Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Max If there is one major rule for a JOE BIDEN speech writer, it’s this: don’t be a snob. JEFF NUSSBAUM, who has written speeches for Biden both as vice president and president, understands the rule. He recalled one speech-writing session during the Obama administration, when Biden asked his staff which of them had 529 college savings accounts for their children. Everyone in the room raised their hands, Nussbaum recalled. “[Biden] paused and he said, ‘See, that’s why you don’t get it.’ He prides himself on being more in touch with where the majority of Americans are than his own staff,” he told West Wing Playbook. Nussbaum left his White House job two weeks ago and just started the publicity rounds for his newly published book, “Undelivered” —about consequential political speeches drafted but never delivered. So we called him up to chat about his time with Biden and speechwriting history. When he was younger, then-Sen. Biden was considered among the most electric public speakers in the Democratic party — right up there with the Rev. JESSE JACKSON. The Philadelphia Inquirer described Biden as “a stirring orator whose appeal is similar to Kennedy's” in a 1985 story handicapping the next presidential race. And a 1986 column by Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory noted Biden was “much in demand as a star speaker, one guaranteed to rouse Democrats from the melancholy torpor.” That was then. As president, Biden’s speeches are often sober, explanatory, and simple. “[The speeches] don't spend a lot of time on colorful historical analogies – they just get to the point,” said Nussbaum. “It's not oration. It's conversation. And he knows who he's having a conversation with.” Nussbaum was part of a team of White House speechwriters headed by VINAY REDDY , and often assisted in big speeches by longtime Biden adviser MIKE DONILON. His book weaves in his own experiences as a speechwriter for, among others, former Senate Majority Leader TOM DASCHLE (D-S.D.) and Vice President AL GORE. It also provides a behind-the-scenes account of how HILLARY CLINTON and her team composed a 2016 victory speech she never delivered after being defeated by DONALD TRUMP. That history allows Nussbaum to assess how Biden’s speeches are distinct from some of his predecessors. For instance, Nussbaum told West Wing Playbook how Biden’s remarks are molded by practices the president long ago developed to overcome his stutter. “One of the things we try to do in the president's speeches is keep sentences short,” Nussbaum said. “But really he is the one who modifies his speeches to the way that makes it easiest for him to read. He puts in dashes and spaces and asks for carriage returns on this line.” Nussbaum said Biden often dictates his speeches on the fly which requires speechwriters to have fast typing. “A lot of my job in the years since has been to capture what [Biden] says in the room. And capture it quickly…. At the end of the day, Joe Biden is Joe Biden's chief speechwriter.” He’s also a speech tinker-er. Biden often makes changes to his remarks up to the last second, blowing past deadlines, often making him late for his event. Ultimately, they also look different from most speeches. “After he marks them up, they don't look like words on a page. They look like sheet music,” Nussbaum said. “There's lines and dashes and underlines, and circled words and stuff.” But, ultimately, the northstar is to not condescend, both in the subject matter covered in a speech and in the delivery of it. Nussbaum said that “one of the things I will say as a speechwriter which President Biden has never said but which he gets almost intuitively is that the average American reads at the eighth grade level.” TEXT US — ARE YOU DAN CLUCHEY, senior presidential speechwriter for Biden? We want to hear from you. Or if you think we missed something in today’s edition, let us know and we may include it tomorrow. Email us at westwingtips@politico.com.
| 
