The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Grace: President Obama and Ten Days in the Battle for America by Cody Keenan

Episode Date: October 5, 2022

Grace: President Obama and Ten Days in the Battle for America by Cody Keenan From Barack Obama’s chief speechwriter Cody Keenan, a spellbinding account of the ten most dramatic days of the presidency, when a hate-fueled massacre and looming Supreme Court decisions put the character of our country on the line, and a president’s words could bring the nation together or tear it apart. A white supremacist shooting and an astonishing act of forgiveness. A national reckoning with race and the Confederate flag. The fate of marriage equality and the Affordable Care Act. GRACE is the propulsive story of ten days in June 2015, when Obama and his chief speechwriter Cody Keenan composed a series of high-stakes speeches to meet a succession of stunning developments. Through behind-the-scenes moments—from Obama’s suggestion that Keenan pour a drink, listen to some Miles Davis, and “find the silences,” to the president’s late-night writing sessions in the First Family’s residence—Keenan takes us inside the craft of speechwriting at the highest level for the most demanding of bosses, the relentlessly poetic and perfectionist Barack Obama. GRACE also delivers a fascinating portrait of White House insiders like Ben Rhodes, Valerie Jarrett, Jen Psaki, and the speechwriting team responsible for pulling it all off during a furious, historic stretch of the Obama presidency—including a gifted fact-checker who took Keenan’s rhetoric to task before taking his hand in marriage. GRACE is the most intimate writing that exists on the rhetorical tightrope our first Black president had to walk, culminating with an unforgettable high point: Obama stunning everybody by taking a deep breath and leading the country in a chorus of “Amazing Grace.”

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com.

Hey, thanks for coming on, people. We certainly appreciate you being here. Thanks for being part of the big show. Remember, the Chris Foss Show is the family that loves you but doesn't judge you, so you should always prefer to show your family, friends, and relatives. Go give them a five-star rating on the iTunes there. Tell them to subscribe over there on YouTube.com, Forge S. Chris Foss, Goodreads.com, Forge S. Chris Foss, the big LinkedIn group,

and, of course, our LinkedIn newsletter and all the places we are across social media. I'm really excited to have this next guest on the podcast. He was a speechwriter for Mr. President Obama and a gentleman I voted for, so I kind of had a hand in giving him his job. No, I didn't. I did not. That's not true. But I helped. Actually, I think he had the job. No, I didn't. I did not. That's not true. But I helped.

Actually, I think he had the job before that. But we'll get into the bio. I digress. He is the author of the amazing new book coming out October 4th, 2022. The book is called Grace, President Obama and 10 Days in the Battle for America. Cody Keenan is on the show with us today, and he's going to be talking to us. This is an amazing new book and everything that went into it, and I think you're going to be surprised at some of the stuff we're going to discuss.

He was born and raised in Chicago. Cody rose from a campaign intern in his hometown to become a chief speechwriter at the White House and Barack Obama's post-presidential collaborator. He's a sought-after expert on politics, messaging, and current affairs, and he is now a partner at leading speechwriter firm Fenway Strategies and teaches a popular course on political speechwriting to undergraduates at his alma mater, Northwestern University. Cody lives in New York City with his wife kristin and their baby grace welcome to show thanks for having me not bad i'm sorry for i'm tagged go ahead i make it

a point to thank everybody who voted because you did help me get that job so thank you brother there you go i think i read though you got the job in in uh prior to uh his presidency right yeah early 2007 2007 so the The White House was not guaranteed at that point. People forget we were losing by 40 points in Iowa. That's true. Wasn't that the first thing and when Hillary was

ahead on that one or something? She was way ahead of us, yeah. She was literally up 40 points in Iowa, I think, by in September of 07. So it was not a given and thank you. Yeah, whatever. It's Ohio. Give me a break.

The only thing they're good for is astronauts. I don't know. That's just my opinion. I won't show that on you. But, Cody, thanks for coming on the show. Give us your plugs, wherever you want people to find out more about you on the interwebs to get to know you better. Yeah, sure. The best place to go and pre-order or buy

this book is at CodyKeenan.com. That's where we also have a full and growing list of events on tour. You can cue the Big and Rich song, We're Coming to Your City. I worked really hard on this book, and I'm really proud of this book. Everybody always says that, of course, but this is something I've been thinking about for a long time, just just to catch the listeners up grace is a book that takes place over the span of 10 days in june 2015 um and everyone will probably remember the events but not that they were all within 10 days they they were bookended by the um white supremacist mass shooting in a black church in charleston south carolina and on the 10th day by Obama's eulogy in Charleston, where he sang Amazing Grace. And in between, you also had Republican governors in the South began bringing down the Confederate

flag over public spaces, which is something I never thought I'd see. You had the Supreme Court uphold marriage equality, find a right to marriage equality and uphold the Affordable Care Act. All of this happens in pretty much just a week. And, you know, really kind of brought all these questions about America alive. You know, it's like, who are we? Who belongs? What does it mean to be an American? And just in a way that no other week, let alone month or year really had. And, you know, those 10 days kind of solidified in my head during the Trump years, which were the opposite. You know, if America is a story of progress and backlash, we were living through that backlash. Um, I stayed with president Obama for another four years after the white house, uh, just to help him out. And so I didn't feel, I didn't feel right writing this

book while he was still paying my salary. So I waited until 2020 to get started on it. There you go. So this has been a long time coming. And as the chief White House speechwriter, it was your job during these 10 days, and of course, during the time you work with him, to write the best speeches you possibly could for him to help deal with this. Tell us more about what those 10 days were like, and maybe give us some of the details on each of the different topics you were writing on. Yeah, it was stressful to be sure. So we knew, you know, you obviously don't know a mass shooting is coming and you just kind of hop into action when it does. You know, it's sort of a job description of the president of the United States to step up and say something in any time of tragedy

and, you know, try to put it in context, even if, you know, it's, it's done and can't be undone. Um, the president has to reassure people, the world to keep spinning. Obviously this had an added dimension because the killer was an avowed white supremacist, um, and specifically targeted black people saying he wanted to start a race war. So you have to try to quickly write something that will accomplish all that. And maybe, you know, defuse tensions a little bit. At the same time, what I had been working on before that was, you know, we knew the Supreme Court was looking at Obamacare for the second time and at marriage equality. You don't know what day they're going to send hand down a decision. You don't know what they're going to

decide. You know, we find out at the same time as everybody else. So it was the speechwriting team's job to prepare several different drafts for a whole combination of different outcomes. I mean, the Supreme Court could have struck down Obamacare. It could have said there is no right to marriage equality. Those were really crappy speeches to write. Fortunately, they both went our way. So we had those prepared too. But in the midst of all this, you know, the president was still deciding and um whether or not he was going to do a eulogy in charleston like they'd asked and about it was it was about six days into those 10 days where he finally decided to do it he'd been opposed to it for most of the week um because he'd done so many eulogies after mass shootings before you know

and even even uh kind of set aside his second term agenda right after the reelect to do something about gun reform after 20 little kids are murdered in their classrooms in Newtown. Um, and Republicans blocked it anyway. And that, and he, that was, that was one of the more cynical days I've ever seen him in 2013 when the background checks were knocked down. And he said, you know, I don't want to do this anymore. Uh don't want to have to go out and give a eulogy and, like, end the cycle and give everybody permission to move on. What did change things that week was two days after the shooting, you know, the killer was in court for his arraignment.

And one by one, all the families of the victims stood up and forgave him, which, like, just made my jaw drop, because that's not something I could do. And it was really kind of extraordinary. And seeing that, the president said, all right, well, at minimum, I'm going to go down there and hug those families. I haven't decided if I'm going to speak or not yet, but if I do, that's what it's going to be about, the grace that those families showed. And so that's what you entitled the book off of the grace. Yeah. Yeah. I titled the book grace. Cause you know, those, those 10 days all melded together such that, you know, by the time we finally had the eulogy in good shape and that was, you know,

you talked about speech writing. That was a real high wire act over the last couple of days. The president spoke that morning in the Rose garden on the 10th day about marriage equality. And, you know, he was just kind of, you could see him. He was different. He was just kind of full of this, you know, energy and kind of pride in what America was able to achieve after decades and decades and decades of pushing. And there's all this kind of, you know, there's this grace and joy in there tempered by the fact that he's about to go give a eulogy.

But all of it kind of combined to make this spectacular eulogy in this, you know, what ended up being a black church service on national television that most people don't get to see. And he was just kind of full of grace and, you know, so was I while I was writing the book. And then

there was one point where he sings Amazing Grace. Yeah. Where was that? That was in the eulogy. You know, he tore it up the night before and asked me to go back at it, but he'd written a couple pages out longhand, and what he'd done to the draft I gave him was he'd kind of built

the entire back half of the speech around the lyrics to Amazing Grace. Wow. You know, because, you know, he wanted to deal, he wanted to confront people in the eulogy with, you know, the realities of racism and gun violence and the Confederate flag. And but not in a, you know, non-manufacturing, admonishing, recriminatory way. You know, this goes back to how he won that first election in the first place by promising a politics of redemption, by giving people the chance to change. I mean, that's that's the way he's always viewed American exceptionalism is we're great because we can change. And that's what he built a speech around. You know, I once was blind, but maybe now we can see.

And, you know, that morning we were on Marine one, he had just spoken in the Rose garden on marriage equality. And we were on Marine one, uh, just about to get off and get onto air force one at Andrews to head down to Charleston. And he stood up and handed me his most recent drafts of the speech and said, you know, if it feels right, I might sing it. Um, and I just kind of looked at him and I was like, you do you, man. I mean, I'm not, my first reaction is usually to protect him from himself, you know, to be risk averse. But in that case, you know, I think we're all feeling, we're feeling pretty good that morning that, you know,

millions of people were able to keep their health care. Millions more are now allowed to get married. Why not? Why not let him sing? And so he kind of read the room and decided to go for it. He's got a better singing voice than I do. Don't tell him that. He already believes that.

There's a YouTube of him. And he can back it up, too, when it counts. There's a YouTube of him singing Al Green, Let's Stay Together at a fundraiser. And you can hear everybody in the audience just start kind of shrieking along with him i'll have to pull that up but uh you know uh his his his ability to believe in america and uh and the vision like you talked about you know one of the things I held on to for four years of hell was his last, one of his last speeches in the Rose garden where he talked about how, you know, we're still, you know,

seeking the perfect union and we yin and yang and hopefully we always yin and yang back. You know, sometimes we, it was after, you know, he'd lost, or Hillary had lost to Trump. And he's like, you know sometimes we it was after you know he'd lost or uh hillary had lost to trump uh and he's like you know this country yings and yangs and goes back and forth and and hopefully or zig maybe it was zigzag i think maybe with zags yeah zigs and zags was the term he used and uh i held on to that for four years that was like one of the logs that got me through four years of Donald Trump and seeing the criminal enterprise that took place there, in my opinion. You know, we're pre-recording this prior to the release of your book. And I should note that just this week was the unveiling of President Obama and Michelle's portraits in the White House that Donald Trump would not allow.

Just the first time I think a president's been that big of a jerk. Would not allow to be unveiled in the White House and be put up, actually, I think. Yeah, I mean, you know what? That ended up being okay with me because I was there last week. And it was almost, we kept remarking on how it was almost like a wedding. You know, we had all these, all these colleagues we hadn't seen in five years. Um, lots of hugs, lots of catching up. You know, it, it, it was just, it was a really, really nice party for a couple hours.

Uh, and then to see these portraits go on the walls was, was just a pretty special moment. I mean, the first, the first portrait that tour groups are going to see coming into the white house is Michelle Obama. Um, and, and, uh, you know, that's just, that's, that's symbolism that you couldn't possibly orchestrate. Um, and you know, when you walk upstairs to the main floor, the first portrait you see is president Obama, you know, and it's that, that's something that, you know, people talk about their legacies all the time. I mean, that's one of the most important legacies is that a whole generation of Americans grew up knowing a black first family that conducted itself beyond reproach. And that's going to stick with people for a long time. I mean, I've always been a believer that a president's legacy is what the people who came of age during that administration go on to do. You know, you saw this incredible burst of energy after the Kennedy administration

and people serving abroad and going into the Peace Corps and running for office. And I think you're starting to see that now. People who, just to key off Michelle Obama's remarks last week, you know, that someone like her wasn't supposed to be in the White House, but who decides what supposed to means. And I think there are a lot of people running for office now who traditionally aren't, quote unquote, supposed to be in the White House, but who decides what supposed to means. And I think there are a lot of people running for office now who traditionally aren't quote unquote supposed to. And I think that's a very good thing. I'd love to see Michelle run for office. I'd vote for her in RRP. I think she's just an angel. I wouldn't put your money on it, man. It'd be great.

No, I know. She's very different. I think I read part of her biography, and then I have Obama's. I need to read President Obama's. What's it like working for him? It's quoted in the book notes as he's a perfectionist. He was a man who demanded the best. He wanted the highest amount of ethics of any presidency to make sure he did the greatest job that he possibly could. What's it like working for him in his work ethic and how he goes about his business? I'm glad you asked that. Along with all the events, I cover that in the book too because as a speechwriter, most of my time is spent writing. I was fortunate enough to be able to do it for someone who is a writer. That made and that made my job a lot harder and easier at the same time, you know, it made it harder in that you'll just kind of kill yourself on every draft

to make sure that you give him something he'll be proud of, but easier in that, you know, he'll be there to, you know, take it to a better place if you need an assist. Uh, that certainly happened that week. Um, but, uh, it's, it's just, it's, it's a wonderful struggle to write for Barack Obama because he's just precise with his thoughts, with his words. You know, he views, he views a speech as a way to make an argument, but, um, well thought out, you know, logical backed up with facts, reason, anecdotes. Um, and he takes it really, really seriously. You know, he, he never once just got up on stage and read something for the first time cold.

He went through every speech himself late at night, marked it up, walked us through his edits, explained why. The last guy, you could always tell when he hadn't seen a speech, which is probably always, but he would stop in the middle of the speech and add in, many people don't know stop. He would stop in the middle of the speech and add in, like, many people don't know that. He'd say something like there's been a flu vaccine for years. A lot of people didn't know that.

Yeah, we did. You didn't know that. But everybody else did. I mean, that was his tell that he'd never seen a speech before. That's an interesting fact. Which I think is half of all speeches. It's interesting language that the old one would use.

Donald Trump hopefully would be wearing some stripes soon. Yeah, with President Obama, you know, it's got to be hard to write. And I'm sure you discuss this in the book, but tell us more. It's got to be hard to be a speechwriter, especially for someone as eloquent as he was. I mean, that's the reason he inspired so many people to vote for him. I mean, I, I didn't know who he was. I'd seen his, uh, first speech, I believe was at the state of the union or, um, uh, it was, it was a speech that brought him out and people were like, this guy should be the next president. What was that? It It was the Democratic National Convention in 2004. That's what it was, yes. And people after that were just like, holy crap.

This guy should be president. That's the power of what a speech can do, right? I mean, he entered that arena pretty much anonymous. He wasn't even a senator yet. He was a state legislator from Illinois. He was slated to give the keynote, so he wasn't nobody. But people wouldn't have recognized him on the way in. And then 19 minutes later, he's a global megastar. I mean, that's what a good speech can do. Yeah. I mean, his ability to communicate,

his ability to communicate with empathy and deliver, and of course, having a great speech writer like yourself, it inspired me to vote for him. I mean, I was all for change, and I bought all of it. You know, as a Democrat, I probably would have just said, vote for Hillary and whatever the establishment is and stuff, but he was so eloquent, and he was so moving. I mean, you just saw what he did and going into it. So what's it like during that compression time of those 10 days?

I mean, it's got to be a hell of a – you're going through these highs and lows. And do you have to write speeches for either way something might go? Like for the Supreme Court thing, I think you mentioned, you've got to write a speech for if it goes bad and a speech for if it goes good oh yeah yeah we do right for both for both marriage equality and uh the Affordable Care Act we had to write uh the we call them the the victory and defeat speeches but there were also there were also middle outcomes where the legal decision could be murky so we had to prepare middle outcomes too. So I think all in all, we wrote 12 different speeches just for the Supreme Court.

But meanwhile, the president's doing other things all week too. He's got a pride reception. He's giving an economic speech. He's speaking at an Iftar dinner. I think he had a, or he released new hostage review policy, you know, the federal government's hostage policy, like all sorts of other stuff is still going on. So fortunately, I had an incredible team of speechwriters that had my back, that could

step in at a moment's notice, that could really, really make anything sing. We had the president who was there to edit and revise and point us in the right direction. And then I had people like my wife and my best friends who were just there and got your back and just, you know, dropped off coffees unannounced. I think there was one point where I had like four full cups of coffee on my desk because people just kept bringing coffee by. That's the kind of collegial family atmosphere we had at the White House. You know, those are some of what I'm really gratified by is the president read the book and a lot of my former colleagues have read it. And they all kind of keyed on, you know, we're looking through it through a different lens because we work there. But they all kind of keyed on, you know, how wonderful it is to read about all the staff interacting again and the struggle to do good work, even if you have a good team.

And I think people enjoy that because we were, you know, we were really forged into a family by that first campaign that lasted almost two years. You know, when you're working seven days a week, 16 hour days with the same people, you become a family pretty quickly. And, you know, in the White House, I lived with two of my colleagues, um, for a couple of years. And, you know, then my, my future wife moved in with us and we all just kind of went to work together every day. You know, we just spent 24 hours a day together. Uh, so we all knew, uh, what made each other tick, but also how to be there when, when we needed it. And this is kind of interesting. You alluded to a human story. Uh, that's part of this. Uh, there was a part where, uh, you, uh, had a fact checker in the white house who was, uh, taking you to task and, uh, somehow ends up in a marriage. Tell us about that.

Yeah. The president has, at least we had fact checkers who rigorously go through every single speech. I joke that she took the office with her when we left, but my wife was one of those people. I met her on her very first day of work in 2011. And, you know, over the next few years, we gradually fell in love, moved in together, got married. We were fortunate enough to go to the White House on our wedding day and celebrate with the president. But yeah, she used to tell me I was wrong

every single day as part of her job. You know, it's every spouse's dream. And now you're married to her. So she tells you you're wrong every single day as part of her job. You know, it's every, every spouse's dream. And now you're married to her. So she tells you, you're wrong every single day. You know, I'm looking at the, I'm looking at the cover of the book and I'm, I think it's interesting that it's framed through the white house window and president Obama is standing there. Clearly you're sitting there.

I can recognize your curly hair, or at least I assume I can. He's standing next to a frame of President Lincoln. Is that on purpose? Is there a story there? My guess is Pete, probably. Pete Souza probably framed it that way on purpose. I just loved the photo when I was trying to decide on cover images for the book because it captured our relationship so well. I mean, you can tell in that photo we're working. His sleeves rolled up. He's pounding his hand with his fist. We're really working through his speech.

That was actually the 2016 State of the Union address we were working on there. But that's what it was like. And I like the fact that my face isn't in it. There's no such thing as anonymity anymore but speech writers you know we're not supposed to be seen or heard um so there's always a little guilt around selling a book but but i like that that just captured the back of my head you know trying to get the work done uh it's pete susa right yeah uh his i followed his instagram he was one of the other logs that kept me alive uh during four years of hell uh and uh being able to see his instagram feed and the parallels that he would draw you know where he would show you know uh different things were happening currently in the trump white house uh and then what had happened in the obama house and the difference

between i mean sometimes just just the amazing um what's the word I'm looking for? The amazing distance between class and no class, uh, class being the president Obama era. Um, it's interesting that, that the symbolism of it, uh, I don't know if it's intentional, but there's almost a cross of the window on that, that, uh, is on the front of the book. And it's, it's almost a cross, which I don that, that, uh, is on the front of the book. And it's, it's almost a cross, which I don't know,

as an inference to grace or someone chose it that way, or if that was on purpose, it's also interesting to me. And I, I doubt, I don't, I don't know if there's a purpose to it or not. We try to get Pete on the show too,

for his book. I wish we could have gotten him, uh, for his picture book. He did. Um, but it's interesting to me that, uh,

Abraham Lincoln is on the cover of the thing who freed uh black people and here we have a black president i don't know if that's the intent of all but the honor of it or maybe whatever can be drawn from it uh i think is is is a great thing i mean i don't know i don't know if someone put it there on purpose or Pete did on purpose, but I think it's a, it's a great correlation that's drawn there. Pete was generally, um, purposeful with the way he framed every photo, but you know,

president Obama was the one who chose to have Lincoln on the wall in the oval. I doubt the symbolism was lost on him. Um, that's one of the, one of the great things the president gets to decide is, uh, all the artwork.

And, and there's this incredible, you know, it turns out the Smithsonian has a portrait gallery and there's a national art museum and you can basically get whatever you want on the artwork. And there's this incredible, you know, it turns out the Smithsonian has a portrait gallery and there's a National Art Museum and you can basically get whatever you want on the walls. And he used to use that to make statements. He had, I think it was Norman Rockwell who painted the portrait of Ruby Bridges going

to school. You know, that was up in the West Ring reception area for a long time. Wow. She's got a new book out too, I believe. She's got a children's book book I think she just put out. We're trying to get her on the show. What are the things haven't we touched on that went on during those 10 days that's in your book? You know, every day, almost every day is pretty action-packed just because there was so much happening.

I remember my wife commented during the week, you know, this is too implausible for an entire season of the West Wing. In addition to the last scene of the book, not to give too much away, people remember this, the White House was lit up in all the colors of the rainbow the night of marriage equality. The decision comes down that morning. The president gives a pretty emotional speech in the Rose Garden where he ad-libs a lot.

We fly to Charleston. He gives the amazing grace eulogy. We fly home, and then the White House lights up like a rainbow. There was some drama around that, too. Just getting it done, you have to go through all sorts of logistical hurdles to get the White

House lit up a certain color. And then even that afternoon, the lights were not working. So there was a lot of behind-the-scenes panic there as to whether or not that would actually be pulled off. Yeah. Yeah. You write about Obama's thoughts on race and his use that week of the one word you can't say. Can we say that word or can we reference it or can we discuss what that's about? I would not say that word. Is it the word I'm thinking it is? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm glad you mentioned this because I forgot that this is in the book too. He did a podcast. He did the Marc Maron podcast two days after the massacre in Charleston. And they went pretty deep on race.

And the president said the N-word to make a point, which shocks a lot of people. But he's purposeful with his words. And it did spark some really interesting debate and introspection among most quarters. But you could see how deeply he was thinking about race and obviously not for the first time he's, he's, his entire life has been grappling with race. He's biracial, you know, his, his entire, his first memoir back in the nineties was all about it.

Um, and, but, uh, you know, I write about that a lot in the book too. Uh, what it was like to be, you know, a white speechwriter for the first black president. Uh, it was a challenge when you had to write about race. You're writing for somebody else, so it's his words, not mine. But it's always a real challenge to try to walk that tightrope. And I was always very, very aware. Nothing ever made me feel whiter than writing for the first black president a lot of the time. So the Charleston eulogy, like a whole bunch of other speeches was, uh, a challenge where you just kind of push your limits, but also talk to a lot of people and, um, you know, especially the president who, who will,

who will guide, guide you through it. And you're trying to be a president that's, that's eloquent. You're also trying to, you know, lift America up to be a better version of itself than ever before. And I imagine there was the optimism that we were on a better path. I thought we were on a better path. I thought, well, we've definitely improved the quality of America, and we've had a lot of people on this show that have written about everything, going back to James Baldwin,

and you can literally take everything James Baldwin said and apply it to today, sadly. Going back to the original lie of the shining city on the hill and the ugly things that racism had done over 450 some odd years, whatever it is, you finally thought that we'd reached that pinnacle of going okay we're on that track of being a better perfect union and then you saw that she's the clawback that we go through of four years and it's almost poetic i don't know if poetic's the right word but it's almost interesting to see the clawback of racism uh it and and it it accumulating you can tell i'm not a speech writer a gifted speech writer like yourself uh coding um but the accumulation of

the ugliness of racism the the uh charlottesville and and and the the complete peaking of it, to see the Confederate flag on January 6th in the rotunda, for me, that was just the ultimate hateful expression of also the unresolved issues that we have in 6 uh with the confederate flag in a place that it had never gone to during the confederate war i was just i was struck by that and still am um to to live with that yin and yang and maybe it had to be that ugly we had to be faced with the ugliness of ourselves inside so much with the trump administration clawback that we had to realize that this was something that needed to be addressed. And, and I don't know, maybe there's, I don't know what I'm going on about, but, uh, maybe you can find some. Yeah, there's a, you know, a president's words matter. Um, and I, I don't, you know, I don't have any data to back this up, but I don't know that there

are, um, any worse people in America than there were six years ago or any more racists, but, but president Trump gave them, um, the cover to come out of hiding, you know, with his words, he, you know, the, in Charlottesville, you had, you basically had the Klan mask marching with their hoods off. You know, they, they got permission from their president to do that. Um, there was a whole was a whole spree of mass shootings in, I think, 2018 aimed at women, aimed at minorities, aimed at Jews. And each one of the killers had all sorts of Trump paraphernalia and was just, you know, a devoted fan. You don't have to be Batman to put this all together. Yeah.

So a president's words matter. But, you know, like you said, kind of looking back at the long arc of history, American history, you know, it's not naive to point out that the trajectory is absolutely upward. Right. I mean, this country is in a much better place than it was 200 something years ago. Is it a better place than it was seven years ago? I think that's up for debate in a lot of ways, yes, in a lot of ways, no. But America is never going to be that clean cut, right? And people forget that the president always said this too, every single time, mixed in with,

you know, everybody remembers the hope and change, but mixed in with that was the fact that it takes hard work and constant citizenship and diligence and effort. You know, progress doesn't go in a straight line you have these massive bursts like we had in june 2015 and then you have the backlash to those bursts uh and it's really it's really who keeps at it that wins out yeah i think there seems like there was a lot of hate that was brewing during his administration and and the the the racists were like really i mean i i was shocked when president obama was elected like i had so many i lost probably a third of my friends that

i had no idea were closet and racist like and they came out on facebook and you're just like whoa whoa we've all been singing kumbaya for eight years and and i had no idea you were you felt this way and it was just extraordinary to see it come out. President Obama called you his Hemingway. I mean, that's a great honor. I mean, that or you drank too much. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, it's closer to the latter, actually.

I got to confess, it has nothing to do with my writing ability, and you wouldn't want to listen to a political speech that was written in hemingway ease uh that was from we in in 2014 we were in paris on official business going to normandy the next day for the 70th anniversary of d-day and uh you know i i'd written i worked really hard you can't really screw up a speech about d-day you know but i i worked really hard. You can't really screw up a speech about D-Day. But I worked really hard because I always wanted it to be the best any president had ever given at any certain event. And he came back on Air Force One and he was like, hey, man, this is great. I have no edits. This is a great speech.

So suddenly I had a free night ahead of me in Paris, which I wasn't expecting. I was expecting to have to keep working on a speech all night. So I rounded up some friends. We went out to dinner, which stretched into a cafe, which stretched into a bar, which stretched into live music, which stretched into watching the sun come up over Notre Dame at dawn. And, you know, we got back to the hotel about 15 minutes before the motorcade left and, you know, quickly changed and threw everything back in our bags and loaded up. And we get on the Air Force One. All we have left is to pay tribute at Normandy, um,

which was an incredible experience. I mean, it's, it's, it's almost like being in a church, you know, to go to the cemetery there and then, and to watch the president speak.

Um, but so we're on the plane to head up there and Ben Rhodes and I grabbed our seats and we were like, all right, we're going to catch a half hour shutout. And the president comes back and somebody had dimed us out. Uh, and he goes,

Oh, a movable feast is back and just wanted to know all about her he was mostly jealous because he can't do that anymore he has to be trapped in a hotel but our punishment for it was after you know after all the wonderful um and poignant d-day commemoration president sarcosi of france was in a tough re-election battle and he put on on another beach a full reenactment of d-day that was like three hours long and it was about 95 degrees outside like the queen is there other world leaders are there and we're just sitting through a reenactment of d-day for like three hours and just sweating our brains out and ben

and i were like we deserve this this is our fault just don't fulfill the just don't do the full hemingway uh we were up in sun valley visiting hemingway's grave one time and uh we we were there i've still a video to it and we were there and there was a i can't remember if it was a spent shotgun shell or a full shotgun pellet shell at the foot of his grave. Someone had left and we were just like, oh, that's like, that's some dark stuff right there. So there you go. Did, uh, you mentioned earlier that, uh, president Obama, uh, read the book. Uh, did he give you any edits? He did actually, he gave me exactly, yeah,

he gave me exactly one suggestion, uh suggestion to a particular scene. And the most annoying thing of all is that he was totally right. It made the scene better. Actually, his suggestion was shorten this just a little bit. Get rid of these two paragraphs and it's a much better scene. And I was like, God, he's right. That sucks. There you go.

Well, it's going to be interesting here coming in a few months to see where the yin and yang, the zig and zag of this. Yin and yang is the opposite of zig and zag. I should quit using that term. The zig and zag of this country will go. And I am not looking forward to four years of hearing about 15 committees of Hunter Biden's laptop. But please, Scott, don't make that happen. But this will be wonderful to share when this comes out. Anything more you want to tease out of the book before we go? No, I just think people are really going to enjoy it. And what I want

people to take away from it is a reminder that these things are possible, that progress is possible. It was only seven years ago. And even then, those triumphs were the result of decades of persistent effort on behalf of a lot of people who marched and organized and voted and cared. And, you know, so I hope this makes people believe again. And, you know, I hope 20 years from now, people are reading it and, you know, thinking fondly about the Obama years and what that tells us about what America can do. And then finally, I put this in the acknowledgments at the end. I hope my daughter, who's almost two years old, reads it someday and decides to surround herself with good people who try to do good work.

Because that's really just a better, more fun way to live. There you go. Being a speechwriter is just amazing. You have to tell great stories. You have to communicate the PR of the situation. I mean, I can't imagine the pressure cooker that it's in, and it's great that you detail in your book so that people get an idea of what that's like. Yeah, it is.

It's stressful. There you go. So it's great to have you on the show cody we certainly appreciate it thank you for coming by thanks so much for having me there you go and give me your dot coms if you would please as we go out cody keenan.com there you go guys order up the book you can find it wherever fine books are sold remember stay out of those alleyway bookstores you might have to have a tetanus shot if you go in there. Grace, President Obama and Ten Days in the Battle for America by Cody Keenan. Thanks so much for tuning in.

Be good to each other. Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time.