief speechwriter, I was the only choice to take his place.

In less than 10 years, I went from mailroom intern in Congress to chief speechwriter in the White House.

What goes into a good speech? Well, the first thing I can tell you is that there’s no alchemy to it; no magic formula. It’s more art than science, and after 3,577 speeches in the White House, I admit a lot of it is not art, either. I have been fortunate, though, to work for someone who views it as a craft; as a way to organise his thoughts into a coherent argument and present them to the world. He takes it seriously. He was anonymous when he walked into that Boston hall in 2004, and a political rock star when he walked out. That is what a speech can do.

To this day, by the way, he reminds me that he wrote that one by himself. All the time.

He’s a frighteningly good writer, which makes my job both harder and easier. Harder because I will stay up all night to get him a draft he will be happy with. Easier because if I do not hit the mark, he is there to back me up. And when it came to any speech of consequence, President Obama was actively involved in the product. We would often begin the process for big speeches by sitting down with him in the Oval Office. We called it “The Download”. He would walk us through what was on his mind, what he wanted to say, and we would type as fast as possible.

He would always begin with the question, “what story are we trying to tell?”

Once we got his download, we would get to work, and get him a draft. He would often work on it himself until well past midnight. And this may sound counter-intuitive, but it was always a good thing to hear that he had a lot of edits. It did not mean he disliked what we put down. It meant we gave him what he needed to do the job.

When I was drafting the Charleston eulogy, for example – the speech in which he sang Amazing Grace – I stayed up for three days straight trying to make it perfect. I handed the draft to him the afternoon before the speech and went home to sleep. Right before I turned in, I got an email from him asking me to come back and meet him at 11 o’clock that night.

He told me he liked the first two pages. But he had rewritten the next two pages in just a few hours. It was annoying. Still, I apologised for what I saw as letting him down. But he stopped me and said, “Brother, we are collaborators. You gave me what I needed. The muse hit. And when you have been thinking about this stuff for 40 years, you will know what you want to say, too.”

Jon was good at building the big case and laying out the big argument. That was not my strength. I went for people’s guts. I wanted to build moral and emotional cases. I wanted to make people feel something. A sense of connection. A sense of belonging. A sense of being heard. That’s a pretty important part of storytelling.

And I think the best story we ever told came in a 2015 speech in Selma, Alabama.

In 1965, a group of mostly black Americans set out to march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery to demand their right to vote. They barely made it across the town bridge before their non-violent protest was met with violent resistance. The images shocked the conscience of the country and pushed President Johnson to call for a Voting Rights Act.

The idea that just 50 years later, a black president would return to commemorate what they did was extraordinary enough. We could have gone with a safe, simple speech commemorating the anniversary. People would have understood the symbolism. It would have been enough.

US president Barack Obama walks alongside Amelia Boynton Robinson (second right), one of the original marchers; first lady Michelle Obama; and US Representative John Lewis (second left), Democrat of Georgia, and also one of the original marchers, across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to mark the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches on March 7th, 2015. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

But the week before, a Republican politician went on television and said this: “I know this is a terrible thing to say . . . ” By the way, if you begin a thought that way, you don’t have to finish it. Free advice. But he continued, “I do not believe that the President loves America . . . He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up, through love of this country.”

I was pissed about it. It was more dog whistle nonsense designed to delegitimise the first African American president – and, I might add, the first president to win more than 51 per cent of the vote twice since Dwight Eisenhower almost 60 years earlier.

“No Drama Obama”, true to form, was not ruffled. He thought it was a comment that merited no response. He did, however, think it was an idea worth taking on. Who gets to decide what it means to love America? Who gets to decide who belongs and who does not? Who gets to decide what patriotism is all about? And we came up with the thesis of that speech:

What could be more American than what happened in this place? What could more profoundly vindicate the idea of America than plain and humble people, the unsung, the downtrodden, the dreamers not of high station, not born to wealth or privilege, not of one religious tradition but many, coming together to shape their country’s course?

What greater expression of faith in the American experiment than this, what greater form of patriotism is there than the belief that America is not yet finished, that we are strong enough to be self-critical, that each successive generation can look upon our imperfections and decide that it is in our power to remake this nation to more closely align with our highest ideals?

The rest of that half hour made up my favourite speech. It was our purest collaboration. At one point, I made a joke that our story is too often told, in political speeches at least, as if the Founding Fathers set everything up, some Irish and Italians came over, we beat the Nazis, and here we are. But there is more to our story than that. This felt more complete, more honest. He said well, let’s include some characters from our story. “Go come up with some America.”

I grabbed my speechwriters, and we came up with: “Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea, pioneers who braved the unfamiliar, followed by a stampede of farmers and miners, and entrepreneurs and hucksters. Sojourner Truth and Fannie Lou Hamer, and Susan B Anthony, women who could do as much as any man and then some.” We made it a big open casting call:

Immigrants and Holocaust survivors, Soviet defectors, the Lost Boys of Sudan. Slaves and ranch hands and cowboys and labourers and organisers.

The GIs who liberated a continent and the Tuskeegee Airmen, and Navajo code-talkers, and the Japanese Americans who fought for this country even as their own liberty had been denied. The firefighters who rushed into those buildings on 9/11. The volunteers who signed up to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. The gay Americans whose blood ran in the streets of San Francisco and New York, just as blood ran down that bridge.

The inventors of gospel and jazz and blues, bluegrass and country, and hip-hop and rock and roll, all our very own sound with all the sweet sorrow and reckless joy of freedom.

That’s what America is. Not stock photos or airbrushed history, or feeble attempts to define some of us as more American than others. We respect the past, but we don’t pine for the past. We don’t fear the future; we grab for it. America is not some fragile thing. We are large, in the words of Whitman, containing multitudes.

If there is one Obama speech I could make people watch, that is it. It was the best, most joyous distillation of the way he sees what this country is and can be. It was the idea that through the hard work of self-government, generations of Americans, often young Americans, often without power or title, often at great risk to themselves, have looked upon our flaws and worked to widen the circle of our founding ideals until they include everybody, and not just some.

That is how I see politics. This collective endeavour; the balance between the realism to see the world as it is, and the idealism to fight for the world as it should be anyway.

It was the exhausting, fulfilling work of those 2,922 days in the White House that gave my career meaning. But when I feel the tugging temptation of cynicism, I reach for my proof point that this whole messy endeavour of democracy can work: the 10 most hopeful days I ever saw in politics.

They began in the darkest way imaginable – a mass shooting in the basement of a Charleston church. A black church. It threatened to reopen the kinds of wounds and spark the kinds of recrimination we saw more recently in Charlottesville. But it did not unfold that way. The families of the victims forgave their killer in court. Then, there was a public recognition of the pain that the Confederate flag stirs in so many citizens, and actual introspection and self-examination that we too rarely see in public life, to the point where that flag finally came down from the South Carolina state capitol.

At the same time, it was a week when the supreme court could rule on any case, at any time, with no heads up. So while we worked on the president’s eulogy for Charleston, we were busy drafting several other statements in case he had to speak quickly.

Thursday morning, boom: Obamacare was upheld as constitutional for the second time. Obama spoke. Friday morning, boom: marriage equality becomes a reality in America. Obama spoke. An hour later, we boarded Marine One to fly to Air Force One, which would ferry us to Charleston.

I was still working in his changes to the eulogy for that afternoon. He had added the lyrics to Amazing Grace overnight. And just before he stepped off the helicopter, he turned and said, “you know, if it feels right, I might sing it”. Exhausted, I simply said “okay”. And that night, we returned to a White House that was no longer white – but bathed in the colours of the rainbow. We wrote 10 speeches in those 10 days – plus a few that never had to see the light of day.

Those 10 days were on my mind as I added these words to President Obama’s farewell address:

Ultimately, that's what our democracy demands. It needs you. Not just when there's an election, not just when your own narrow interest is at stake, but over the full span of a lifetime. If you're tired of arguing with strangers on the internet, try to talk with one in real life. If something needs fixing, lace up your shoes and do some organising. If you're disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures, and run for office yourself. Show up. Dive in. Persevere. Sometimes you'll win. Sometimes you'll lose. Presuming a reservoir of goodness in others can be a risk, and there will be times when the process disappoints you. But for those of us fortunate enough to have been a part of this work, to see it up close, let me tell you, it can energise and inspire. And more often than not, your faith in America – and in Americans – will be confirmed.

– Cody Keenan is a speechwriter who has worked with former US president Barack Obama for more than a decade. From Whence I Came – The Kennedy Legacy, Ireland and America, is edited by Brian Murphy & Donnacha Ó Beacháin. It is published by Merrion Press and dedicated to the memory of former Irish Times columnist Noel Whelan, 1968-2019

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The story of speechwriting for President Obama

Article highlights.

Want some tips on effective communication? Then look no further than former Obama speechwriter and bestselling author @DavidLitt

How did a junior campaign volunteer become a speechwriter for @BarackObama in the White House? @DavidLitt tells us his story

A mix of the speaker, the audience and the moment is what makes a speech great, says former @BarackObama speechwriter @DavidLitt

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Who's “holding the pen”?

The answer, increasingly so during President Obama's time in the White House, was David Litt, a former campaign volunteer who started working in the White House with only minimal experience as a speechwriter. A few years later and he was meeting with the president and tasked with drafting many of his most high-profile statements and addresses.

It's quite a story, and one that Litt expertly captures in his bestselling memoir , which combines laugh out loud humour with deep insight about the art of wordsmithing for a nation's chief executive. Fiercely modest and self-deprecating - both in person and in his book - Litt freely admits that he was somewhat thrown in at the deep end. “My experience in the White House was pretty different to other speechwriting jobs because of the sheer amount of time pressure,” he explains.

“I came in with some experience of writing speeches - not a tonne - in fact, I hadn't had a lot of experience doing anything. I certainly hadn't experienced writing speeches to incredibly tight deadlines under the level of scrutiny that an American president operates by. This was probably the biggest challenge and the area where I had to do the most learning on the job - and I had to do a lot of learning very quickly.”

Why speeches still matter

Leaders around the world have all manner of communications options to choose from. From tweets to YouTube videos, television clips to Snapchat, the landscape in front of them brims with opportunities to promote their message. With this in mind, it seems pertinent to ask whether speeches still matter. Are they as important as in previous generations? Litt is in no doubt.

“I think speeches still matter, and I think they'll continue to matter,” he says firmly. “The difference is that lots of other communication methods matter as well. So whether you're a politician or a CEO or anyone else, you're no longer just picking the message you want to send but also the medium by which you send it. This choice matters a lot more than it used to, especially as there are now so many options to choose from.”

He goes on to say that it is now incumbent on leaders - and their communications team - to know what works best and where. “Something might be ideal as an online video, for example, whereas others would make more sense as a speech or a tweet,” he says. “Knowing how to use different platforms to get your message across is something I think communications teams have to consider in a way that they didn't ten years ago.”

So, in his opinion, what makes for a great speech? Is it down to the oratory - such as President Obama's 2015 speech in Selma - or President Reagan's famous “Boys of Pointe du Hoc” speech commemorating the 40th anniversary of D-Day? Or maybe it is down to capturing the moment, such as Bobby Kennedy's iconic speech in response to the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King? Litt says it is down to a mix of different factors.

“Usually it's about the combination of the speaker, the audience and the moment,” he says. “There are definitely rules that can make a speech more effective and there are lots of potential mistakes that can make a speech less effective, but the speaker is only one element of the overall picture.”

Fortunately for Litt and his colleagues in the speechwriting shop, their boss was not only an accomplished writer himself - check out his edits to a Jon Favreau -penned healthcare speech early in his tenure - but also a storyteller par excellence. “Part of our job as speechwriters was to think about how to tell stories,” he recalls. “The stories in the book are obviously very different to what President Obama would have used in his speeches - for the most part - but that skill of storytelling and that experience of storytelling is something I think I have tried to use and take from one arena to another.”

Life inside the real West Wing

Any visitor to Washington, DC - first time or otherwise - normally makes a beeline for the White House at some stage. But you don't get very far. The perimeter, extended since a succession of fence-jumpers in recent years, not to mention the patrolling Secret Service agents, keeps tourists and passers-by from getting too close.

So what is it really like to work there? To be able to flash your security pass and stroll through security checks? To work a matter of feet away from the President of the United States? Litt admits that his time there was the experience of a lifetime, one that has left him with a rich abundance of memories great and small.

“One thing I remember over and over is watching President Obama walk into a room filled not with White House staff but with Americans, whether they were people visiting Washington or if he was on the road,” he says. “To be part of that moment when you know that everyone in the room is never going to forget that experience as long as they live, and to play a tiny part in making that happen, was pretty special.”

He also has some advice gleaned from his time there, useful for any new joiner to an organisation, not just the White House. “Don't try and reinvent the wheel,” he says. “When you're coming into an organisation which already has systems in place and is doing well, the tendency is to try and demonstrate how special you are. But first you need to demonstrate that you can keep pace, and only then do you get the opportunity to add something - that took me a little while to learn.”

He goes on to say that it is vital to know what your job really is, not just what your job title says. “Essentially, you need to know how you can make the lives of the people around you easier, and make sure you keep executing on that. And also, for anyone about to start work in the White House, there is a 30% discount in the cafeteria buffet from 2pm - so make sure you eat a big breakfast.”

“Anything is possible”

Today, Litt can be found working at the online comedy company Funny or Die , particularly appropriate given his skill for humour (among his roles at the White House was “holding the pen” for several of President Obama's speeches to the White House Correspondents' Dinner ).

It is clear, though, that he remains fully engaged in politics and gives the impression of itching to step back into the arena. “Like millions of Americans, the one thing that has been hammered home over the last year is that you never get to take a complete break from being a citizen trying to improve your country,” he points out. “If you don't do it, it's not like someone else can be counted on to step in.”

And while he is clear that he wouldn't want to go back to full-time speechwriting, he has a deep reservoir of knowledge ready to be to be tapped into. So, what tips would he share with anyone looking to follow in his footsteps? “In a purely practical sense, if you can transcribe a conversation and use someone's language verbatim as much as possible, then use that as a building block,” he says.

“In the private sector, this is something I was able to do and it is very useful. I would also say - be absolutely sure what the one big idea is that you want the audience to take away. A lot of speeches seem scattered, and that's because they are scattered. Even impressive, important people don't have a clear idea all the time of the one thing they want the audience to remember.”

And did he, like esteemed American biographer Robert Caro, “know his last line” and write towards it? “Speeches are a little different,” he concludes. “You should know what the headline is for someone writing about the speech - even if that person isn't actually a newspaper reporter. You should always have this in mind.”

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A Look Back At Obama's Past Convention Speeches

Ashley Young

President Obama hugs Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton after addressing the delegates during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on Wednesday night.

President Obama took the Democratic National Convention stage in Philadelphia Wednesday evening — his last as a sitting U.S. president.

The president urged America to join him in rejecting cynicism and fear and to elect Hillary Clinton as his successor.

"And that's why I can say with confidence there has never been a man or a woman, not me, not Bill, nobody, more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United States of America."

Obama's remarks Wednesday contrasted with the speeches delivered at the Republican National Convention last week. (This might not come as a surprise since partisans' views of the opposing party are the most negative they've been in nearly a quarter century .)

Obama: 'Reject Cynicism And Reject Fear' And Elect Hillary Clinton

"The irresponsible rhetoric of our president, who has used the pulpit of the presidency to divide us by race and color, has made America a more dangerous environment that frankly that I have ever seen of anybody in this room has ever watched or seen," Trump said in his own acceptance speech, arguing that only he alone could restore law and order to the nation.

Obama struck a vastly different tone, proclaiming, "America is already great. America is already strong."

It was 12 years ago that America was first introduced to the then-little-known Illinois Senate hopeful whose soaring oratory at the 2004 Democratic convention thrust him into the national spotlight.

"And it's true — I was so young that first time in Boston. And look, I'll admit it, maybe I was a little nervous addressing such a big crowd," Obama recalled on Wednesday. "But I was filled with faith; faith in America — the generous, big-hearted, hopeful country that made my story — that made all of our stories — possible."

Just four years later, he would be standing before the convention accepting the Democratic nomination, and again four years later for renomination. In all those speeches, Obama seems to carry a similar theme: all for one and one for all. (And Obama also seems to be a U2 fan because he has come out to their song "City of Blinding Lights" at every DNC since 2008.) Watch his speeches below:

Boston, 2004

"If there's a child on the South Side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. "If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription and having to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandparent. "If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. "It is that fundamental belief — it is that fundamental belief — I am my brothers' keeper, I am my sisters' keeper — that makes this country work. "It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family: ' E pluribus unum,' out of many, one."

Denver, 2008

"And it is that promise that, 45 years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher speak of his dream. "The men and women who gathered there could've heard many things. They could've heard words of anger and discord. They could've been told to succumb to the fear and frustrations of so many dreams deferred. "But what people heard instead — people of every creed and color, from every walk of life — is that, in America, our destiny is inextricably linked, that together our dreams can be one."

Charlotte, 2012

"We, the people — recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which asks only, what's in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense. "As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It's about what can be done by us, together — through the hard and frustrating but necessary work for self-government. That's what we believe."

Philadelphia, 2016

"What makes us American, what makes us patriots, is what's in here. That's what matters. And that's why we can take the food and music and holidays and styles of other countries, and blend it into something uniquely our own. That's why we can attract strivers and entrepreneurs from around the globe to build new factories and create new industries here. That's why our military can look the way it does, every shade of humanity, forged into common service. That's why anyone who threatens our values, whether fascists or communists or jihadists or homegrown demagogues, will always fail in the end. "That is America. That is America. Those bonds of affection; that common creed. We don't fear the future; we shape it, we embrace it, as one people, stronger together than we are on our own."

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Jon Favreau, head speech writer for Barack Obama

Obama inauguration: Words of history ... crafted by 27-year-old in Starbucks

When Barack Obama steps up to the podium to deliver his inaugural address, one man standing anonymously in the crowd will be paying especially close attention. With his cropped hair, five o'clock shadow and boyish face, he might look out of place among the dignitaries, though as co-author of the speech this man has more claim than most to be a witness to this moment of history.

Jon Favreau, 27, is, as Obama himself puts it, the president's mind reader. He is one of the youngest chief speechwriters on record in the White House, and, despite such youth, was at the centre of discussions of the content of today's speech, one which has so much riding on it.

For a politician whose rise to prominence was largely built upon his powers as an orator, Obama is well versed in the arts of speech-making. But today's effort will tower over all previous ones.

It is not just that Obama has set an extremely high bar by invoking the inaugural speeches of Abraham Lincoln as his inspiration - admitting to feeling "intimidated" when he read them. It is also that, as he begins his term with the US in an economic crisis and two wars, he knows he needs to kick start his presidency with a soaring rhetoric that both moves and motivates the American people.

The tone of the speech could be decisive in determining how the public responds to his first 100 days, as Franklin Roosevelt's famous line "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" helped to determine his.

Obama aides have let it be known that a key theme will be restoring responsibility - both in terms of accountability in Washington and the responsibility of ordinary people to get involved. Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff, talks of a "culture of responsibility" that would "not just be asked of the American people; its leaders must also lead by example."

In composing the high notes of the speech, Obama has leant on Favreau, whom he discovered almost by chance four years ago when the younger man was working on John Kerry's failed presidential bid. "Favs" has since studied Obama's speech patterns and cadences with the intensity of a stalker. He memorised the 2004 speech to the Democratic national convention which first brought Obama into the limelight. He is said to carry Obama's autobiography, Dreams From My Father, wherever he goes. As a result, last November when Favreau sat down to write the first draft of the inaugural address, he could conjure up his master's voice as if an accomplished impersonator.

That skill had been put to almost daily use in the 18 months of brutal campaigning on the presidential trail. Favreau would be up most nights until 3am, honing the next day's stump speeches in a caffeine haze of espressos and Red Bull energy drinks, taking breaks to play the video game Rock Band. He coined a phrase for this late-night deadline surfing: "crashing".

He crashed his way through all Obama's most memorable speeches. He wrote the draft of one that helped to turn Iowa for Obama while closeted in a coffee shop in Des Moines. For the presidential election, he wrote two speeches: one for a victory, one for defeat. When the result came through, he emailed his best friend: "Dude, we won. Oh my God."

The tension between such youthful outbursts and his onerous role has sometimes cost the 27-year-old. In December, pictures of him and a friend mocking a cardboard cut-out of Hillary Clinton at a party, Favreau's hand on her breast, were posted on Facebook to his huge embarrassment.

Obama is an accomplished writer in his own right, and the process of drafting with his mind reader is collaborative. The inaugural speech has shuttled between them four or five times, following an initial hour-long meeting in which the president-elect spoke about his vision for the address, and Favreau took notes on his computer.

Favreau then went away and spent weeks on research. His team interviewed historians and speech writers, studied periods of crisis, and listened to past inaugural orations. When ready, he took up residence in Starbucks in Washington and wrote the first draft. The end result will be uttered on the steps of the Capitol.

Obama's mind reader has crashed his way through yet another deadline.

Obama inauguration

What Obama's 27-Year-Old Speechwriter Learned From George W. Bush

On the night of the New Hampshire primary in January, a young man of twenty-six stood at the back of the crowd in the Nashua High gym and watched his boss deliver a speech conceding defeat to Hillary Clinton in the day's election. And even though his boss, Barack Obama, had lost, Jon Favreau couldn't help but smile. Obama had won big in Iowa just five days before, sending the Clinton campaign into a death spiral, but Hillary's surprising comeback meant that any notions of putting her away quickly were now dispelled. This would be a long, bloody fight for the nomination. Yet they all smiled. Had there ever been a more triumphal concession speech, ever?

And then the senator got to the emotional heart of the speech, the part when he recognized that nothing this big is easy. "For when we have faced down impossible odds, when we've been told we're not ready or that we shouldn't try or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can...."

Speeches claiming victory are never as interesting as those conceding defeat, because people are never more interesting than when they lose. In any case, neither Favreau nor his cowriters Adam Frankel and Ben Rhodes had been expecting to have to concede anything that evening. But things change quickly. After consulting with Obama for about half an hour -- Obama talked, Favreau typed notes -- they decided to reprise the hopeful refrain of "Yes, we can...." which had been the slogan of Obama's 2004 senate race in Illinois. And at that moment, a mere presidential campaign was transformed into a movement, coalesced around three simple words.

He is too busy to read much. "I'm embarrassed to say that since college" -- Favreau graduated from Holy Cross in 2003 -- "I've been so busy speechwriting for Kerry and then Barack that I haven't been reading all the good literary stuff I used to read back in the day." As for speechcraft, while he says the speeches of Bobby Kennedy are his favorites, he also says Peggy Noonan is his all-time favorite speechwriter. He cites Ronald Reagan's Pointe du Hoc speech marking the fortieth anniversary of D-day as his favorite of hers, and in Noonan's sugary epic, you can hear the faint echo of Barack Obama talking about his grandfather.

Favreau also says he has greatly admired the writing of Michael Gerson, who was President Bush's main speechwriter for five years, especially his address to the joint session of Congress after the September 11 attacks. Gerson returns the admiration. One night in New Hampshire, he sought out Favreau at a campaign rally and introduced himself to talk shop.

And Favreau is right, Gerson's speech for Bush that September 20 was one of the great speeches in American history. But it must be noted here that with that speech the discord between speech and speaker has never been more pronounced, for we have come to know that Gerson's boss never fully grasped the power of words. With an exalting script, Gerson could make George W. Bush sound like Winston Churchill for an hour. But it is Jon Favreau's task and his gift that he is able to make his boss -- a fellow who has been known to write a sentence or two on his own -- sound like Barack Obama.

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How Obama’s Reading Shaped His Writing

"obama-the-writer came before obama-the-candidate.".

Josh Kalven loved walking through Hyde Park. Sometimes he explored the University of Chicago’s campus. Sometimes he headed straight to his job at 57th Street Books, a store that belonged to the neighborhood’s Seminary Co-op.

One day, in the spring of 1996, Kalven walked past a yard sign on Lake Park Avenue. It was odd that he noticed it; most people tune out bids for the state senate. It was even odder that he recognized the name. Where had he seen that name, Obama? Oh yeah , Kalven remembered, that guy’s a member at the bookstore .

Barack Obama first joined the Co-op in 1986, and for many years he would duck into 57th Street’s basement location, wearing a leather jacket in the winter and shirtsleeves rolled up in the summer, browsing quietly while the shop echoed with the sounds of the apartment dwellers above. Obama often came at night, just before closing, circling the new releases table in the front, studying the staff selections along the back, and usually leaving with a small stack of novels and nonfiction. At the counter, he would spell his name to get the member discount—a treasured and anonymous ritual unless your name was strange enough, and your visits frequent enough, that a clerk might start to remember you.

Obama’s anonymity ended for good in 2004, when he gave his famous keynote at the Democratic National Convention. In that speech, he shared his unique biography—the father from Kenya, the mother from Kansas—and underlined its themes of unity and hope. As Obama put it, “my story is part of the larger American story.”

Today, Obama’s story feels as simple and obvious as a Wikipedia page. Yet it took him years to process this story—to understand it, to interpret it, to create it. These were the years he spent writing (and failing to write) Dreams from My Father . “Writing a book,” he later said, “forced me to be honest about myself. . . . It was good training for the kind of politics I try to practice now.” Obama-the-writer came before Obama-the-candidate.

But Obama-the-reader came first.

Barack Obama was born in 1961, in Hawaii, and his early life was marked by displacement. His father left the island while Obama was still a baby; his mother moved him to Indonesia while he was still a child. At ten, he returned to Hawaii to live with his grandparents, and during each of these changes, changes he rarely controlled, Obama relied on books—starting with Dr. Seuss, graduating to Spiderman and science fiction, ending in high school with the novels of James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison. “I loved reading,” he later said. “The idea of having these worlds that were portable, that were yours, that you could enter into, was appealing to me.”

In 1979, Obama enrolled at Occidental College, a liberal arts school in Los Angeles. Like many of his era’s bookish undergrads, he encountered two approaches to literature: reading for empathy and reading for ideology. Another way to define this divide was reading like a novelist and reading like an English professor. Toni Morrison had offered a good example of the first approach only two years earlier, in an interview about her new novel Song of Solomon , which was also her first novel to feature men as major characters. Morrison described how hard she’d worked to enter the minds of those men—“to become that intimate with a character,” as she put it, “to try to feel what it was really like.”

This act of imagination—in creating characters and, just as much, in reading someone else’s characters, in entering their minds a second time and empathizing with their point of view—was becoming central to the teaching of creative writing. At Occidental, Obama sought out the literary crowd. “There was a strong circle of supportive but competitive writers,” recalled Tom Grauman, a classmate of Obama’s. “Basically, we all wanted to be in Paris between the wars.” Instead they found themselves in The Cooler, the campus’s cinderblock diner, where they talked earnestly about their reading and writing. Obama enrolled in a seminar where he workshopped his poetry; he submitted poems to Feast , the campus’s ambitious literary magazine. The whole time, Obama continued to read on his own. The book that shaped him the most, he later said, was Song of Solomon .

At The Cooler, Obama and his friends also talked about the intersection of literature and politics. He got more of this approach after transferring to Columbia University in 1981. While Obama had decided to major in political science, his English electives offered similar ideas: a lecture course with Edward Said that analyzed fiction through a postcolonial lens, a seminar with Lennard Davis that looked at the ideologies embedded in Dickens and Defoe. This second style of reading resonated with Obama, as well. “I recommend Marxism and Literature by Raymond Williams,” he wrote to a friend during his senior year. “It generally has a pretty good aim at some Marxist applications of cultural study.”

And yet in the end Obama sided not with the English professors but with the novelists. Consider a passage from early in Dreams , where Obama chatted with two black classmates at Occidental, one of whom, Marcus, condemned the “racist tract” Obama was carrying, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Regina smiled and shook her head as we watched Marcus stride out the door. “Marcus is in one of his preaching moods, I see.”

I tossed the book into my backpack. “Actually, he’s right,” I said. “It is a racist book. The way Conrad sees it, Africa’s the cesspool of the world, black folks are savages, and any contact with them breeds infection.”

Regina blew on her coffee. “So why are you reading it?”

“Because it’s assigned.” I paused, not sure if I should go on. “And because—”

“Because . . .”

“And because the book teaches me things,” I said. “About white people, I mean. See, the book’s not really about Africa. Or black people. It’s about the man who wrote it. The European. The American. A particular way of looking at the world. If you can keep your distance, it’s all there, in what’s said and what’s left unsaid. So I read the book to help me understand just what it is that makes white people so afraid. Their demons. The way ideas get twisted around. It helps me understand how people learn to hate.”

Obama’s classmate, Marcus, was echoing Chinua Achebe, who a few years earlier had described Conrad and his book as “bloody racist.” At first Obama seemed to agree—or at least to try for some kind of consensus between the empathy and ideology sects. Ultimately, though, he chose to focus less on politics than on people. Obama read fiction because he wanted to experience psychological interiority—in Conrad’s readers, in Conrad’s characters, in Conrad himself.

After graduation, Obama felt torn between several possible futures, including one that was vaguely literary, in which he would try to write fiction, and one that was vaguely political, in which, drawing from a different strain of his reading, on the history of civil rights, he would try to make a difference.

By 1985, politics seemed to be winning. Obama had landed a job as a community organizer in Chicago, a job he worked hard at, building support for issues like asbestos removal. He also continued to read and write. Obama started browsing the new releases table at 57th Street Books. He started writing fiction of his own, eventually completing several stories he shared with his fellow organizers. “Take a look at this,” he said to one, a bit embarrassed, before handing over a draft about a storefront preacher. The stories showed promise, particularly in the relationships between their characters. “Write outside your own experience,” Obama urged another friend in a letter, though only after he urged him to cut back on the adverbs. “Write a story about your Grandmother in Armenia, or your sister in college; I find that this works the fictive imagination harder.”

After a few years of organizing, Obama headed to Harvard Law School. He wanted a more practical way to make a difference. In 1990, the Harvard Law Review elected Obama as its new president, making him the first African American to hold that spot. The choice was covered by the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune , among many other outlets, and each story hit the same Obama beats: his historic first, his unusual biography, and his political ambitions. “Down the road,” the Los Angeles Times noted, “he plans to run for public office.”

When Jane Dystel saw those stories, she decided to give Obama a call. Dystel was a fiery literary agent who’d spent a year in law school herself, and she promised Obama there was a book in all this buzz. Obama admitted that he’d thought about writing a novel, though never nonfiction, and he came to Manhattan to discuss it further. “We both said,” Dystel later recalled, “it should be a memoir.”

Literary memoir was thriving in the 1980s and early 1990s, inspired by new classics like Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior . Kingston applied the novelist’s tools of character and empathy to her actual life. She tried to capture what it felt like to be a daughter, to be confused, to be simultaneously Chinese and American, and this kind of narrative was emerging as a vibrant presence in bookstores, literary journals, and creative writing workshops, where memoir taught as easily as minimalism.

Dystel helped Obama craft a proposal for the memoir they were calling Journeys in Black and White . Obama listed his literary models, including Maya Angelou, John Edgar Wideman, and Maxine Hong Kingston. But he was also detailing how much his reading had shaped his worldview. “Such works take on the narrative force of fiction,” he wrote in the proposal, “and invite the reader to share in the hopes, dreams, disappointments and triumphs of individual characters, thereby soliciting a sense of empathy and universality that is absent in too many works on race in America.”

In the fall of 1990, Obama’s proposal set off a bidding war, with a Simon & Schuster imprint winning for around $125,000. Obama’s contract called for an initial payment of $40,000, an outcome that thrilled him. He was twenty-nine years old, and for the first time in a while, his literary side seemed to have a shot at winning.

The writing proved difficult, which left the author eager for distraction. Obama had returned to Chicago, where he was spending more and more time with a lawyer he’d met named Michelle Robinson. To his publisher’s irritation, Obama had also agreed to run a voter registration drive—what was in many ways a campaign in miniature. “Do you want to write this memoir,” someone from the drive asked, “or rescue democracy?”

Obama, as usual, wanted to do both. While meeting with activists and voters, he carried a bag that held his handwritten drafts and the boxy laptop he used to type and revise them. When he finally submitted a chunk of the book, it was months late. The draft included some fine personal passages, but they were often drowned out by dense academic asides.

On October 3, 1992, Barack and Michelle were married. On October 20, Simon & Schuster cancelled the contract. He no longer had a publisher. (It was worse than that: he now owed Simon & Schuster forty thousand dollars.) But with Dystel’s encouragement, Obama began a second major draft. “The best story here,” one of his friends told him, “is you.”

That was also the hardest story. One of the things Obama loved about writing was the way it forced him to clarify what he thought and felt about something. In this case, though, that meant clarifying his fractured identity—and the anger he harbored at his white family and his absent black father.

Obama kept writing, and that meant he kept reading. One of the books he studied during this period was Kingston’s Woman Warrior , and it shows. Dreams was becoming a true literary memoir, built out of characters, epiphanies, and cinematic scenes. Obama was tough on himself. He was tough on his family, using his grandparents’ racial blind spots to demonstrate the realities white people often miss. Yet Obama also captured his grandparents’ complexity—their struggles and sacrifices and love.

By the spring of 1993, Obama had finished the new draft. Dystel called Henry Ferris, an editor at Times Books, and he agreed to look at a partial manuscript. It arrived by messenger service, an oversized box stuffed with hundreds of pages. “I was like, ‘What am I taking on here?’” Ferris recalled. “But before I was at the bottom of the first page, I was convinced I had to buy the book.”

Ferris gave Obama a flat $40,000, to pay off the Simon & Schuster debt, and the author continued to write and revise. Dreams finally appeared in August 1995. On pub day, Obama sent flowers to the Times Books offices. He was proud of his book. While it eventually dropped out of print, it got him some nice reviews and a modest book tour. One of the stops was 57th Street Books.

On the night of the reading, about thirty people showed up, most of them familiar faces from community organizing and the University of Chicago. As Obama introduced the book, he seemed slightly awkward, a little abstract. Once he started reading, though, he transformed. That night he gave a confident authorial performance, drawing out words, slipping into accents, and choosing the perfect pauses—a reminder that he mastered his style as a writer long before he mastered his style as an orator.

Politics beat literature—finally, decisively—a few weeks after the book tour ended, when Obama announced he was running for state senate. Over the next few years he rose from state senator to US senator to president. Dreams , back into print after his convention speech, came with him, combining with The Audacity of Hope to sell more than 6 million copies. Together, they make up the twenty-first century’s most successful campaign books.

And yet Dreams is more than that. Plenty of presidents have written books; a surprising number of them have even written good books. But outside of John Quincy Adams, who spent much of his political career wishing he’d become a great American poet instead, no other president has written a book that aspired to literature as clearly as Obama’s did.

Obama’s reading shaped these aspirations. While he’d told many people about his desire to run for office, including the journalists who’d covered him at the Harvard Law Review , Obama worked far too obsessively on Dreams and its revisions for it to be some sort of long-term political gambit. Dreams is not revealing because Obama wrote it before he had electoral ambitions. It’s revealing because he wrote it after he had them—because even then, he couldn’t help but write a book that was stubborn, poetic, confessional. Obama didn’t do this for money or future votes. He did it because books had always mattered to him and because he wanted to write something that measured up to the best books he’d read.

In the end, this process produced a surprising political benefit, a benefit even bigger than the millions of copies Dreams sold. Writing a book helped Obama see that his life was itself a story—that his character could be emphasized and adjusted, could be shaped to seem radical and angry (reading Heart of Darkness , seeing “demons” in white people) and yet, by the end of that very same chapter, could be shaped to seem unifying and hopeful (cataloguing the lessons he’d learned, including many “from my grandparents”). Dreams didn’t form just Obama. It formed his rhetorical style and his empathetic, consensus-driven politics.

As he put it in 1995, during one of the few interviews he did for his book, “My family is an example—and hopefully I am an example—of the possibility of arriving at some common ground.”

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He wrote for a president. What Cody Keenan can teach you about crafting a great speech

Weinberg College

Northwestern alumnus Cody Keenan ’02 isn’t psychic — and that’s probably for the best.

If, on June 17, 2015, he knew what the next 10 days held in store, he might have been overwhelmed by the pressure. The dramatic week-and-a-half stretch began with a mass shooting in a Charleston, South Carolina, church and ended with two landmark Supreme Court decisions that changed American life forever. As President Barack Obama’s chief speechwriter, Keenan was in charge of writing speeches, statements and a heart-wrenching eulogy, all in response to the deluge of historic events.

“Luckily, I didn’t have the benefit of foresight,” Keenan said. “I wasn’t burdened by the knowledge of what was coming or how the Supreme Court would rule on marriage equality and the Affordable Care Act. We grappled with these events in real time, just like everyone else.”

Keenan shares his memories of those fateful, fleeting days in his new book “Grace: President Obama and Ten Days in the Battle for America.” The gripping account is so engrossing that readers will forget they already know the outcome of these events. Instead, Keenan creates a wholly immersive narrative that pulls readers into the whirlwind, as hours collapse into seconds and intense pressure reaches a fever pitch.

Now a member of the Northwestern faculty, Keenan teaches a course on speechwriting at the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. He will participate in two upcoming campus events — a virtual talk on Tuesday, Sept. 27 and an in-person appearance Friday, Oct. 7 , during Homecoming and Reunion Weekend — to reflect on his past experience and share stories from the book, which comes out on Oct. 4.

> Related: Learning to write like a president sounds

Keenan talked to Northwestern Now about writing under pressure, the art of penning a great speech and the importance of embracing empathy to reach diverse audiences.

It has been seven years since those events. Why did you write this book now?

I still worked for President Obama until early 2021, so I had ethical concerns over writing a book that was largely about him while still on his payroll. But I posted a Twitter thread on the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision on marriage equality (Obergefell v. Hodges). I wanted to show America at its best and remind people what this country is capable of. My “tweetstorm” sort of took off, and I realized there might be a book in all of this.

After writing speeches in Obama’s voice for so long, was it difficult to pivot to your own?

After writing for Obama for so many years, I adopted parts of his worldview. But we have very different writing styles. In general, speechwriting is quite different from writing a book. With speechwriting, you’re writing for the ear, so it needs to be more colloquial. The audience isn’t able to read along with you. You want to keep sentences shorter, so they are easier for the speaker. You also have to add tips and tricks to keep your audience’s attention. Even just adding phrases like “Listen up” or “Now, this is important.” It might sound silly or weird to write that way, but it helps grab attention. In my own writing, I’m a little more blunt. But I can afford to be blunt in ways the president could not.

You had to confront the concept of race after the white supremacist attack in Charleston. As a white man, how did you handle that?

On the outside, Obama and I couldn’t be much more different. But we share a worldview, and that made it easier to get into his head and imagine what he would say if he had the time. That’s easier with policy speeches. With topics surrounding race, it was always tough.

The most important thing about speechwriting — besides being able to string sentences together — is having a sense of empathy. You have to understand your audience and try walking in their shoes. But there are limits to empathy, in terms of imagination. I’ve never been racially profiled, asked for my ID or had to have a conversation with my child about what to do when a police officer approaches you. For speeches like that, I needed more time with Obama before I got started. Ultimately, they’re his words — not mine. Speechwriters are never putting their own views into a speech. So, I tried to get as much guidance from him as I could before beginning. That helped a lot.

What was it like having the president as your editor?

He has very high expectations. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to deliver a good draft because he expected it. But then he could always take that draft to a higher place. Whatever we gave him, he made it better. We just didn’t want him to have to do that work, so we went all out to get him a draft that was up to his standards. The reason our relationship worked so well was because I could give him material that might shake loose another thought. If a sentence was good, he would tack on other ideas to make it great. That’s when we were at our best.

What was the most difficult speech or statement that you had to write?

The eulogy for Rev. Clementa Pinckney and the other victims of the Charleston shooting, for sure. We also had to write statements just in case the Supreme Court ruled against Obamacare or marriage equality. Those were difficult and sad to write. How do you speak to a country where people are grieving because they can’t marry the person they love? Or are about to lose their health insurance? But the Charleston speech was the hardest because it had a few third rails: race, the Confederate flag, guns. And, going into it, we knew everyone would be watching with high expectations. It felt like navigating a minefield, and we just wanted to get to the other side.

How did you cope with that pressure?

I always write better under pressure and with a deadline bearing down on me because there’s no time to overthink. I also had a great support system. My wife (my fiancée at the time) was, and still is, my ultimate supporter. She gives me my best ideas. Our White House was, I think, unique in that more people stayed through the entire presidency than any other. The presidential primary campaign was so long and contentious that we were really forged into a family. We loved each other. That might sound cheesy, but it’s true.

What tips do you have for Northwestern students who want to become speechwriters?

Take my class! This is such a tough field to break into because of a Catch-22. You need a portfolio of speeches to get a job, but you don’t have a portfolio because you’re just getting started. In my class, students produce 10 different speeches, so they have a collection when they graduate.

If you can’t take my class, talk to professors and deans who give speeches and ask if you can help. Or write some op-eds, which really are like mini-speeches. Just start writing. As with anything else, the more you do it, the better you get.

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Why it worked: A rhetorical analysis of Obama’s speech on race

The National Conference of Teachers of English (NCTE) has declared today a National Day on Writing. I celebrate such a day. The introduction of my book "Writing Tools" imagines what America might look like and sound like if we declared ourselves a “nation of writers.” After all, what good is freedom of expression if we lack the means to express ourselves?

To mark this day – and to honor language arts teachers everywhere – Poynter is republishing an essay I wrote almost a decade ago. Remember? It was the spring of 2008 and Barack Obama was running for president. Many of us wondered if America was ready to elect an African-American president (a man with the middle name Hussein).

To dispel the fears of some white Americans and to advance his chances for election, Obama delivered a major address on race in America, a speech that was praised even by some of his adversaries. Obama had/has a gift for language. He is a skilled orator. To neutralize that advantage, his opponents – including Hillary Clinton at one point – would characterize Obama’s words as empty “rhetoric” – an elaborate trick of language.

The Spring of 2008 seems like such a long time ago. A time just before the Great Recession. A time just before the ascendancy of social networks and the trolls who try to poison them. A time before black lives were said to matter in a more assertive way. A time before fake news was anything more dangerous that a piece of satire in the Onion. A time before Colin Kaepernick took a knee — except when he was tired. A time before torch-bearing white supremacists marched through the night in Charlottesville, Virginia.

It feels like the perfect time for a restart on a conversation about race. To prepare us, let’s take another look at the words of Barack Obama before he was president. Let’s review what he said, and, more important, how and why he said it. My X-ray analysis of that speech is meant not as a final word on that historical moment, but as an invitation, a doorway to a room where we can all reflect on American history and the American language.

Have a great National Day on Writing.

More than a century ago, scholar and journalist W.E.B. DuBois wrote a single paragraph about how race is experienced in America. I have learned more from those 112 words than from most book-length studies of the subject:

After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, — an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder."

Much has been said about the power and brilliance of Barack Obama's March 18 speech on race, even by some of his detractors. The focus has been on the orator's willingness to say things in public about race that are rarely spoken at all, even in private, and his expressed desire to move the country to a new and better place. There has also been attention to the immediate purpose of the speech, which was to reassure white voters that they had nothing to fear from the congregant of a fiery African-American pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Amid all the commentary, I have yet to see an X-Ray reading of the text that would make visible the rhetorical strategies that the orator and authors used so effectively. When received in the ear, these effects breeze through us like a harmonious song. When inspected with the eye, these moves become more apparent, like reading a piece of sheet music for a difficult song and finally recognizing the chord changes.

Such analysis, while interesting in itself, might be little more than a scholarly curiosity if we were not so concerned with the language issues of political discourse. The popular opinion is that our current president, though plain spoken, is clumsy with language. Fair or not, this perception has produced a hope that our next president will be a more powerful communicator, a Kennedy or Reagan, perhaps, who can use language less as a way to signal ideology and more as a means to bring the disparate parts of the nation together. Journalists need to pay closer attention to political language than ever before.

Like most memorable pieces of oratory, Obama's speech sounds better than it reads. We have no way of knowing if that was true of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but it is certainly true of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech. If you doubt this assertion, test it out. Read the speech and then experience it in its original setting recited by his soulful voice.

The effectiveness of Obama's speech rests upon four related rhetorical strategies:

1. The power of allusion and its patriotic associations. 2. The oratorical resonance of parallel constructions. 3. The "two-ness" of the texture, to use DuBois's useful term. 4. His ability to include himself as a character in a narrative about race.

Allusion Part of what made Dr. King's speech resonate, not just for black people, but for some whites, was its framing of racial equality in familiar patriotic terms: "This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning, 'My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.'" What follows, of course, is King's great litany of iconic topography that carries listeners across the American landscape: "Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!…"

In this tradition, Obama begins with "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union," a quote from the Constitution that becomes a recurring refrain linking the parts of the speech. What comes next is "Two hundred and twenty one years ago," an opening that places him in the tradition of Lincoln at Gettysburg and Dr. King at the Lincoln Memorial: "Five score years ago."

On the first page, Obama mentions the words democracy, Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia convention, 1787, the colonies, the founders, the Constitution, liberty, justice, citizenship under the law, parchment, equal, free, prosperous, and the presidency. It is not as well known as it should be that many black leaders, including Dr. King, use two different modes of discourse when addressing white vs. black audiences, an ignorance that has led to some of the hysteria over some of Rev. Wright's comments.

Obama's patriotic lexicon is meant to comfort white ears and soothe white fears. What keeps the speech from falling into a pandering sea of slogans is language that reveals, not the ideals, but the failures of the American experiment: "It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations." And "what would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part … to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time."

Lest a dark vision of America disillusion potential voters, Obama returns to familiar evocations of national history, ideals, and language:

— "Out of many, we are truly one." — "survived a Depression." — "a man who served his country" — "on a path of a more perfect union" — "a full measure of justice" — "the immigrant trying to feed his family" — "where our union grows stronger" — "a band of patriots signed that document."

Parallelism At the risk of calling to mind the worst memories of grammar class, I invoke the wisdom that parallel constructions help authors and orators make meaning memorable. To remember how parallelism works, think of equal terms to express equal ideas. So Dr. King dreamed that one day his four children "will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." ( By the content of their character is parallel to by the color of their skin .)

Back to Obama: "This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign — to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America." If you are counting, that's five parallel phrases among 43 words.

And there are many more:

Two-ness I could argue that Obama's speech is a meditation upon DuBois' theory of a dual experience of race in America. There is no mention of DuBois or two-ness, but it is all there in the texture. In fact, once you begin the search, it is remarkable how many examples of two-ness shine through:

— "through protests and struggles" — "on the streets and in the courts" — "through civil war and civil disobedience" — "I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas." — "white and black" — "black and brown" — "best schools … poorest nations" — "too black or not black enough" — "the doctor and the welfare mom" — "the model student and the former gang-banger …" — "raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor" — "political correctness or reverse racism" — "your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams"

Such language manages to create both tension and balance and, without being excessively messianic, permits Obama to present himself as the bridge builder, the reconciler of America's racial divide.

Autobiography There is an obnoxious tendency among political candidates to frame their life story as a struggle against poverty or hard circumstances. As satirist Stephen Colbert once noted of presidential candidates, it is not enough to be an average millionaire. To appeal to populist instincts it becomes de rigueur to be descended from "goat turd farmers" in France.

Without dwelling on it, Obama reminds us that his father was black and his mother white, that he came from Kenya, but she came from Kansas: "I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slave and slave owners — an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles, and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible."

The word "story" is revealing one, for it is always the candidate's job (as both responsibility and ploy) to describe himself or herself as a character in a story of his or her own making. In speeches, as in homilies, stories almost always carry the weight of parable, with moral lessons to be drawn.

Most memorable, of course, is the story at the end of the speech — which is why it appears at the end. It is the story of Ashley Baia, a young, white, Obama volunteer from South Carolina, whose family was so poor she convinced her mother that her favorite meal was a mustard and relish sandwich.

"Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. … He simply says to everyone in the room, 'I am here because of Ashley.'"

During most of the 20th century, demagogues, especially in the South, gained political traction by pitting working class whites and blacks against each other. How fitting, then, that Obama's story points in the opposite direction through an old black man who feels a young white woman's pain.

CORRECTION : An earlier version of this post incorrectly attributed the phrase, "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union" to the Declaration of Independence.

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Does President Obama write his own speeches?

Mostly, yes, according to Time Magazine, but he passes them around for comments, especially from Obama's speechwriter Jon Favreau.

"When you're working with Senator Obama the main player on a speech is Senator Obama," Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, said. "He is the best speechwriter in the group and he knows what he wants to say and he generally says it better than anybody else would."

When campaigning for the Presidency, and as a Senator, this was true. Now, as President, Obama has very little time to devote to speechwriting, and the large quantity of speeches he is required to make demand a speechwriting staff handle the vast majority of work around speeches. This is no different than any other modern President - speechwriting is staffed out, with the President usually giving final editorial input, but the "message" and the language are almost always that of someone else.

Frankly, only a very important occasion would be cause for Obama to write even a portion of a speech, as there simply is far better use of his time now as President.

Yes and no. Some of his best speeches during his political career as a senator were his creations; but he does not write them all exclusively any more. In fact, during his first term as president, Mr. Obama's chief speech writer was a young man named Jon Favreau. When he left in early 2013, the president found a new speechwriter, Cody Keenan. But throughout his political career, the president has taken a very hands-on approach to his speeches, collaborating with his speechwriter and offering his own revisions as well as making changes where necessary.

One of Mr. Obama's most Famous Speeches that garnered his early recognition as a great orator and politician on his way up, was given as the Keynote at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. He wrote at least 80% of that speech himself, according to Dan Shomon, political director of more than one of the previous Obama political campaigns. The following is from a 2005 profile article in the Columbia College Today newspaper about their alumnus, Barack Obama (see link below for the full article).

"More good fortune came in the form of the Kerry campaign inviting Obama to deliver the convention's keynote address. 'They wanted somebody to represent the diversity of the party, and people knew he was a good speaker,' Shomon said.

Obama is a natural and polished orator. What he has had to work on, those who know him say, are his one-on-one connections. During his eight years in the state senate, Obama spent more time with his constituents and learned to be an attentive listener, they say. Those skills were essential in connecting with statewide voters during the Senate campaign. Obama successfully appealed to inner-city blacks and suburban professionals as well as downstate farmers and factory workers. When he reached out to the state's rural areas, he was able to relate to the farmers there because 'those folks were very much like the grandparents from Kansas who raised him,' [David] Axelrod says.

Obama drafted the convention speech on paper during two nights in a hotel room during the campaign. He writes all of his speeches, bills and other important documents, according to Shomon. When Obama finished the draft of the speech, he faxed a copy to Axelrod, who says, 'I was reading it and handing each page to my wife, and my mouth was agape, because it was beautiful and profound. How many people in public life can write like this?' Axelrod says the consultants and the Kerry camp recommended few changes, and 80 percent of the final speech was the same as the original draft.

It was a hit..."

As the vast majority of speeches a President gives are "ordinary" - things like a "stump" speech while campaigning, or speeches to various groups while traveling - they tend to be both duplicated, and rather dull. The huge quantity of speeches that modern Presidents have to give (as many as a hundred or more a year), means that virtually all of them have traditionally been written by a speech writing staff. Major speeches, like the State of the Union, will be crafted by the chief speechwriter, but as mentioned before, Mr. Obama provides considerable input.

Abraham Lincoln Wrote his own speeches.

yes !sometimes..

Yes he did write his inauguration speech.

Add your answer:

Who writes Obama's speeches?

All presidents have at least one speechwriter. Some presidents write more of their own speeches than others.

Who writes the current US President speeches?

During his time as a senator, the current US president Barrack Obama would write his own speeches. When he became president, they were written by Jon Favreau.

Did President Harding write his own speeches?

Who was the last president to write his own speeches.

The last president to extensively write his own speeches was Jimmy Carter. He was known for his hands-on approach to speechwriting and wrote many of his own speeches during his presidency from 1977 to 1981.

Did king write his own speeches?

Yes he did, who else?

Does President Obama own google?

No he doesn't

What passport did President Obama use in 1981?

Did martin luther king write his own speeches.

yes he was a minster

What would you have to do if you were a speechwriter for the president?

Your job would include writing interesting, memorable and understandable speeches, helping him to make his points in a way that is both clear and compelling. Writing good presidential speeches requires a good vocabulary, the ability to make difficult concepts clearer, the ability to tell a story and hold the audience's interest, and the ability to adapt different kinds of speeches to different audiences (you wouldn't write the same kind of speech for an audience of professors that you would for an audience of teenagers, for example). You would also have to know politics (obviously) so that your speeches would help the president advance his policy agenda. Some presidents, Barack Obama among them, like to write some of their own speeches, but nearly every modern president has used speechwriters sometimes. You would thus need to work well with the president, so that he trusts you and feels comfortable with the way you help him explain his ideas to the audience.

Did Martin Luther King Jr write all of his own speeches?

What are some speeches for class president.

You need to write your own speech so it will be meaningful to you and your classmates. Talk about what you're going to do as president and why it's important to the school. Talk about how eager you are to help the class by doing these things. Thank everyone who helped you.

Do all presidents have to give back-to-school speeches?

No- this is Obama's own idea. He has been criticized for giving these speeches during the school day and taking away from class time and also for his possible attempts to indoctrinate impressionable children with his own politics .

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Barack Obama’s winning communication techniques

In Communication by talkforce 05/10/2013

How you can use Barack Obama’s winning communication techniques: Analysis of his victory speech

By Tony Biancotti , talkforce communications expert and former political speechwriter

Do you remember where you were when Barack Obama won the Presidency of the United States of America? Did you join the tens of millions of people around the world huddled around radios or televisions to witness his history-making victory speech? talkforce has been carefully studying Obama’s speaking techniques over the past year and using him as a powerful example in our communication workshops on how to connect with and inspire audiences.

Here we explore how you can use the powerful techniques from Obama’s victory speech.

Inclusive language Obama connects with his audience by making the speech not just about him, but about them by harnessing the power of inclusive language –we, our, your and you.Strong deliveryThe first thing that impresses in an Obama speech ishis steady and measured delivery that exudes confidence and a sense of purpose.His voice is strong and clear. He uses the power of the pause to draw in the audience and to give them time to absorb important points. He speaks in short, strong sentences in simple, everyday words. “But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to –it belongs to you… This is your victory. I know you didn’t do this just to win an election and I know you didn’t do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead.” ….continued

Obama also uses the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) technique of using geographical place names and images of everyday locations people are familiar with –backyards, living room and front porches. This relates his message to their world. “Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington –it began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston.”

Repetition Just as MLK repeated “I Have a Dream” to great effect, Obama harnesses the power of repetition. “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible…tonight is your answer. It’s the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen… It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican… It’s the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.”

Sensory Triggers Obama has also mastered the MLK technique of using words that trigger sense memories than make an audience feel his words. “This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.” MLK – I Have a Dream (Sense: feeling through skin sensations -from feeling hot and uncomfortable from oppressive heat to feeling cooler and invigorated)

Here are examples of sensory triggers from the victory speech. “…the not-so-young people who braved the bitter coldand scorching heatto knock on thedoorsof perfect strangers.” (the audience can feel the heat and cold, they can hear the knocking on doors, and sense the feeling of knocking) ….continued

“There are mothers and fathers who will lie awakeafter their children fall asleep and wonder how they’ll make the mortgage, or pay their doctor’s bills, or save enough for college.” (The audience knows and can relate to what it feels like to lie awake worrying)The speech is peppered with tactile references the audience can “feel” -achieving change through action not just words –putting hands on the arc of history and bending it, knocking on doors, touching voting screens.

Memorable messages –the sound of words In his Super Tuesday Primary victory speech Obama drew applause with the memorable lines. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” He makes the message memorable through the poetic device of alliteration –repeating sounds –even ones adds to the W sounds.

Strong structure Obama projects strength through the strong repeated structures of his sentences. See how the sentences follow parallel structure. “To those who would tear this world down –we will defeat you. “To those who seek peace and security –we support you.” “America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do.” ….continued

In his Presidential victory speech, Obama builds on the memorable “the change that we seek” message – once again harnessing the device of alliteration. “This victory alone is not the change we seek–it is only the chance for us to make that change.”

It connects Obama with the audience through the “he’s one of us”technique. Sure, he’s the next president, but he’s like us –a parent who loves his children. This line projected a warmer, more human side. It showed a likeable humour–and it created an impression that he is a man who keeps the promises he makes.

The new puppy “Sasha and Malia, I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that’s coming with us to the White House.” How did you react when you heard this line? Did you laugh or smile? This simple line was scripted into the speech, but was delivered in such a natural way it came across as an off-the-cuff remark.

The illustrative story Obama connects with the audience by using a memorable story –reaching the many through the story of one. “This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that’s on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She’s a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing –Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.” Obama then builds to a big finish segueing into his trademark “Yes We Can” repeated message that the audience knows well and joins in.

“At a time when women’s voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can…. She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that “We Shall Overcome.” Yes we can. A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.”

If you would like help in your organisation to maximise the power of your message please contact us at [email protected] or give us a call on 02 9844 2999 You can deliver more powerful message too, buy harnessing the power of:

the sound of words(devices such as alliteration)
sensory triggers (making the audience feel)
inclusive language
illustrative stories
short, well structured sentences with everyday words people can relate to.

Originally posted on the previous talkforce website.

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Full Transcript: President Barack Obama’s farewell speech

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Mere miles from where Barack Obama gave his presidential victory speech in Grant Park, Chicago, eight years ago, he delivered a symbolic farewell speech at Chicago’s McCormick Place Tuesday night.

It’s not the first time Obama has taken the opportunity to reflect on his administration’s accomplishments. But after monumental losses for Democrats in the last election, his farewell speech was geared toward what’s next.

"It's a passing of the baton" to the next generation of Democrats, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki told a group of reporters before the speech, according to the Chicago Tribune .

Donald Trump may be taking the White House as a fairly unpopular president, but Obama will leave the office with extremely high favorability and as a respected figure among Democrats. He won’t be going too far away either, with plans to stay in Washington, DC, after leaving office until his youngest daughter finishes high school. And Obama has made it clear that while he is determined to give President-elect Trump the space to govern, he will not be a silent bystander if American values are at stake, previously having cited his staunch opposition to Trump’s proposed immigration plans and ban on Muslims entering the country.

“If we decline to invest in the children of immigrants just because they don’t look like us, we diminish the prospects of our own children — because those brown kids will represent a larger share of America’s workforce,” Obama said Tuesday.

Tuesday night’s speech was a call to action in that regard, aimed at mobilizing Democrats in the coming elections — the nearest being the 2018 midterms, which are already shaping up to be challenging for Democrats — and sharing “what the president believes is necessary for us to confront the challenges that lie ahead,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday .

All the while, however, Obama was adamant about remaining positive. His farewell speech came full circle in another sense: hammering home the same mantra of hope from his first presidential campaign.

“Yes, we can. Yes, we did. Yes, we can,” he said closing his farewell.

Here is a transcript of Obama’s farewell remarks, as prepared for delivery and released by the White House.

Farewell Address by the President – As Prepared for Delivery

It’s good to be home. My fellow Americans, Michelle and I have been so touched by all the well-wishes we’ve received over the past few weeks. But tonight it’s my turn to say thanks. Whether we’ve seen eye-to-eye or rarely agreed at all, my conversations with you, the American people – in living rooms and schools; at farms and on factory floors; at diners and on distant outposts – are what have kept me honest, kept me inspired, and kept me going. Every day, I learned from you. You made me a better President, and you made me a better man.

I first came to Chicago when I was in my early twenties, still trying to figure out who I was; still searching for a purpose to my life. It was in neighborhoods not far from here where I began working with church groups in the shadows of closed steel mills. It was on these streets where I witnessed the power of faith, and the quiet dignity of working people in the face of struggle and loss. This is where I learned that change only happens when ordinary people get involved, get engaged, and come together to demand it.

After eight years as your President, I still believe that. And it’s not just my belief. It’s the beating heart of our American idea – our bold experiment in self-government.

It’s the conviction that we are all created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It’s the insistence that these rights, while self-evident, have never been self-executing; that We, the People, through the instrument of our democracy, can form a more perfect union.

This is the great gift our Founders gave us. The freedom to chase our individual dreams through our sweat, toil, and imagination – and the imperative to strive together as well, to achieve a greater good.

For 240 years, our nation’s call to citizenship has given work and purpose to each new generation. It’s what led patriots to choose republic over tyranny, pioneers to trek west, slaves to brave that makeshift railroad to freedom. It’s what pulled immigrants and refugees across oceans and the Rio Grande, pushed women to reach for the ballot, powered workers to organize. It’s why GIs gave their lives at Omaha Beach and Iwo Jima; Iraq and Afghanistan – and why men and women from Selma to Stonewall were prepared to give theirs as well.

So that’s what we mean when we say America is exceptional. Not that our nation has been flawless from the start, but that we have shown the capacity to change, and make life better for those who follow.

Yes, our progress has been uneven. The work of democracy has always been hard, contentious and sometimes bloody. For every two steps forward, it often feels we take one step back. But the long sweep of America has been defined by forward motion, a constant widening of our founding creed to embrace all, and not just some.

If I had told you eight years ago that America would reverse a great recession, reboot our auto industry, and unleash the longest stretch of job creation in our history…if I had told you that we would open up a new chapter with the Cuban people, shut down Iran’s nuclear weapons program without firing a shot, and take out the mastermind of 9/11…if I had told you that we would win marriage equality, and secure the right to health insurance for another 20 million of our fellow citizens – you might have said our sights were set a little too high.

But that’s what we did. That’s what you did. You were the change. You answered people’s hopes, and because of you, by almost every measure, America is a better, stronger place than it was when we started.

In ten days, the world will witness a hallmark of our democracy: the peaceful transfer of power from one freely-elected president to the next. I committed to President-Elect Trump that my administration would ensure the smoothest possible transition, just as President Bush did for me. Because it’s up to all of us to make sure our government can help us meet the many challenges we still face.

We have what we need to do so. After all, we remain the wealthiest, most powerful, and most respected nation on Earth. Our youth and drive, our diversity and openness, our boundless capacity for risk and reinvention mean that the future should be ours.

But that potential will be realized only if our democracy works. Only if our politics reflects the decency of the our people. Only if all of us, regardless of our party affiliation or particular interest, help restore the sense of common purpose that we so badly need right now.

That’s what I want to focus on tonight – the state of our democracy.

Understand, democracy does not require uniformity. Our founders quarreled and compromised, and expected us to do the same. But they knew that democracy does require a basic sense of solidarity – the idea that for all our outward differences, we are all in this together; that we rise or fall as one.

There have been moments throughout our history that threatened to rupture that solidarity. The beginning of this century has been one of those times. A shrinking world, growing inequality; demographic change and the specter of terrorism – these forces haven’t just tested our security and prosperity, but our democracy as well. And how we meet these challenges to our democracy will determine our ability to educate our kids, and create good jobs, and protect our homeland.

In other words, it will determine our future.

Our democracy won’t work without a sense that everyone has economic opportunity. Today, the economy is growing again; wages, incomes, home values, and retirement accounts are rising again; poverty is falling again. The wealthy are paying a fairer share of taxes even as the stock market shatters records. The unemployment rate is near a ten-year low. The uninsured rate has never, ever been lower. Health care costs are rising at the slowest rate in fifty years. And if anyone can put together a plan that is demonstrably better than the improvements we’ve made to our health care system – that covers as many people at less cost – I will publicly support it.

That, after all, is why we serve – to make people’s lives better, not worse.

But for all the real progress we’ve made, we know it’s not enough. Our economy doesn’t work as well or grow as fast when a few prosper at the expense of a growing middle class. But stark inequality is also corrosive to our democratic principles. While the top one percent has amassed a bigger share of wealth and income, too many families, in inner cities and rural counties, have been left behind – the laid-off factory worker; the waitress and health care worker who struggle to pay the bills – convinced that the game is fixed against them, that their government only serves the interests of the powerful – a recipe for more cynicism and polarization in our politics.

There are no quick fixes to this long-term trend. I agree that our trade should be fair and not just free. But the next wave of economic dislocation won’t come from overseas. It will come from the relentless pace of automation that makes many good, middle-class jobs obsolete.

And so we must forge a new social compact – to guarantee all our kids the education they need; to give workers the power to unionize for better wages; to update the social safety net to reflect the way we live now and make more reforms to the tax code so corporations and individuals who reap the most from the new economy don’t avoid their obligations to the country that’s made their success possible. We can argue about how to best achieve these goals. But we can’t be complacent about the goals themselves. For if we don’t create opportunity for all people, the disaffection and division that has stalled our progress will only sharpen in years to come.

There’s a second threat to our democracy – one as old as our nation itself. After my election, there was talk of a post-racial America. Such a vision, however well-intended, was never realistic. For race remains a potent and often divisive force in our society. I’ve lived long enough to know that race relations are better than they were ten, or twenty, or thirty years ago – you can see it not just in statistics, but in the attitudes of young Americans across the political spectrum.

But we’re not where we need to be. All of us have more work to do. After all, if every economic issue is framed as a struggle between a hardworking white middle class and undeserving minorities, then workers of all shades will be left fighting for scraps while the wealthy withdraw further into their private enclaves. If we decline to invest in the children of immigrants, just because they don’t look like us, we diminish the prospects of our own children – because those brown kids will represent a larger share of America’s workforce. And our economy doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. Last year, incomes rose for all races, all age groups, for men and for women.

Going forward, we must uphold laws against discrimination – in hiring, in housing, in education and the criminal justice system. That’s what our Constitution and highest ideals require. But laws alone won’t be enough. Hearts must change. If our democracy is to work in this increasingly diverse nation, each one of us must try to heed the advice of one of the great characters in American fiction, Atticus Finch, who said “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

For blacks and other minorities, it means tying our own struggles for justice to the challenges that a lot of people in this country face – the refugee, the immigrant, the rural poor, the transgender American, and also the middle-aged white man who from the outside may seem like he’s got all the advantages, but who’s seen his world upended by economic, cultural, and technological change.

For white Americans, it means acknowledging that the effects of slavery and Jim Crow didn’t suddenly vanish in the ‘60s; that when minority groups voice discontent, they’re not just engaging in reverse racism or practicing political correctness; that when they wage peaceful protest, they’re not demanding special treatment, but the equal treatment our Founders promised.

For native-born Americans, it means reminding ourselves that the stereotypes about immigrants today were said, almost word for word, about the Irish, Italians, and Poles. America wasn’t weakened by the presence of these newcomers; they embraced this nation’s creed, and it was strengthened.

So regardless of the station we occupy; we have to try harder; to start with the premise that each of our fellow citizens loves this country just as much as we do; that they value hard work and family like we do; that their children are just as curious and hopeful and worthy of love as our own.

None of this is easy. For too many of us, it’s become safer to retreat into our own bubbles, whether in our neighborhoods or college campuses or places of worship or our social media feeds, surrounded by people who look like us and share the same political outlook and never challenge our assumptions. The rise of naked partisanship, increasing economic and regional stratification, the splintering of our media into a channel for every taste – all this makes this great sorting seem natural, even inevitable. And increasingly, we become so secure in our bubbles that we accept only information, whether true or not, that fits our opinions, instead of basing our opinions on the evidence that’s out there.

This trend represents a third threat to our democracy. Politics is a battle of ideas; in the course of a healthy debate, we’ll prioritize different goals, and the different means of reaching them. But without some common baseline of facts; without a willingness to admit new information, and concede that your opponent is making a fair point, and that science and reason matter, we’ll keep talking past each other, making common ground and compromise impossible.

Isn’t that part of what makes politics so dispiriting? How can elected officials rage about deficits when we propose to spend money on preschool for kids, but not when we’re cutting taxes for corporations? How do we excuse ethical lapses in our own party, but pounce when the other party does the same thing? It’s not just dishonest, this selective sorting of the facts; it’s self-defeating. Because as my mother used to tell me, reality has a way of catching up with you.

Take the challenge of climate change. In just eight years, we’ve halved our dependence on foreign oil, doubled our renewable energy, and led the world to an agreement that has the promise to save this planet. But without bolder action, our children won’t have time to debate the existence of climate change; they’ll be busy dealing with its effects: environmental disasters, economic disruptions, and waves of climate refugees seeking sanctuary.

Now, we can and should argue about the best approach to the problem. But to simply deny the problem not only betrays future generations; it betrays the essential spirit of innovation and practical problem-solving that guided our Founders.

It’s that spirit, born of the Enlightenment, that made us an economic powerhouse – the spirit that took flight at Kitty Hawk and Cape Canaveral; the spirit that that cures disease and put a computer in every pocket.

It’s that spirit – a faith in reason, and enterprise, and the primacy of right over might, that allowed us to resist the lure of fascism and tyranny during the Great Depression, and build a post-World War II order with other democracies, an order based not just on military power or national affiliations but on principles – the rule of law, human rights, freedoms of religion, speech, assembly, and an independent press.

That order is now being challenged – first by violent fanatics who claim to speak for Islam; more recently by autocrats in foreign capitals who see free markets, open democracies, and civil society itself as a threat to their power. The peril each poses to our democracy is more far-reaching than a car bomb or a missile. It represents the fear of change; the fear of people who look or speak or pray differently; a contempt for the rule of law that holds leaders accountable; an intolerance of dissent and free thought; a belief that the sword or the gun or the bomb or propaganda machine is the ultimate arbiter of what’s true and what’s right.

Because of the extraordinary courage of our men and women in uniform, and the intelligence officers, law enforcement, and diplomats who support them, no foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and executed an attack on our homeland these past eight years; and although Boston and Orlando remind us of how dangerous radicalization can be, our law enforcement agencies are more effective and vigilant than ever. We’ve taken out tens of thousands of terrorists – including Osama bin Laden. The global coalition we’re leading against ISIL has taken out their leaders, and taken away about half their territory. ISIL will be destroyed, and no one who threatens America will ever be safe. To all who serve, it has been the honor of my lifetime to be your Commander-in-Chief.

But protecting our way of life requires more than our military. Democracy can buckle when we give in to fear. So just as we, as citizens, must remain vigilant against external aggression, we must guard against a weakening of the values that make us who we are. That’s why, for the past eight years, I’ve worked to put the fight against terrorism on a firm legal footing. That’s why we’ve ended torture, worked to close Gitmo, and reform our laws governing surveillance to protect privacy and civil liberties. That’s why I reject discrimination against Muslim Americans who are just as patriotic as we are. That’s why we cannot withdraw from global fights – to expand democracy, and human rights, women’s rights, and LGBT rights – no matter how imperfect our efforts, no matter how expedient ignoring such values may seem. For the fight against extremism and intolerance and sectarianism are of a piece with the fight against authoritarianism and nationalist aggression. If the scope of freedom and respect for the rule of law shrinks around the world, the likelihood of war within and between nations increases, and our own freedoms will eventually be threatened.

So let’s be vigilant, but not afraid. ISIL will try to kill innocent people. But they cannot defeat America unless we betray our Constitution and our principles in the fight. Rivals like Russia or China cannot match our influence around the world – unless we give up what we stand for, and turn ourselves into just another big country that bullies smaller neighbors.

Which brings me to my final point – our democracy is threatened whenever we take it for granted. All of us, regardless of party, should throw ourselves into the task of rebuilding our democratic institutions. When voting rates are some of the lowest among advanced democracies, we should make it easier, not harder, to vote. When trust in our institutions is low, we should reduce the corrosive influence of money in our politics, and insist on the principles of transparency and ethics in public service. When Congress is dysfunctional, we should draw our districts to encourage politicians to cater to common sense and not rigid extremes.

And all of this depends on our participation; on each of us accepting the responsibility of citizenship, regardless of which way the pendulum of power swings.

Our Constitution is a remarkable, beautiful gift. But it’s really just a piece of parchment. It has no power on its own. We, the people, give it power – with our participation, and the choices we make. Whether or not we stand up for our freedoms. Whether or not we respect and enforce the rule of law. America is no fragile thing. But the gains of our long journey to freedom are not assured.

In his own farewell address, George Washington wrote that self-government is the underpinning of our safety, prosperity, and liberty, but “from different causes and from different quarters much pains will be taken…to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth;” that we should preserve it with “jealous anxiety;” that we should reject “the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties” that make us one.

We weaken those ties when we allow our political dialogue to become so corrosive that people of good character are turned off from public service; so coarse with rancor that Americans with whom we disagree are not just misguided, but somehow malevolent. We weaken those ties when we define some of us as more American than others; when we write off the whole system as inevitably corrupt, and blame the leaders we elect without examining our own role in electing them.

It falls to each of us to be those anxious, jealous guardians of our democracy; to embrace the joyous task we’ve been given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours. Because for all our outward differences, we all share the same proud title: Citizen.

Ultimately, that’s what our democracy demands. It needs you. Not just when there’s an election, not just when your own narrow interest is at stake, but over the full span of a lifetime. If you’re tired of arguing with strangers on the internet, try to talk with one in real life. If something needs fixing, lace up your shoes and do some organizing. If you’re disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures, and run for office yourself. Show up. Dive in. Persevere. Sometimes you’ll win. Sometimes you’ll lose. Presuming a reservoir of goodness in others can be a risk, and there will be times when the process disappoints you. But for those of us fortunate enough to have been a part of this work, to see it up close, let me tell you, it can energize and inspire. And more often than not, your faith in America – and in Americans – will be confirmed.

Mine sure has been. Over the course of these eight years, I’ve seen the hopeful faces of young graduates and our newest military officers. I’ve mourned with grieving families searching for answers, and found grace in Charleston church. I’ve seen our scientists help a paralyzed man regain his sense of touch, and our wounded warriors walk again. I’ve seen our doctors and volunteers rebuild after earthquakes and stop pandemics in their tracks. I’ve seen the youngest of children remind us of our obligations to care for refugees, to work in peace, and above all to look out for each other.

That faith I placed all those years ago, not far from here, in the power of ordinary Americans to bring about change – that faith has been rewarded in ways I couldn’t possibly have imagined. I hope yours has, too. Some of you here tonight or watching at home were there with us in 2004, in 2008, in 2012 – and maybe you still can’t believe we pulled this whole thing off.

You’re not the only ones. Michelle – for the past twenty-five years, you’ve been not only my wife and mother of my children, but my best friend. You took on a role you didn’t ask for and made it your own with grace and grit and style and good humor. You made the White House a place that belongs to everybody. And a new generation sets its sights higher because it has you as a role model. You’ve made me proud. You’ve made the country proud.

Malia and Sasha, under the strangest of circumstances, you have become two amazing young women, smart and beautiful, but more importantly, kind and thoughtful and full of passion. You wore the burden of years in the spotlight so easily. Of all that I’ve done in my life, I’m most proud to be your dad.

To Joe Biden, the scrappy kid from Scranton who became Delaware’s favorite son: you were the first choice I made as a nominee, and the best. Not just because you have been a great Vice President, but because in the bargain, I gained a brother. We love you and Jill like family, and your friendship has been one of the great joys of our life.

To my remarkable staff: For eight years – and for some of you, a whole lot more – I’ve drawn from your energy, and tried to reflect back what you displayed every day: heart, and character, and idealism. I’ve watched you grow up, get married, have kids, and start incredible new journeys of your own. Even when times got tough and frustrating, you never let Washington get the better of you. The only thing that makes me prouder than all the good we’ve done is the thought of all the remarkable things you’ll achieve from here.

And to all of you out there – every organizer who moved to an unfamiliar town and kind family who welcomed them in, every volunteer who knocked on doors, every young person who cast a ballot for the first time, every American who lived and breathed the hard work of change – you are the best supporters and organizers anyone could hope for, and I will forever be grateful. Because yes, you changed the world.

That’s why I leave this stage tonight even more optimistic about this country than I was when we started. Because I know our work has not only helped so many Americans; it has inspired so many Americans – especially so many young people out there – to believe you can make a difference; to hitch your wagon to something bigger than yourselves. This generation coming up – unselfish, altruistic, creative, patriotic – I’ve seen you in every corner of the country. You believe in a fair, just, inclusive America; you know that constant change has been America’s hallmark, something not to fear but to embrace, and you are willing to carry this hard work of democracy forward. You’ll soon outnumber any of us, and I believe as a result that the future is in good hands.

My fellow Americans, it has been the honor of my life to serve you. I won’t stop; in fact, I will be right there with you, as a citizen, for all my days that remain. For now, whether you’re young or young at heart, I do have one final ask of you as your President – the same thing I asked when you took a chance on me eight years ago.

I am asking you to believe. Not in my ability to bring about change – but in yours.

I am asking you to hold fast to that faith written into our founding documents; that idea whispered by slaves and abolitionists; that spirit sung by immigrants and homesteaders and those who marched for justice; that creed reaffirmed by those who planted flags from foreign battlefields to the surface of the moon; a creed at the core of every American whose story is not yet written:

Yes We Can.

Yes We Did.

Thank you. God bless you. And may God continue to bless the United States of America.

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11 Times Barack Obama Talked Openly And Honestly About Race

Senior Culture Writer, HuffPost

Barack Obama’s legacy as the first black president of the United States will always intrinsically be tied to race. But during his eight years in office, Obama was often met with criticism when it came to race ― particularly what some critics claimed was his tendency to give “middle-of-the-road statements” in an effort to placate both sides of the issue.

When the president criticized some of the people who looted during the Ferguson protests , stating that they were simply “destroying and undermining businesses and opportunities in their own communities,” some black people saw this as an instance when Obama seemed to be out of touch and unable to address the underlying systemic issues that motivated some protestors.

For many people of color, Obama was always too measured and too diplomatic when it came to talking about race in public. Some people empathized with this, suggesting that as a black president in a government long-dominated by white people, his was a delicate and precarious situation to be in. Key and Peele’s popular “Obama Anger Translator” skit was a perfect satirization of Obama’s predicament ― he toed the line of being too black, or not black enough .

But POTUS has had moments of candor when it comes to race relations in America, not only during his two terms as presidency but long before as a presidential candidate and a senator. Undoubtedly, the killing of Trayvon Martin and subsequent acquittal of George Zimmerman was a huge turning point ― a moment when the president acknowledged that Martin could have been him 35 years ago. Below are 11 poignant and illuminating moments when Barack Obama explicitly talked about race:

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Ex-Obama officials rue missed chances on climate action

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The failure to clinch energy and environment legislation in former President Barack Obama ’s first term was a “significant missed opportunity,” Obama’s former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a recently released oral history.

Another official, former Energy Secretary Steven Chu, went so far to say that Obama should have tried to "shake down" lawmakers to garner votes.

While the massive health care law, the Affordable Care Act, was among the Obama administration’s top legislative priorities, another big priority was sweeping energy and climate legislation.

But that effort ultimately took a back seat to the health care effort and fizzled in the Senate, frustrating senior Democrats on Capitol Hill and in the administration.

Oral histories produced by Columbia University that document the Obama presidency offer new details about the political machinations and behind-the-scenes policy discussions ahead of the passage of the health care law, which was enacted 14 years ago this month, and the demise of the climate and energy bill. Those interviews, the latest of which were released Friday, include lengthy interviews with former Obama officials and Senate Democrats.

Sebelius, who helped shepherd the landmark health care law into existence, lamented the fact that only one of those legislative efforts worked out. The administration had been successful, she said, in “translating the health side of environment to individuals,” and climate and energy legislation would have contained additional public health benefits.

“I think the most unfortunate part of that split energy was the fact that we didn't have the Senate pass an energy bill that had a lot of these features in it,” Sebelius said in an interview recorded in January 2021 and released Friday.

“I think looking back, the possibility was there that Barack Obama could've had two signature pieces of legislation, and those would have provided the framework then for doing all these other efforts,” she said. “We did a lot of work together on the environment, on EPA regulations, on updating standards and looking at things through the health lens. But it was never with a legislative framework that was driving an overall policy in a different direction.”

Nancy-Ann DeParle, a health policy expert who led health care reform efforts in the Obama White House, listed climate change among the former president’s top priorities.

“My sense was the president had three top issues that he wanted to get done,” DeParle said in a 2020 interview released Friday . “One was health care reform, one was climate change, and one was immigration reform.”

A key reason Democrats were successful in passing the health care law and not climate change legislation “is because we’d done the groundwork a year in advance,” said former Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, who chaired the Senate Finance Committee and was a key architect of Obama’s health care law.

“Obama didn't have the opportunity — didn't have the luxury of a prior year of committee work trying to address climate change,” Baucus said in a 2021 interview .

Obama 'too standoff-ish'

In 2009, the Democratic-led House passed a cap-and-trade bill led by then-Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.). But efforts in the Senate stalled out.

Carol Browner, who was Obama’s chief climate adviser from 2009 to 2011, put some blame for cap and trade’s failure on committee differences in the Senate. Then-Environment and Public Works Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and then-Energy and Natural Resources Chair Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) had very different ideas. Bingaman’s garnered Republican support.

“Harry Reid wanted them to figure out how to move together. He wasn't going to pick and choose between his committee chairs. And they just could not figure it out,” she said of the former Senate majority leader, a Nevada Democrat, in her own 2020 interview for the project .

She said that although it would have been difficult and strained relationships, Obama should have picked favorites between them, to help one bill pass.

“You could have just said, ‘OK, just take one of the bills. Just take the Bingaman bill' — because it actually had Republican support — 'and drop the word "climate" into it and pass it, and let us get to conference and see what we can do.’ But that was a lot to ask of people.”

Chu said in a 2020 interview the administration decided to concentrate on health care during Obama’s first year in office, with energy to come the following year.

But when Democrats lost the House in the 2010 midterm elections, Chu said “all of a sudden, a lot of things dramatically changed” and the president took a more hands-off approach with Congress. Chu recalled how former President Abraham Lincoln “wasn’t above shaking down people” to push lawmakers to abolish slavery, as shown in the film "Lincoln" — an attitude he wished Obama adopted.

“Now, I'm not asking President Obama to do immoral things,” Chu said. “But to shake down and use the power of the presidency to really garner votes was something I wish he had done more of. He was too much of a gentleman, too standoff-ish about that.”

'The big, bad EPA'

Faced with congressional gridlock on climate and other legislative goals, the Obama administration announced a campaign named “We can’t wait” in 2011 to advance priorities through executive actions.

“We had a little competition amongst different offices of the White House, who could come up with the best idea,” DeParle said. “It ended up being a lot of fun. And I would, every week, write the president a memo about that, too, about what we were planning.”

The list “came from the staff of the White House, because we wanted it to all be close hold and not subject to [the Freedom of Information Act], for example,” DeParle said. “But we each talked to Cabinet secretaries.”

But it proved tough to do some of the things the president wanted — including environmental rules — through executive actions, DeParle said.

“We had a lot of tools. The laws that Congress had passed over the 30 years before Barack Obama came to office did give the executive branch authority to set certain emissions standards, to impose constraints on the way our waters were regulated and all those things,” she said. “But they were all subject to litigation.”

Leading the effort to analyze costs and benefits of rules inside the Obama White House was Cass Sunstein, the head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. DeParle called that job one of Obama’s “most important appointments” and “one that 99 percent of Americans haven’t even heard of.”

DeParle recalled disputes between the White House and the heads of EPA and the Interior Department over executive actions. “The rational guy wants to be able to make his case in a rational way about why we chose this number versus that number, what the benefits are going to be, because there will be some negative impacts in some industries,” she said.

Lisa Jackson, who served as Obama’s first EPA administrator, said while she was in office that she preferred climate legislation over the alternative of clamping down on greenhouse gas emissions with EPA regulations.

“The inability to get a [climate] law done and the desire to continue to make progress meant that we were now back to that other scenario where if you don't pass a law, the big, bad EPA is going to regulate,” Jackson said during a 2021 oral history interview posted last year.

“It’s a shame because it's a loss of time, first off, in a time-bomb problem,” Jackson said.

Gina McCarthy first joined the Obama administration as head of EPA’s air office and later served as Obama’s second EPA administrator. She recalled in a 2020 interview the lengthy process of drafting climate change regulations, including the Clean Power Plan, which was designed to curb power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions.

The rule was stayed by the Supreme Court and later rolled back by the Trump administration. Still, McCarthy argued the measure ended up achieving reductions in planet-warming gases.

“It proved to be a tremendous market signal to the outside world. We really didn't require any action to start for a few years, but the utilities began immediately to think about this,” McCarthy said. “It ended up even being effective without coming into implementation.”

The saga over climate change regulations continues today. The Biden administration is slated to offer its own iteration of EPA standards for power plant greenhouse gas emissions next month.

Timea Gardiner is thriving and has Oregon State in the Elite Eight — and it's all thanks to a fluke scooter accident

An accident 2 years ago nearly derailed Gardiner's college basketball career and life. Because of that accident (and what it revealed), she's back on the court and the Beavers are still alive in March Madness.

We asked 3 dentists: Does mouthwash really do anything?

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Misinformation took over social media after the Key Bridge collapse. Why is this now a regular occurrence — and what can be done to stop it?

Conspiracy theories used to be confined to dark corners of the internet. Now, they muddy conversations around news events on mainstream social media platforms.

Trump legal news brief: Trump tries yet again to get Fani Willis kicked off Georgia case

Former President Donald Trump and several of his co-defendants charged in the Georgia election interference case submit an application to appeal Judge Scott McAfee’s ruling allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to continue to prosecute them.

2024 New York International Auto Show Editors' Top 5 Picks

Though not the biggest New York International Auto Show, there were still some exciting reveals and even a surprise or two. We pick the best of show.

Brewers rookie Jackson Chourio, who is younger than Facebook, debuts with hit, RBI and steal

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I'm obsessed with cleaning, and this mini cordless vacuum — on sale for 55% off — will keep your kitchen crumb-free

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Startups Weekly: Big shake-ups at the AI heavyweights

Welcome to Startups WeeklySign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. There's not that much news from me this week, but I've been doing a ton of prep for TechCrunch Early Stage taking place in Boston on April 25. Stability AI bids adieu to its founder and chief executive, Emad Mostaque, who's decided to chase the decentralized AI dream, leaving the unicorn startup without a permanent CEO.

2024 NY Auto Show, the new Mercedes G and a possible Xterra revival | Autoblog Podcast #825

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NCAA tournament games, scores, updates: Follow Friday's Sweet 16 action live

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Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis gets UK knighthood for 'services to artificial intelligence'

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2023-2024 Ford Transit Trail recalled over rubbing tires

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Election Updates: Obama and Clinton appear with Biden to raise $25 million.

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Manhattan Protests in front of Radio City Music Hall, which is hosting a fund-raiser for President Biden. Andres Kudacki for The New York Times
Manhattan By Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
Massapequa Park, N.Y. Former President Donald J. Trump attending a wake for a New York City police officer. Dave Sanders for The New York Times
Massapequa Park, N.Y. Attendees during a wake for a New York City police officer. Dave Sanders for The New York Times
Queens President Biden with former President Barack Obama in New York on Thursday.
Oakland, Calif. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running for president as an independent, introduced Nicole Shanahan as his running mate on Tuesday. Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Alyce McFadden

Fadumo Osman was chatting with a small group of fellow protesters down the block from Radio City Music Hall on Thursday night as the crowd outside the fund-raiser began to disperse. Osman said that she was a lifelong Democrat, but that President Biden’s response to the war in Gaza had shaken her support for the party. “I’m leaving it blank for the primary. This November we’ll see. It’s about sending a message,” she said.

There is a large police presence outside Radio City Music Hall, and tensions between the police and protesters have mounted throughout the evening. At several occasions in the past few hours, the demonstrators have turned to face lines of officers, shouting anti-police chants.

Several of the protesters I’ve talked to tonight outside Radio City Music Hall said they voted for President Biden in 2020 but have become disillusioned with his response to Israel’s attacks in Gaza. “I feel sick about it every day,” said Jess Natale, a Democrat who supported Biden in 2020 but said she was considering writing in a candidate’s name in November.

I’m across the street from Radio City Music Hall, where hundreds of protesters are already gathered ahead of President Biden’s fund-raiser tonight. The crowd, behind a police barricade that stretches several blocks down Sixth Avenue, is waving Palestinian flags, playing drums and chanting anti-Biden slogans.

Michael Gold

After spending about 30 minutes with the family of a slain New York City police officer, Donald J. Trump delivered remarks to the press in front of about a dozen Long Island police officers. He called for a return to “law and order,” vaguely saying that “we’ve got to toughen it up, we’ve got to strengthen it up” without clarifying what he was referring to.

Donald J. Trump, accompanied by Nassau County’s executive, Bruce Blakeman, just arrived at the wake of a slain New York City police officer in Massapequa Park, N.Y. There are a couple hundred police officers lined up outside to pay respects to the family of the officer, whose funeral is Saturday.

Corey Kilgannon

With former President Donald J. Trump expected shortly at the wake for Jonathan Diller, the slain New York City police officer , security is tight: There are officers with automatic weapons in front of the funeral home and snipers on the roof across the street.

Reid J. Epstein

Former President Barack Obama traveled with President Biden on Air Force One to New York today. The former president made a five-minute, off-the-record visit to the press cabin, according to the pool report, something Obama used to do on occasion when he was president but that Biden has done only rarely.

Ahead of the wake today for a New York City police officer killed in the line of duty, Biden gave his condolences to Mayor Eric Adams and offered support to him, the city and the police department, according to Adams and a White House spokeswoman. Trump, who has long courted the support of police officers, is attending the wake.

Tonight’s Biden fund-raiser, with an expected 5,000 ticketed donors at Radio City Music Hall in New York, will be one of the largest crowds Biden has appeared before as president, yet it will be closed to the press aside from the small White House press pool that travels with the president.

The cruel irony of the Biden campaign’s fund-raising prowess is that 2024 may end up being the presidential election in which cash advantages mean the least in modern history. Both candidates are universally known among the American electorate and both have cemented themselves as highly unpopular national political figures, a status that money is unlikely to change.

Tonight’s Biden fund-raiser is the starkest demonstration of the financial advantage the Biden campaign has over Donald Trump. Biden’s team said it would raise $25 million from this event — that’s nearly two-thirds of all the funds the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee had combined at the end of January.

Biden’s appearance tonight with his two Democratic predecessors highlights a central paradox of his re-election bid: Biden has an expansive list of legislation accomplishments, rivaling — if not surpassing — Obama and Clinton, but he gets far less credit. His approval ratings are the lowest of all three men, even as many of his individual policies remain popular.

Donald Trump will be on Long Island today, attending the wake of a New York police officer who was shot during a traffic stop earlier this week. Trump, who faces four indictments, has styled himself as a “law and order” candidate. He routinely attacks Biden and Democrats for being overly lax on crime and inhibiting police from addressing it.

Maggie Astor

A federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that Pennsylvania can require people who vote by mail to write an accurate date on their envelope, and that this doesn’t violate the Civil Rights Act — overturning the ruling of a lower court. The appeals court ruling means ballots can be disqualified if voters write the wrong date or no date, even if the ballot is received by the deadline.

Chris Cameron

Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said last night that he would not run for president as a candidate with No Labels, dealing a blow to the centrist group’s effort to find a high-profile candidate. “If there is not a pathway to win and if my candidacy in any way, shape or form would help Donald Trump become president again, then it is not the way forward,” Christie said in a statement.

Four presidents, two events and a preview of campaign clashes to come.

The epicenter of the presidential campaign shifted to New York on Thursday, as the incumbent president and three of his predecessors descended on the area for dueling events that illustrated the kinds of political clashes that could come to define the general election.

For Democrats, it was a high-profile, celebrity-studded fund-raiser for President Biden in Manhattan. On Long Island, former President Donald J. Trump attended a wake for a New York City officer who was killed during a traffic stop on Monday. Together, the day’s events struck an unusual contrast in a general election campaign that has so far been largely defined by appearances in courtrooms and at small, invitation-only events.

Mr. Biden, along with Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, appeared before 5,000 donors at a Radio City Music Hall event that campaign aides said raised $25 million. The eye-popping number set a record for a single political event, according to the aides, and offered a star-studded show of Democratic unity as the president heads into a difficult re-election campaign.

The three Democratic presidents spent much of their time in New York City wrapped in the glitz of their celebrity supporters. Tieless and in matching white shirts, they sat for an interview on a celebrity podcast, were roasted by the comedian Mindy Kaling and interviewed by Stephen Colbert, a late-night host.

“Our democracy is at stake, not a joke. I think democracy is literally at stake,” Mr. Biden said. “We’re at an inflection point in history.”

Both Mr. Obama and Mr. Clinton made the case for re-electing Mr. Biden, praising his work expanding health care coverage, creating jobs, capping insulin prices and navigating the competing demands of the war in Gaza.

“It’s not just the negative case against the presumptive nominee on the other side. It’s the positive case for somebody who’s done an outstanding job,” said Mr. Obama. “We also have a positive story to tell about the future and that is something that Joe Biden has worked on, diligently, each and every day.”

Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, made his own appearance in the area several hours earlier, at a funeral home on Long Island surrounded by hundreds of police officers and family members of the slain officer. While not officially a campaign stop, aides used the appearance to draw a sharp contrast with Mr. Biden, attacking the Democrats for spending their evening with donors and celebrities. In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has spent far more time battling in court than in battleground states.

Mr. Biden, meanwhile, has increased the pace of his events since his State of the Union address early this month. But the fund-raiser was one of the largest crowds he has appeared before as president. It will expand an already significant cash advantage, too, raising in one night $5 million more than Mr. Trump reported collecting in February.

The day’s events underscored a central dynamic of the race: Mr. Biden is campaigning with the force of the Democratic establishment behind his bid, as Mr. Trump stands largely alone.

While Mr. Trump has been endorsed by many Republicans in Congress, a small but persistent wing of the party has declined to support his third run for the White House. The only other living former Republican president has not endorsed his bid, nor has Mike Pence, his former vice president.

Mr. Biden faces a different problem. Nearly all Democratic Party officials, politicians and strategists stand behind his effort. Yet, he has faced sustained opposition from a vocal minority of progressives who have protested the war in Gaza, through protest votes and event disruptions.

On Thursday, a group of several hundred protesters marched through the rain to stand outside the fund-raiser. “Biden, Biden, you’re a liar, we demand a cease-fire,” they chanted. Mr. Biden has faced growing anger from political supporters and global allies about the civilian death toll in Israel’s war on Hamas.

Jacob Sierra, 27, said he was at the protest because “Joe Biden has been enabling the genocide.” A registered Democrat from Brooklyn, Mr. Sierra voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 but doesn’t think he’ll vote for the president — or Mr. Trump — this year.

“We’re just really frustrated with the fact that this is still going on,” said Mr. Sierra, who works for a nonprofit. “We’re seeing vague sympathy from the president and other elected officials but there is not a lot of action.”

Inside the hall, the three presidents sat in matching white armchairs and took the stage to strains of “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen, the unofficial bard of the Democratic Party.

Before their appearance, Ms. Kaling warmed up the crowd with jokes about those who spent $500,000 to attend and the age of the men they were all gathered to celebrate. Ms. Kaling, 44, said that she looked like a “cast member on Euphoria ” compared to Mr. Biden, Mr. Obama and Mr. Clinton.

Protesters disrupted the program by shouting “blood on your hands.” Some were escorted out of the hall by security. “You can’t just talk and not listen,” Mr. Obama snapped, as he was interrupted. “That’s what the other side does.”

When asked about the situation in Gaza, Mr. Biden expressed understanding for both sides, saying there are “too many innocent victims, Israeli and Palestinian.”

“It’s understandable Israel has such a profound anger and Hamas is still there,” he said. “But we must, in fact, stop the effort that is resulting in significant deaths of innocent civilians, particularly children.”

The appearance ended with a joke, when Mr. Colbert, Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama put on aviator sunglasses as their “impression” of the president.

Mr. Biden cracked that he’s a man who “loves two things: Ray-Ban sunglasses and ice cream.”

A musical program featured a series of celebrity endorsers including Queen Latifah, Lizzo, Ben Platt, Cynthia Erivo and Lea Michele.

Only a small group of press traveling with the White House was allowed in the event and video footage by the news media was prohibited. Before the fund-raiser, the three presidents participated in a joint interview on “ Smartless ,” a podcast hosted by the actors Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes.

Mr. Trump’s appearance struck a decidedly different tone. The former president spent about 30 minutes inside a funeral home in suburban Massapequa on Long Island, visiting with the widow and 1-year-old son of Officer Jonathan Diller. Mr. Diller was fatally shot during a traffic stop on Monday.

While not an official campaign event, Mr. Trump took the opportunity to press a tough-on-crime message. Mr. Trump, who is facing four criminal cases, including one in Manhattan that is going to trial in less than three weeks, stood in front of more than a dozen police officers and proclaimed the need for the country to “get back to law and order.”

His campaign pushed a different message, drawing a sharp contrast between Mr. Trump’s visit and the other political event happening in the region.

“President Trump will be honoring the legacy of Officer Diller,” Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesman, said on social media.

Mayor Eric Adams of New York, who attended the wake after Mr. Trump, told reporters that Mr. Biden had called him to offer condolences that Mr. Adams said he would relay to the family. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said Mr. Biden has supported law enforcement officers throughout his entire career.

“Violent crime surged under the previous administration,” she said, speaking aboard Air Force One, as the president traveled to New York City. “The Biden-Harris administration have done the polar opposite, taking decisive action from the very beginning to fund the police and achieving a historic reduction in crime.”

Michael Gold and Julian Roberts-Grmela contributed reporting.

Maggie Haberman

Biden fund-raiser featuring Obama and Clinton will make big money — and highlight Trump’s party problem.

President Biden will appear on Thursday night alongside his two Democratic predecessors, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, at Radio City Music Hall for a campaign fund-raiser, where the highlight will be the roughly $25 million raised in connection with the event.

Former President Donald J. Trump on Thursday afternoon attended the wake for a slain New York Police Department officer just hours before.

Mr. Trump’s advisers sought to portray Mr. Biden as hobnobbing with the rich, while the former president was more aligned with working-class voters, even as he has been pressing for donations from wealthy Republicans, to keep up with his legal fees.

But Mr. Biden’s event itself — the presence of three presidents at a unity event — highlights just how unusual his rival’s campaign remains, even as he has strengthened his grip on the Republican Party.

The last Republican president in office before Mr. Trump, George W. Bush, whose party has moved away from his interventionist policies, has never supported Mr. Trump. In fact, he has more often than not been a punchline for Mr. Trump.

And the list of members of Mr. Trump’s administration who have either condemned him or say they won’t support him is vast. They include his former vice president, Mike Pence; his former national security adviser, John Bolton; his former defense secretaries, Mark Esper and retired Gen. James Mattis; and his former White House chief of staff, retired Gen. John F. Kelly, among others.

Then there are people who worked closely with Mr. Trump, such as Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey and Trump adviser, who has said he can’t support him and ran against him in the presidential primary, as well as a small group of current and former Republicans in Congress and the Senate who have repeatedly described him as a threat to democracy.

Others have said they would still vote for him but have been deeply critical of his behavior in office, particularly in the final months as he tried to subvert the peaceful transfer of power, such as William P. Barr, his former attorney general.

“It would be hard to find another example of a president seeking re-election with such opposition,” said Dr. Charles Kupperman, who was Mr. Trump’s former deputy national security adviser under Mr. Bolton. “Such opposition is based on his performance as president.”

Dr. Kupperman said the fact that Mr. Pence and former cabinet officials and senior aides don’t support him “is hard proof that four more years of Trump is not in America’s interest.”

Mr. Bolton offered a similar view of the slew of former officials who have condemned Mr. Trump as unfit after working with him.

“They may express it in different ways, but that’s what it comes down to.”

Trump, attending the wake of a slain N.Y.P.D. officer, pushes campaign message on crime.

As hundreds of police officers and family members stood outside a Long Island funeral home, former President Donald J. Trump attended on Thursday the wake of a New York City police officer who was killed in the line of duty days earlier.

Then, Mr. Trump, who is facing four criminal cases, including one in Manhattan that is going to trial in less than three weeks, stood in front of more than a dozen police officers and proclaimed the need for the country to “get back to law and order.”

Mr. Trump’s visit with the family of Police Officer Jonathan Diller, who was fatally shot during a traffic stop on Monday, was not a campaign event, though he did take the opportunity to emphasize his message on crime.

After being greeted by New York City’s police commissioner, Mr. Trump met privately with Officer Diller’s widow and 1-year-old son, then viewed the officer’s coffin, said Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, who accompanied Mr. Trump.

Afterward, as rain poured down outside, Mr. Trump said the officer’s death was a horrible tragedy and, as he often does on the campaign trail, broadly called for a crackdown on violent crime without mentioning specific policies. “The only thing we can say is maybe something is going to be learned,” Mr. Trump said. “We’ve got to toughen it up. We’ve got to strengthen it up.”

But the former president’s attendance at the wake was reflective of a balancing act that has come to define his campaign. Even as Mr. Trump faces 88 felony charges, he has continued to court police officers and style himself as a tough-on-crime candidate in stark contrast to Democrats whose policies he says encourage violence.

While a somber Mr. Trump did not engage in the finger-pointing typical of his appearances on the trail, his top campaign aides and allies emphasized a contrast between his visit to New York with another being made on Thursday by President Biden for a campaign fund-raising event with former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

“President Trump will be honoring the legacy of Officer Diller,” Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesman, said on social media. He added, “Meanwhile, the Three Stooges — Biden, Obama, and Clinton — will be at a glitzy fundraiser in the city with their elitist, out-of-touch celebrity benefactors.”

A spokesman for the Biden campaign, T.J. Ducklo, said “another Donald Trump presidency would make Americans far less safe.” He added, “Trump’s presidency saw murders increase faster than at any point in history. He has promised to pardon violent rioters who attacked law enforcement because of his 2020 election lies and calls them ‘hostages.’ And he’s proposed massive cuts to law enforcement budgets repeatedly.”

Mayor Eric Adams of New York, who attended the wake after Mr. Trump, told reporters earlier on Thursday that Mr. Biden had called him to offer condolences that Mr. Adams said he would relay to the family. The White House told reporters that Mr. Biden had also offered the city and its police department his support.

Since his first presidential campaign, Mr. Trump has portrayed himself as a “law and order” candidate, stoking fears about violent crime and then promoting his unwavering support for the police and their efforts to tackle it.

Even as he contends with his criminal cases, he has made unqualified support of rank-and-file officers a central part of his bid to reclaim the White House.

Before Mr. Trump spoke to reporters, a line of police officers, some uniformed and some in tactical gear, were deliberately posed behind him. The former president often takes pictures with the police who accompany his motorcade on the campaign trail, and his aides regularly share videos of the interactions on social media to highlight the officers’ support.

At the same time, Mr. Trump routinely blasts liberal prosecutors and Democratic mayors for being ineffective at addressing violent crime, depicting their cities as lawless and dangerous. Such attacks have been politically successful on Long Island, where they helped Republicans make gains in the 2022 midterms.

Mr. Trump has focused particular ire on New York’s district attorney, who is prosecuting the former president on charges that he falsified business records to cover up hush-money payments to a porn star during the 2016 presidential campaign. Jury selection in the case is set to begin on April 15.

Across the street from the funeral home, many onlookers straining for a glimpse of Mr. Trump voiced anger at progressive policies that they said they believed had led to an increase in crime in the country, even as data has shown crime declining across the United States .

They pointed to the man accused in Officer Diller’s killing, Guy Rivera, 34, who was arrested on a gun charge last year and had at least 21 prior arrests. Mr. Rivera was charged on Thursday with first-degree murder in the shooting.

Deborah Geis, a retired police officer from Massapequa, N.Y., said Officer Diller was “senselessly killed by a man who should’ve been in jail.”

Mr. Trump did not elaborate on specific policies he would enact to prevent deaths like Officer Diller’s. He has previously swatted down calls for police reform, arguing that it would keep officers from properly fighting crime. On the campaign trail last year, he said shoplifters should be shot.

As part of his stump speech, Mr. Trump also vows to help police officers act more freely by indemnifying them from the financial consequences of lawsuits accusing them of misconduct, legal protections that they largely already possess.

Yet even as Mr. Trump proclaims his allegiance to police officers, he has recently voiced support for those imprisoned in connection with their roles during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of his supporters, motivated by his lies about the 2020 election, stormed past police barricades.

Some of those supporters were convicted of brutally attacking local and Capitol Police officers.

Corey Kilgannon and Dana Rubinstein contributed reporting.

Michael C. Bender

Reporting from Washington

Matt Schlapp’s accuser dropped his groping lawsuit after a $480,000 settlement.

A Republican operative who said he had been groped by Matt Schlapp, the head of one of the nation’s largest conservative advocacy groups, dropped his lawsuit against Mr. Schlapp after receiving a $480,000 settlement, according to three people familiar with the deal.

The operative, Carlton Huffman, 40, had accused Mr. Schlapp of grabbing his genital area when the two men were alone in a car after a campaign event in Georgia in 2022. He sued Mr. Schlapp last year but announced this week that he had dropped the lawsuit . In a statement, he said he had not been paid by Mr. Schlapp or the American Conservative Union, the group Mr. Schlapp oversees.

Instead, Mr. Huffman received the six-figure settlement through an insurance policy, according to the three people familiar with the deal, who insisted on anonymity to speak about the private agreement. These people said they were motivated to disclose the details because they were upset over what they described as a victory lap from Mr. Schlapp after the lawsuit was dropped.

Mr. Huffman declined to comment, saying he was legally bound to say nothing more than that he and Mr. Schlapp had resolved their differences.

Mr. Schlapp did not respond to a message seeking comment about the financial settlement, which was first reported by CNN , but Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Mr. Schlapp, said in a statement that “Mr. Huffman’s original statement is accurate.”

When the lawsuit was dropped, Mr. Schlapp released a lengthy statement that did not mention Mr. Huffman, and instead criticized unnamed liberals and the “left-wing” news media for coverage of the lawsuit.

On social media, Mr. Schlapp reposted messages that falsely claimed he had been cleared of wrongdoing and asserted that Mr. Huffman had apologized, which he had not.

Mr. Huffman’s lawyer, Tim Hyland, notified Mr. Schlapp that the social media posts violated the terms of the deal and that the two sides would return to court unless the problems were fixed.

All of the social media posts flagged by Mr. Hyland have been deleted.

Friends, allies and even former rivals pay their respects to Joseph Lieberman.

Friends, allies and former rivals of Joseph I. Lieberman, who died on Wednesday , offered condolences and praise for the four-term senator from Connecticut who was once a standard-bearer of the Democratic Party.

Mr. Lieberman, who was Al Gore’s running mate in the 2000 presidential election, had made his presence felt in politics long after his defeat in that race. He was the deciding Senate vote that led to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, allowing him to veto specific provisions like a public health insurance option .

He had also more recently aided the centrist organization No Labels in its search for a 2024 presidential candidate .

“Senator Lieberman leaves behind a void that cannot be filled,” the group said in a statement. “But we are honored to have known him, and we hope his family can find comfort in the difficult days ahead knowing the tremendous impact that he had.”

Mr. Gore, the former vice president who chose Mr. Lieberman as his running mate during the 2000 election, said it had been “an honor to stand side-by-side with him on the campaign trail.”

He added, “I’ll remain forever grateful for his tireless efforts to build a better future for America.”

Mr. Gore continued: “He was a truly gifted leader, whose affable personality and strong will made him a force to be reckoned with. That’s why it came as no surprise to any of us who knew him when he’d start singing his favorite song: Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way.’ And doing things Joe’s way meant always putting his country and the values of equality and fairness first.”

Former President George W. Bush, the victor — with Dick Cheney — over the Gore-Lieberman ticket in 2000, said: “In both loss and victory, Joe Lieberman was always a gentleman. I’m grateful for Joe’s principled service to our country and for the dignity and patriotism he brought to public life.”

Mr. Bush added, “Joe was as fine an American as they come and one of the most decent people I met during my time in Washington.”

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who had struck a close friendship with Mr. Lieberman and Senator John McCain of Arizona — the men referred to themselves as “the three amigos” — said the news of Mr. Lieberman’s death was “devastatingly sad.”

“The good news, he is in the hands of the loving God,” Mr. Graham said . “The bad news, John McCain is giving him an earful about how screwed up things are.” Mr. Graham signed his statement as “the Last Amigo.”

Mr. Lieberman cast the 60th and deciding vote under Senate rules to pass the Affordable Care Act in 2010, a signature achievement of President Barack Obama’s administration. “Joe Lieberman and I didn’t always see eye-to-eye,” Mr. Obama said in a statement, “but he had an extraordinary career in public service, including four decades spent fighting for the people of Connecticut.”

Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who had spoken to Mr. Lieberman as he considered running for president on the No Labels ticket, offered his condolences hours after publicly turning down the group’s offer. Mr. Lieberman was the centrist organization’s founding chairman and had recently served as its co-chairman.

“I am sad to lose him as a friend and as an example for how to conduct yourself in public life,” Mr. Christie said, adding that “the country is greater for his example and lesser today without his fearless leadership.”

Kellen Browning

Kellen Browning is covering the 2024 election, with a focus on Arizona and Nevada.

Bogus election fraud claims still run rampant in Arizona’s Maricopa County.

Nearly four years after Joseph R. Biden Jr. flipped Arizona blue, the state — and in particular its largest county, Maricopa — remains a hub for debunked claims of election fraud.

In 2021, Republicans pushed for a recount of the vote in Maricopa, a lengthy and chaotic process that failed to validate former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims that the vote had been rigged. A year later, Kari Lake, a close Trump ally who lost the governor’s race, baselessly claimed that her election had been stolen, too. She attacked state and local officials and filed a series of fruitless lawsuits seeking to overturn the result. The onslaught of threats against election officials hasn’t let up since, with meetings of the Maricopa County board of supervisors, which helps administer elections, often interrupted by angry attendees.

On Tuesday, lawyers for Ms. Lake indicated she would not dispute the facts of a defamation lawsuit that Stephen Richer, the Maricopa County recorder, had filed against her. Mr. Richer, a Republican, said in his lawsuit that Ms. Lake’s unfounded claims that he had helped rig the 2022 governor’s race against her had damaged his reputation and led to death threats against him and his family.

Such election conspiracy theories are hardly unique to Arizona. But they seem to be more durable and pervasive in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, riling up residents long after campaigns have closed up shop. Disinformation researchers and election officials suggested that a confluence of factors — Arizona’s rapidly changing status from Republican stronghold to hotly contested swing state, the lack of a prominent Republican combating conspiracy theories as one did in Georgia , and the persistent reinforcement of false information — have all contributed to an environment where baseless fraud claims run rampant on the right.

“You put that all together, and it’s a recipe for disaster,” said Joshua Garland, the interim director of the Center on Narratives, Disinformation and Strategic Influence at Arizona State University. “Once you latch onto a narrative or worldview, anything that supports or facilitates that worldview or narrative you’re much more likely to accept.”

The numbers back up Arizona’s outsize role in election fraud claims. At a news conference on Monday, Gary M. Restaino, the U.S. attorney for Arizona, said seven of the nation’s roughly 18 federal cases regarding election threats involved people targeting Arizona election officials, though the suspects are not Arizonans.

“We unfortunately are a leader in that,” Mr. Restaino said. “We expect that we are going to remain in the cross hairs, so to speak, of these threats, given that Arizona will remain a battleground state.”

The filing from Ms. Lake in the defamation case this week showed that such baseless claims can only go so far. After trying repeatedly to dismiss the case, Ms. Lake is now asking a judge to schedule a hearing to determine how much money she could owe Mr. Richer in damages, effectively bypassing a chance to fight his claims about defamation — a significant concession. Ms. Lake’s campaign said she would continue to argue that her statements did not amount to defamation at the hearing over damages, and that her move was simply an effort to expedite proceedings.

The tactic of moving straight to a hearing over damages, while unusual, would most likely limit Mr. Richer’s ability to pursue discovery in the case and potentially avoids Ms. Lake having to sit for a deposition or hand over relevant records.

Still, Mr. Richer framed Ms. Lake’s move as a victory.

“That means that the 2022 gubernatorial candidate is going to have a judgment entered into a court of law that she lied about the 2022 election,” Mr. Richer said in an interview, adding that he would seek “millions” of dollars in damages. “I set out on this course to put an end to those defamatory statements and to begin the repairing of my reputation, and so we take a step forward on those goals today.”

Mr. Richer, a Republican who now faces a primary challenger , said he had dealt with a torrent of harassment and threats since Ms. Lake began attacking him. Several people have been arrested in connection with threats of violence made against him and other election officials, and he said he had lost relationships and had to be careful about where he appeared in public.

“Not a day goes by where I don’t get to hear where traitors go, and how I should be locked up in Gitmo,” he said, referring to the Guantánamo Bay military prison.

Ms. Lake framed her decision not to keep fighting the suit as a refusal to participate in a “political witch hunt,” and used the opportunity to tie herself even closer to Mr. Trump, who has also accused Mr. Biden of weaponizing the legal system against him.

“We’ve all seen how they’re doing it to President Trump, and here in Arizona, they’re doing the exact same thing to me,” she said in a video posted to X. “I won’t be taking part.”

She added: “Even if they leave me, my husband and children homeless and penniless, that won’t stop us. We will continue to fight for Arizona.”

Ms. Lake has also gone on the offensive in recent weeks, appealing one of her lawsuits to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to take up her case and suggesting she had new evidence that electronic tabulation systems used to tally votes in Arizona were unreliable or prone to hacking. Past court decisions rejecting her cases have said there is no proof to substantiate her claims.

Ms. Lake’s filing asked the court to declare “that it is unconstitutional for the state to conduct an election which relies on the use of electronic voting systems to cast or tabulate the votes.”

Even aside from Ms. Lake, the Phoenix region has persisted as a breeding ground for baseless election conspiracy theories. Two Republican members of the Maricopa County board of supervisors, which tabulates votes, runs Election Day operations and certifies elections, have decided not to run for re-election this year, in part because of the hatred they faced after certifying the 2020 race for Mr. Biden and the 2022 governor’s race for Katie Hobbs, Ms. Lake’s Democratic opponent.

Critics — including Ms. Lake — accused them, without evidence, of rigging the races against the Republicans, and blamed them for the technical problems that disrupted ballot counting in 2022.

Last month, a crowd of people angry about purported voter fraud interrupted a board of supervisors meeting , forcing board members to leave early and call in the authorities to restore order. On Wednesday, the board tested new security measures, but again ended the meeting early as audience members taunted them . The board is made up of four Republicans and one Democrat.

Bill Gates, one of the retiring supervisors, said he had served in office for long enough, and he felt he could be more actively involved in administering the 2024 election if he was not also running for re-election. Mr. Gates, who said he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from nonstop harassment and death threats, said the hostile environment also played a role in his decision.

“Every day, if I just tweet, ‘I had a ham sandwich,’ the replies just pour in like, ‘You’re a traitor,’ ‘We’re going to hang you, ‘Your time is coming,’” he said. “It’s just constant.”

IMAGES

Bookend speeches of Obama’s presidency
Barack Obama's Most Influential And Powerful Speeches
Barack Obama's most noteworthy speeches
Best Speeches of Barack Obama's Presidency
President Obama's Greatest Speeches
Barack Obama's most memorable speeches

COMMENTS

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He wrote for a president. What Cody Keenan can teach you about crafting
In my class, students produce 10 different speeches, so they have a collection when they graduate. If you can't take my class, talk to professors and deans who give speeches and ask if you can help. Or write some op-eds, which really are like mini-speeches. Just start writing. As with anything else, the more you do it, the better you get.
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