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For more high-profile remarks, he obsessively repeated parts until he memorized them. And sometimes, through the various iterations of remarks, Biden might become downright obnoxious.
“I would never say that,” Biden once called out to an aide, dismayed at the prepared remarks he was reviewing, according to a person in the room during a speech preparation session last year. “Where did you get this from?”
The aide explained that Biden had just said so in a public speech a few weeks earlier.
These are the features and annoyances that characterize speech writing with Biden.
Whether it’s his second brutal same-day speech in Michigan or a nationally televised speech, there are few tasks in politics that Biden takes more seriously than talking. And, perhaps, the difficulties he had with speaking as a child explains why.
On Wednesday, Biden, the boy who grew up speaking with a stutter, will deliver an inaugural speech that will carry more weight than any speech he’s obsessed with in the past.
“He is well aware that this is the most important inaugural address since Lincoln,” said Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware who is a close ally of Biden.
Biden’s speech, which is supposed to last between 20 and 30 minutes, is expected to pick up on themes he has stumbled upon since entering the presidential race in April 2019, including the return of “the soul of the nation ”and a commitment to being president of all Americans, even those who did not vote for him.
But unlike some of those earlier versions, Wednesday’s speech is increasingly urgent. Faced with multiple crises, including a pandemic and its economic fallout, Biden needs bipartisan support to push an ambitious agenda through Congress. A powerful inaugural speech is seen as a step towards more detractors by his side, his relatives say.
Longtime aides and advisers expect the inaugural address to cross the territory Biden has covered in his nearly 50-year public career, while highlighting a program that brings hope to a devastated country by disease, economic struggles and violent political insurrection.
While the process of crafting Biden’s speeches can be grueling (one longtime advisor jokingly suggested forming a support group for Biden’s speech writers), there is a method. Biden has kept around him a core team of loyal advisers who have grown up learning to analyze when the president-elect is just riffing and when he really wants his thoughts to be on paper.
Biden got acquainted with Speechwriter Vinay Reddy and Senior Advisor Mike Donilon, who helped him write his stories in a straightforward and grounded manner. The president-elect also relied on Tony Blinken, his secretary of state-designate, to assist in the speech-writing process. The new chief of staff, Ron Klain, is also part of the group.
For his speeches, Biden receives advice – both solicited and unsolicited – from a wide range of luminaries, which in the past included historian Jon Meacham. However, two people familiar with the preparations said Meacham was not involved in crafting the inaugural address.
“I know the speech is getting a lot of attention,” said the chairman of the Democratic National Finance Committee. Chris Korge. “He’s going to turn the page and move forward for all Americans.”
The inaugural speech will be Biden’s largest audience since he gave a acceptance speech on November 7. It will be the most important speech since he gave at the Democratic National Convention in August, when misinformation raged about his mental sharpness. Biden’s team at the time had said they were ready for Republicans – namely President Donald Trump – to pick up on any phrase Biden distorted.
“People were nervous,” said a confidant who spoke with Biden in the days leading up to the convention speech, which was delivered from Wilmington, Del. “But Joe had been working on it and at one point he said, ‘I’m going to make the ancestors proud. I will make mommy and daddy proud. ”
Cedric Richmond, the congressman from Louisiana who just stepped down to take on a prominent role in Biden’s White House, has said now, just like in August, that people have not given Biden credit.
“People have always underestimated his ability to take on a challenge,” said Richmond. “Either way, he’s still up to the job.”
Biden will speak at a time when there is a show of force in the nation’s capital, with the neighborhood center closed to the public and thousands of armed soldiers roaming the streets to stave off the kind of murderous unrest that has unfolded in inside the Capitol building. January 6th.
But Matt Teper, who worked as a speechwriter for Biden in the Obama White House, predicted that Biden would spend little or no time speaking specifically about Trump.
“The most important thing tomorrow is probably his tone,” Teper said. “American carnage [the theme of Trump’s inaugural address] keeps coming up in every conversation, but no one wants to hear that. It must make people feel that they are looking to the future. There is a president in charge at the moment. As long as he projects it all, then it’s a success.
Christopher Cadelago and Marc Caputo contributed to this report.
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