How speechwriters delve into a president’s mind: Lots of listening, studying and becoming a mirror

WASHINGTON (AP) — Speechwriting, in one sense, is essentially being someone else’s mirror.

“You can try to find the right words,” said Dan Cluchey, a former speechwriter for President Joe Biden. “But ultimately, your job is to ensure that when the speech is done, that it has a reflection of the speaker.”

That concept is infinitely magnified in the role of the presidential speechwriter. Over the course of U.S. history, those aides have absorbed the personalities, the quirks, the speech cadences of the most powerful leader on the globe, capturing his thoughts for all manner of public remarks, from the mundane to the historic and most consequential.

There are few times in a presidency that the art — and the rigorous, often painful process — of speechwriting is more on display than during a State of the Union, when the vast array of a president’s policy aspirations and political messages come together in one, hour-plus carefully choreographed address at the Capitol. Biden will deliver the annual address on Thursday.

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