 One to our second Portland Rising series. Portland Rising is a production of the Portland Phoenix and the Portland Media Center. Thank you to Leslie and Josh for helping us out with this. Portland Rising gives us at the Phoenix away for a more interactive and in-depth look at the people and news we've been covering in the pages of our weekly newspaper. And this month we have a very exciting guest, at least I'm very excited. And here's my partner and editor and dear friend in this endeavor, Maryam McHugh, for the introduction. Maryam. Thank you, Karen. We are excited to have Dan Clucci with us today. And I just wanted to say a few words about what we've been doing editorially at the Phoenix since we restarted the Phoenix in November of 2019 after the previous Phoenix had gone out of business. The Phoenix has been an alternative newspaper starting in 1968. But it was totally out of business in various towns until we took it over in November of 2019. And we've been trying to do intensive local coverage of Portland and issues in Portland, as well as continuing the arts coverage that really was the hallmark of all the previous versions of the Phoenix. We have Megan Grumbling covering theater. And Ed Beame, Maine's premier fine arts writer, and Sam Feifel, who's well known for his music reviews. I just wanted to mention briefly a few stories that we've covered recently. One of these was an in-depth exploration of the effort by nurses at Maine Medical Center to form a union, which has happened frequently in the last few years. There's another effort going on right now. And our state house reporter and former Maine Times editor, Doug Rooks, took a very intense exploration of that, as well as looking at the history of the other nurses' union attempts at Maine Med. Most recently, as I said, we've tried to cover Portland news very, very closely. Most recently, we've inquired as to why the city of Portland inexplicably has not granted any licenses for recreational marijuana stores, despite the fact that the applications went in last August. And many business people in that area are wondering why they haven't gotten licenses yet. And colonelists also explored a continuing dispute between Havad, religious organization, and the city of Portland. And also, our reporter, Elizabeth Clemente, followed up something. We're trying to cover the schools very intensively because that's so important and how schools are responding to the pandemic and the challenges of education in this time. And she had a front page story on high school seniors talking to many seniors and their parents about the issues they face in trying to get their kids back to school, a really good story. So I just wanted to let you know about those things and also urge you to, again, thank you for watching us today. But let us know what you'd like us to cover. If you have story ideas, please write to maryann at portlundfenix.me or letters to the editor. We'd really like to hear from you because we will be successful really if we really can connect to our readers. So thank you very much. And now I'm going to turn it over to Elizabeth Clemente for our interview with Dan Clucci. Thank you, Marion. I am so glad to welcome our guest today, Dan Clucci, who recently began his role as the senior presidential speech writer at the White House for President Joe Biden. Dan is a native of Cape Elizabeth and a graduate of Cape Elizabeth Public Schools. He later went on to graduate from Amherst College and Harvard Law School. His first speech writing job was under the Obama administration in 2011 as an internship. And he later went on to write for President Biden at the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware before writing for him on his presidential campaign. I spoke to Dan back in November for a story in the Phoenix. And I'm so excited to have him back today. Dan, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. It's good to speak with you again. Of course. So let's start by talking about how did you get into this line of work? I mean, what was your path from Amherst to landing the internship under the Obama administration? Seems like a great first speech writing gig. So how did you do that? Sure. I think I sort of had speech writing on my radar from a relatively early age. I don't think of it as a profession that a lot of young people are even necessarily aware of, or maybe you see it on the West Wing or something like that. But it's, I guess, a less traditional sort of career. So I think for me in college, I just got the bug and realized that my real passions, I had a real passion for writing, particularly creative writing in different forms, but also for politics and especially for progressive causes. And I guess I sort of located speech writing as a place where there was sort of a confluence between those two things that I cared about so much. And after that, the challenge was figuring out how to do it, how to break in. It's not a job you can really, there's not really a traditional path in. So for me, it was when I got to law school and started looking for that first speech writing internship, there wasn't really a question of what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to do it. It was just, how do you do it? And the answer to that ended up being you got to badger a lot of people and cold call folks and sort of figure it out and carve your own path in. So that's what I did. Awesome, yeah. And I know you said during our last interview that law school is kind of a common path for a lot of speech writers, which surprised me a little bit. So how did Harvard Law prepare you for your job now? It's a question I think about all the time when the bills come due. But I think there are a lot of speech writers who are lawyers. And I don't think it's entirely an accident. I think when I was thinking about applying to law school, I looked around at the top speech writers and what their paths had been. And a lot of them had gone to law school. And it's not really an intuitive connection between that education and that line of work. And to be honest, I don't use my legal education every day. Certainly not in really tangible ways. But I do think it was good preparation. It's law school is good preparation for any number of jobs in the political sphere, I would say. And it mostly manifests in sort of more intangible ways. It kind of trains you to think through arguments in a certain way, which is really helpful when your speech writing because so much of it is about making a case, frankly, framing an argument. And as a writer, I think for me, it definitely helped. I think by nature, I tend towards being a more sort of flowery, over-the-top rhetorical type of writer and law school. If it's good for nothing else, it's good for discipline and economy of language and kind of bringing you back to the ground level, which I needed a lot of writers do. And I think really helps a speech writer. Definitely awesome. So from your internship with the Obama administration, you went on to write for President Biden at the University of Delaware and then onto his campaign. So maybe talk a little bit about how you got in with President Biden at that point and then what the journey has been like since, how the speech writing has changed now that he's in this first term. Sure. Well, my internship was a long time ago. It was back in 2011. So I worked in the Obama administration full time after law school. I wrote for Secretary Kathleen Stubbilius at the Department of Health and Human Services. And I worked at the Export-Import Bank, which is a small agency within the executive branch. So speech writing is a small field. And speech writers kind of get to know each other a little bit. It's a little bit of a niche profession. So you get to know the other folks. And it makes it easier to sort of hear about openings and things like that. It's a small world, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. So I was able to kind of get word years later in 2018 that President Biden, then private citizen, Biden was looking for a new speech writer for his domestic policy institute work on sort of everything that isn't national security or foreign policy with him. And I jumped at that chance. My wife and I were heading back to DC around that time after she finished law school. So it worked out timing-wise as well. And I've been along for the ride ever since. And the second part of your question, the process has certainly changed. When I first came on board, he wasn't yet a candidate for president. And it was a much, much, much smaller team, although some of the same phases we've been with him for a very long time. So I would say the scale of the operation has changed pretty dramatically. And that kind of changes the speech writing process. But the great thing about it, and it only gets better, is that you get more and more really smart, really competent, really talented folks into the mix and onto the team. And that only makes the speeches better, frankly, and the process a stronger one when you have a really smart, diverse group of voices who are kind of buttressing everything that goes into the speeches in some way. Definitely. So let's talk a little bit about that process. How do you start a speech? Where do you go for research to make sure that you're including the most up-to-date references and things like that? And who else is editing the speech before President Biden goes and gives it? Sure. Well, it's a pretty big universe of folks. Each speech, the process might be a little bit different, but you're always consulting with policy folks and subject matter experts. Those are typically the people that we look to first, because they're the people who know these issues the best. Depending on the nature of the speech, those are different people housed in different offices and things like that. But you go to the people who know the substance, and you go to the people who know the audience as well. And you just have to be a sponge. A lot of speech writing is listening, frankly, and absorbing as much as you can, and sort of mining through looking for the best version of the story or the tightest version of the argument within the broad base of knowledge that so many folks in the administration and outside of the administration have at their disposal. We have a great research team who help provide the best facts and figures. They're advisors. There are different offices within the White House. They're always folks who know best and you've drawn their experience, sort of depending on the subject matter. Awesome. So what's a typical day like for you now that you work for the White House? I'm sure it's pretty busy. A little bit. Well, a lot of us are working. Typical is a tough word to pin down. I'm working remotely primarily. A lot of folks are. Even though there are some folks who are in the White House and in the West Wing right now. But the majority of us, the vast majority of us are not. So in some ways, I think that's made it a more kind of seamless transition because it kind of looks the same as it did before in some ways. And we're not maybe, I'm not as blinded by the lights, I guess, but a typical day, hopefully with luck, we kind of know what's coming down the pike a little bit in terms of speeches, announcements, statements that need to go out, videos that need to be recorded, all the different ways that the president communicates with the world. On good days, we know that well in advance. Certainly sometimes you have to react to the news of the day with an appropriate statement or speech or something like that. But you generally know what's on the table more or less. And you go about your process and you connect with all the very smart folks and look to the folks on the communications team, again, the research team, the policy team, and get yourself prepared. And there's some writing that happens in there as well at various points. But no two days, it's a cliche, but no two days are the same, I think, is my assessment so far. For sure, for sure. And so as far as those speeches that are kind of more planned, like a big speech like President Biden's victory speech after winning the election, or a speech at the Democratic National Convention, how long does a long or bigger speech like that take to write? I would say that the larger speeches, every speech is a team effort to a certain extent. And the president is someone who cares deeply about speeches and is very tuned in word by word, line by line on his speeches and never more so than those big moments or those kind of higher profile speeches. So the process for those is going to start much earlier, I would say, and comes with a little more initial direction, I would say. For every big speech the president gives, he has a pretty clear vision of what he wants to communicate and what he wants to evoke. I've worked for many different folks, and sometimes the issue you run into is helping them shape their voice or helping them figure out what they want to say. That's not really the case with this president. He has a defined voice. He knows what he wants to say. So the writing isn't about pulling anything from whole cloth. It's never about that. It's about pulling out the threads that are already there and putting the best before it on that message and creating the best version, threading together the best version of that message. And sometimes those big speeches come together maybe faster than people would expect even a day or two for an initial draft, sometimes even less, sometimes more. I know that's not a very clear answer, but it's true. It varies. But then there's a lot of iterating, multiple drafts, getting everything exactly right and exactly true to the president's voice. And he's very involved in that. Definitely. Do you have a most stressful memory or a most stressful speech that you've worked on for President Biden that you can remember? I think I've maybe repressed all of my stressful memories. Yeah, I mean, the stress often comes into stakes, I would say. I mean, there have been many times when we've been, by we, I mean, the speechwriting team have been sort of up against the clock. That's really the nature of the job. I don't know, none stand out in particular, but pre-pandemic, the most stressful thing for me, always pre-pandemic was being sort of on site at events, hovering over the shoulder of the teleprompter operator. For me, that's the most stressful thing because the president is a very confident speaker and he'll get up there and he can sort of make edits and really good edits in real time and tells everybody knows he's a storyteller. And when you're back there with the teleprompter operator, making sure you're in the right place and that you're going to be there when he sticks the landing so that he can sort of flow on naturally, those are some stressful moments, I would say it's something that every speechwriter, no matter whom they're working for, has dealt with at various points. Definitely. And I know during our last interview, you said that the pandemic obviously was probably the most challenging part of writing for the campaign. So I'm wondering how was writing for a Zoom or virtual format different than writing for a speech that President Biden might give in front of a crowd of thousands of people? That's a really good question because it is a little bit different and you have to sort of think about it as not as a speech to a thousand people, but as a speech to one person because that's how anyone viewing a speech over Zoom or viewing a speech on their laptop, they're not experiencing it as a part of a group, they're experiencing it as though they're having a one-on-one conversation, frankly, or at least listening to one person speak and you write differently when you're speaking to one person. And fortunately, I think one of the great strengths, frankly, the president is, and anyone who's sort of been on the campaign trail or met him frankly in person, knows how sort of compelling and powerful he is in those one-on-one environments. He's fantastic at really connecting with the person in front of him. And Zoom isn't quite the same, but you are sort of replicating that format in a way where you can have a more personal conversation that you can't have in a high school gymnasium or in a sports stadium or a concert hall or whatever. And I think you can write to that and he can speak to that on a little more of a personal one-on-one level. And it's a place where he really shines and always has. And I think that does influence the way we write sometimes. Yes. Definitely. Do you have a favorite memory from the campaign or from working for President Biden in general? Yeah, I mean, winning was good, certainly. That stands out. It's interesting because it goes by in a blur, I will say. And as anyone who's worked on a campaign before knows, it's long hours, it's a lot of work that can be very stressful and it flies by all the same. And I think for me, the moments that really stand out are, these are gonna be fairly obvious because they're sort of the public moments, but the night of the South Carolina primary was just a huge moment and kind of a restoration of faith and belief and a sense of, you know, we're on the way to really accomplishing something and there's so many moments scattered throughout. But I mean, nothing tops the election, I think. It's fair to say. And that was a little bit of a delayed gratification. But you know, you're sort of running this marathon the whole way and you don't really stop to appreciate it as much as you showed along the way. And then you hit that wall at the end of it and or you hit the tape, I guess I should say at the end of it. And it does sort of hit you all at once and that you've been bottling up what an experience this was and what it meant to you and what it means to so many people out there. And yeah, that hit me like a truck. Absolutely. Do you have a favorite speech writer or a favorite famous speech that you think is particularly good and why? Oh, yeah, I don't, I'm not sure I have a favorite speech writer, although I've worked with some fantastic ones and worked with some fantastic ones right now, but I do have some favorite speeches, I would say one that I like to go back to a lot was delivered by Teddy Roosevelt over a century ago. I think it was 1910 or thereabouts that he gave in Osawatomi, Kansas, called the new nationalism. And it's something that's struck out to me as being sort of anachronistic in a good way. It's something I can read and you know, not everything sort of resonates to these times, but a lot of it sort of surprisingly does even though it was more than a century ago and it has Teddy Roosevelt's sort of signature vigorous style and sort of a vision of what the nation could be at its best that really resonates with me, but there are so many great ones. A great main speech, Margaret Chase Smith and her Declaration of Conscience is another favorite, but you know, it's a real Sophie's choice trying to just pick one favorite speech. There have been some great ones, but they're always good to go to for inspiration. What do you think makes a great speech in general? That's a great question. I think, you know, there's a lot that goes into it. I think one of the, a couple of things. One of the underrated things that makes a great speech is the sonic quality of it, which probably doesn't sound like a top thing, but maybe this is like speech writer inside baseball a little bit, but I think the cadence and the rhythm and some of it comes from the delivery, but the great speeches sound sort of like symphonies and they've got the swoops and the crescendos and it just sounds right. And it hits you in a way where you don't even independently of the content. You know you're listening to something sort of profound because the music and the language is there. That's not the most important thing. The content is the most important thing, but the music of speeches is really an underrated quality that if you go back and hear speeches that really resonated with you, it was often sort of lurking there under the surface. You know, great speeches, I think, also have a call to action. You know, they all end with some sort of a noble homework assignment for the people who are listening. That's, you know, I have a dream is a speech we remember, of course, but you know, it ended with a call to action to go back to your home states and do X, Y, Z. The Gettysburg address ended with a call to action. You know, we have to re-consecrate this nation. So the great ones ask something of you and I think that's very important. There's a lot else that goes into great speeches, but one other thing I would say is like having a thread that ties the speech together because you can have a collection of great sentences and pretty turns of phrase and memorable quotes, but to be a great speech, it has to have some sort of a thread tying it all together, a rhetorical device and an anecdote that sort of drives the whole story. It has to have something that ties it into one product. Absolutely. And just to kind of close out here, I know that you've also published a book which was published in 2014. So obviously writing a novel is no small feat. I'm not sure how you've accomplished that while you were so busy doing all these other things. But I'm wondering obviously you'll be in this role for four years, maybe for longer. Do you have aspirations to write more books? Do you want to be a speechwriter for the rest of your career? Kind of where are you headed? I don't know the answer to that. I did, it's a 2016 my book came out but I had actually written it a few years earlier. It just takes a while. And that was something I really enjoyed and something speechwriting made possible because when I finished law school, I had a little break before starting my job with the Obama administration and time on my hands and used that time to sort of draft a novel and honestly did not think anything would come of it. And frankly, not much did, but it exists. And I loved it because it was a chance to, the thing I love about speechwriting, it has a lot in common with writing fiction because you're inhabiting another character just happens to be a real person saying true things but it's the same principle of exercising empathy as a writer and stepping into someone else's shoes. But in one case, you're creating the people into whose shoes you're stepping. And I love speechwriting for basically the same reasons and I would love to write another book someday. It made me very tired. I don't know that I might take some time off before attempting that again, but if I ever had the opportunity to do that, it's something I enjoyed very much but I have no quarrel with speechwriting. It's a great line of work and I encourage anybody, there aren't enough speechwriters out there, it's a small profession, but if you're interested in politics and you enjoy writing and creative expression, it's a great meeting place for those things. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Dan. We seriously appreciate you chatting with us today. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I'm flattered and happy to be here and thank you so much. Awesome, thank you. And now back to Karen Wood. Thank you, Dan, and thank you, Elizabeth, but Dan especially, I've been so curious to hear what you had to say because those of us, the majority of us who sit and listen to these wonderful speeches or terrible speeches, I won't say who, but anyway, I think we all know who, but yours were very inspirational and I think you very accurately pointed out that it speaks to the individual and we definitely feel that when you write, so I just want you to know that and to thank you very much for spending time with us on our little show today and to everyone else out there, please, like Marion said, let us know what you think. Email Marion, call us, social media, us, whatever you do, but just let us know what you think and thank you for watching and join us next month. Thank you, guys.