President Stephen Miller's SOTU Was a White-Nationalist Wish List

President Trump does not have coherent policy positions, that puts huge power in the hands of the advisers writing his speeches.

DAVID LITT
01.31.18 4:45 AM ET

“You can’t put words in a president’s mouth.”

I don’t know how many times I’ve said that, mostly because I thought it was true. During my time as an Obama speechwriter, my goal was simple: Write something 90 percent as good as the president would if he had the time. I never tried to manipulate policy from behind the scenes. And if I had tried, it wouldn’t have worked. The president already knew what he stood for. Any speech-process power grab would have almost certainly altered my employment status. But our agenda would have remained unchanged.

I assumed this was true of all presidents, Democrats and Republicans alike. In my memoir, Thanks, Obama, I compared writing speeches to being a personal trainer rather than a puppet master. You can help a speaker present the most attractive version of themselves to the public. You can’t turn them into someone they’re not.

Like many statements I once made with certainly, it turns that one needs an asterisk: *With the giant, glaring exception of Donald Trump. If transcribed interviews are any guide, our 45th president’s natural speech pattern is a blend of vagaries and ramblings—a word salad a few weeks past its expiration date. That’s bad for America. But an incoherent president makes the speechwriting process a golden opportunity for a staffer hoping to put a finger on the scale.

Perhaps that’s why President Trump’s major addresses have such distinct personalities—personalities reminiscent of his top advisors. His “American Carnage” Inaugural Address was Steve Bannon through and through—a populist ode to the forgotten man, a poke in the eye of both parties establishment wings. Remarks at the Holocaust Memorial Museum were Javanka-esque, a series of high-minded pronouncements entirely divorced from the president’s past statements or current policy. Davos was a Gary Cohn job, of course—a cross between a formal address an earnings call.

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