US President's Annual Address An Exhausting 'Super Bowl,' Speechwriters Say

Washington, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 5th Mar, 2024) When US President Joe Biden gives his State of the Union speech on Thursday, it will be the culmination of three months' intensive work for his speechwriters.

"The State of the Union is the speech that every speechwriter dreams of writing -- and then once they've done it, they never want to do it again," says Terry Szuplat, a former speechwriter for Barack Obama.

"It's arguably one of the highest profile speeches that a president gives all year. So it would seem to be a tremendous opportunity, and yet at the very same time, it rarely, if ever changes the fundamental dynamics of a presidency."

Biden will emerge this week after three days secluded at the Camp David presidential retreat in the hills of Maryland working on the final draft of the primetime televised speech.

This year could be his most important yet. Seeking reelection in November in a likely rematch against Donald Trump, he will seek to convince voters worried about his age and wars in Gaza and Ukraine, while touting his achievements on the economy.

The speechwriters' work likely began in October or November of 2023, when they started harvesting ideas from across government departments and holding budget meetings, says Sarada Peri, another former Obama writer.

A first draft normally emerges before Christmas "but then they would really start in earnest again once we came back from the holidays and it's incredibly stressful" she said.

The task, she added was to "try to weave them into some kind of narrative with an arc, some kind of story that will be compelling to the American people."