The US president will deliver his second speech on Tuesday at 9:00 p.m. local time (11:00 p.m. in Argentina), during prime time.
Writing the State of the Union address, the most important of the year in American politics, It is not an easy task but a complex process that lasts for months, in which the messages are rewritten over and over again, and that culminates with the president giving an account before Congress in an event surrounded by mystique.
US President Joe Biden will deliver his second State of the Union address on Tuesday and will do so at 9:00 p.m. local time (2:00 GTM on Wednesday), at prime time.
Behind Biden’s speech is a complicated process, in which all sectors of the Government are involved and which is “totally different” to any other that a president can give, tells EFE Jeff Shesol, who was in charge of writing an endless number of speeches for former president Bill Clinton (1993-2001).
a different speech
One of the aspects that distinguishes the State of the Union speech is the dedication with which it is prepared: the work begins three or four months before and there are parts that are rewritten, they edit, delete, and re-include over and over again.
Shesol, who wrote Clinton’s State of the Union addresses in 1999 and 2000, explains that presidents are often heavily involved in that process.
“In the case of Clinton, even more,” says Shesol, who says that the former president was usually involved almost from the beginning to help define what the structure and tone of the speech would be and, once the date approached, he met almost daily with his advisers to finalize the details.
Former President Barack Obama (2009-2017) was very similar to Clinton: he participated in all the development, made multiple changes and even wrote entire fragments of the speech himself, reveals one of his advisers David Plouffe in a 2012 video on the White House YouTube channel.
In the case of Biden, the implication seems to be the same and, in fact, his communications team has spent months preparing his State of the Union address, choosing among other things what specific policies will be mentioned in the text.
Tug of war
However, such a choice is very complicated. Each government department defends its own interests and insists on the White House so that its ideas occupy a central place in the discourse, reveals Shesol, who suffered these pressures in his own flesh when he worked for Clinton.
When Shesol was in the White House, there were heads of some departments who failed to get Clinton’s attention and they ended up having a tug of war with the communications equipment.
“A few months before the speech, those of us involved in making it became very popular and our phones would not stop ringing. Some members of the Executive were anxious, even desperate, for their priorities to be included in the text and were looking for any way to get it,” he recalls.
The reason for this pressure was clear: if department heads got their ideas into the discourse, that meant they became a personal priority for the president and that they would probably receive more funds from the budget.
Once that stage is over, the communications team usually gets down to writing and drafts different versions of the speech. When you have the final draft, it’s time for rehearsals.
Last minute edits
Those rehearsals usually take place in a small theater inside the White House. The president is placed on a podium similar to the one he will have in Congress and, while reading the draftyou make changes: perhaps there is a part that is very long and another section that is very slow or seems boring.
“And that same process, with the president making changes as he reads, is repeated daily until it’s time to give the speech,” says Shesol.
When the day of the State of the Union address arrives, the last changes are made and he gets into the final version on a teleprompter.
The nerves and expectations are so great that, until the president begins to speak, one does not realize that the writing process has finished, recalls Shesol.
“I remember standing at the back of the House of Representatives and I knew every word Clinton said, every pause. I had eaten, lived, slept and breathed that speech for months and knew it completely. That doesn’t happen with any other speech.”concludes Shesol.
State of the Union addresses occur only once a year and often have high viewership. Biden’s first was watched by 40 million viewers.
EFE Agency
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