political assassinations and the rise of the political left and right. monday august 6 we'll discuss the vietnam war. on tuesday august 75 look at the presidential campaign of that year. wednesday august 8, civil rights and race relations. on thursday august 9, a discussion about liberal politics. and friday, august 10, conservative politics. on saturday august 11, women's rights. sunday august 12 we'll look at the media's role. on monday, august 13 a discussion about the vietnam war at home. and on tuesday, august 14, we'll close out the series focusing on the cold war. watch 1968, america in turmoil, august 6 through august 14 at 8:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span 3. next on american history tv, former presidential speech writers talk about communicating

policy from the president's point of view. we hear from june shee who worked with president bill clinton and first lady hillary clinton and john mcconnell who worked for president george w. bush and vice president dick cheney. new york university hosted this 90-minute program. >> i'm the affairs associate here at nyu washington, d.c. on behalf of the center at new york university, thank you for coming to tonight's event. this center seeks to create programs students spend at their summer interpretships and in washington, d.c. we hope events will help interns like you build a network of relationships with mentors and peers and maybe encourage you to return to the nation's capital to start a career in public

service after you graduate. tonight we are joined by former presidential speech writers during george w. bush and bill clinton administrations. john p. mcconnell served more than 10 years on the white house staff in two administrations. as a senior speech writer for president george w. bush and vice president dick cheney john was part of a three-person team in the bush-cheney white house he was asis tonight the president and vice president. in his career he has worked as a principle speech writer for vice president dan quayle, presidential nominee bob dole and 2012 vice presidential nominee paul ryan. june shee began her career as a cups and courts reporter for a florida newspaper but left to assist then first lady hillary rodham clinton with her syndicated newspaper column and

speeches she became a special asis tonight the president writing speeches for president bill clinton on a range of issues from civil rights and race relations to education and health care policy. she was then a speech writer for hillary clinton's campaign. she will be joining the nyu family for nyu shanghai. tonight vaughn hillyard will moderate. he was an embedded reporter, from iowa coffee stop shops to trump headquarters in new york.

vaughn started at nbc news as a tim russert fellow. this event would not have been possible without the coordination and support of the staff of this center along with the -- our colleagues at nyu washington, d.c. please join us in the lobby for a light reception after the eve event. that you can and enjoy the program. [ applause ] >> hello, everybody. are we good? can you hear me? thank you for having us and thank you to kevin. this is june, this is john and so over the next hour we'll take questions after wards. but this is exciting for me. this is an exciting day.

june, how old were you when you started with hillary clinton? >> i was 23. >> 23 years old. >> my second job. >> and she was the first lady. >> she was the first lady, yes. >> so kind of along the lines here we'll discuss those opportunities and suddenly you can find yourself in those situations. >> it was random, very lucky. >> how did you get connected? >> i was a cops and courts reporter in florida and you know i was definitely much more of a partisan and a democrat and i knew i had to get out of journalism because i wanted to take a side and so i wrote a letter -- i called my friends -- friends were interning in d.c. so i called one friend and he said you know what? hillary clinton's speech writer would love you. he was interning in the white house and he just had this thought and i'm like okay, so i sent a fax, this is fax, fax me your resume and a cover letter

and i'll get it to her. and i'm like okay. and i never thought it would work so i didn't sweat it. i sweat so many coffver letters before. this one i didn't sweat because i thought there was no chance in hell. so i wrote it, it was a paragraph or two and i faxed it to my friend and he got it to her and crickets, nothing hap n happened but luckily my parents live in d.c. so when i came to visit them i called liz muscatine, hillary's speech writer and i said i'm coming to town, would you do an informational interview and she said yes and i said great and it was awesome because i got go to the white house and i was like if nothing else comes of this i get to see the executive office building and this is amazing. we had a good conversation and i went back to florida and nothing happened and out of the blue a couple weeks later her assistant called me and said we have an opening, hillary is going to

write a column and she needs an assistant, someone to research it and write early drafts and i'm likes all right, so i tried out for that. i sent -- you do a blind audition, you write a sample column and they judge it. this is a long story, sorry. to shorten it, i got the job it took a while because they were agonizing over what to do and i was ready to go to florida so i'm like i'm coming up anyway so i'll volunteer. i volunteered and a week into my volunteering she said "you got the job." so -- and i was like, all right, you know? it was like, whoa. and i just never, ever thought it would happen. and, like, months later she told me the reason she even kept me in mind was that she loved my cover letter so you just never know. >> i think what we'll get at -- and we'll go into personal anecdotes along the way -- you stayed with the clintons through the administration. >> i did. >> and then you were with

hillary. >> back in the state department, yes. >> so one of those lines along the way it's when you meet these people it's a matter of where those things can take you. >> yeah. >> in those words. >> kind of like college. sort of like the friends you meet in the campaigns or political families, you're always connected? >> and that worked out for john? >> same thing. >> would you mind telling everybody how you got involved in speech writing and that trajectory of where the initial meetings happened? >> it's a similar story. i was just out of law school, it was 1990 and i was clerking for a federal judge in new york city and these clerkships are a year long and i wanted to do something political early in my career i was three quarters of the way through the clerkship and i came down to washington and i talked to everybody i knew in washington. and that took about an hour. [ laughter ] and i wasn't quite sure how to

go about this, i was -- i had a law firm, couple of law firms waiting to -- for my answer about whether i would come to work for them after the clerkship but i was holding off. i thought gee it would be great to do something political in washington. the short of it is because i was telling my friends what i wanted to do and my judge knew what i wanted to do and my professors, former professors knew what i wanted to do as a result of letting people know what i was interested in, a person i met in law school knew someone in the vice president's office and they were looking for a speech writer and they wanted someone who was available soon who had good recommendations and was having to work for very little money, which is how a lot of people get their start in washington. >> very little money. >> and i came down and talked to the deputy chief of staff,

spencer abraham, who was later a senator from michigan and then secretary of energy and the chief of staff in the vice president's office was bill kristol and they hired me as a speech writer and spencer abraham told me well, the vice president has never had a speech writer like the one we're hiring that is someone to work on political speeches and just things other than major addresses. he had a guy on the staff who was a foreign policy expert but they needed someone to do everything else and vice president quayle had never really had someone full time doing that. he did his own thing. he'd been a senator prior to being elected vice president. this was the midterm elections of 1990 and they said we'll see how it works out.

if this works out we'll keep you after the election but let's see if we feed you and i thought well, the worst possible scenario is that i work for two and a half months on white house staff but the best scenario they hire med for two months and forgot about it and finally i mentioned to spencer abraham i said twhunt a probationary job? they said you're fine. that's how i got into it i'm making a serious point about making sure your friends know what you want to do. you talk to people with interesting jobs in washington and just about everyone will tell you if they're being honest they will think of a person who thought of them or connected them to someone else or decided to give them a break. dick cheney, you hear him talk about his career coming to washington 24 years old, 25

years old, a ph.d. student and how he ended up white house chief of staff at 33 or 34 years old and it was people along the way seeing what he was interested in and a talking to b and b talking to c. at good way of becoming a presidential speech writer is go to work for a governor who gets elected president. just find that born. >> what do you guys -- i think often times younger people hear the words it's about who you know and i think often times there's a pejorative meaning to that yet it seems like from what you both articulate it's a matter of relationships and what type of you people have you seen from -- not only you but your experiences having worked in these offices that -- you told me you saw dan quayle last week. that's a relationship that is more than 20 years, 30 years stro

strong. how important is that when people are presenting themselves as individuals in a very competitive sphere? what are they looking for? how does that relationship last in the long run? by speaking and questioning? establishing a friendship? what does that look like? >> i called one of my best friends as soon as i got the job offer to write speeches for the president and then it hit me this is not a job you ease into. on day one you'll be given an assignment to write a speech and it will be due in 48 hours or 72 hours and this heaviness settled on me that as soon as i started i better be at the top of my game and i remember saying to one of my best friends from law school, calling him to tell him what was about to happen and he said don't worry at all, johnny, just make yourself indispensable. and i thought well, that's good advice. how exactly am i to do that? and of course you think about it, nobody is indispensable but

what he was saying to me was just be -- just work very hard, be reliable and be a good colleague. i think one of the greatest experiences i've had is working for the george w. bush for president campaign in austin, texas, in 2000. that was just a magical gathering of people, wonderful people, if there were rivalries or pettiness, i was immune from it and i was definitely unaware of it. it was a very congenial friendly smooth operating team. everybody pointed in the same direction and moving forward. campaigns tend to be this way otherwise they don't turn out well. but it's really important to like the people you work with, to be liked by them. and even more than that to like the person you work for.

that takes away some of the -- some things that would be burdens on you so i think indispensable to me just means being reliable and being someone that people like dealing with. >> i totally agree with that. it's like you get the speech and so often it's like a last-minute deal and you're like panicking and you're like okay, i cannot mess this up. so -- and it's a lot of stress but if you can like really like sort of deal with it and produce a good product most of the time you get a great reputation and being a good colleague low drama. i took assignments and went away and produced decent copy or decent speeches and when people have edits i was diplomatic about them.

i wasn't a people arima donna a understand genius. i might have been thinking that but it's all about like being a good colleague, being someone easy to work with and not complaining and also i had this -- like, because i was young, i was 23 the rk 23, 24, grateful for the opportunity so i kept my head down and got things done looking back now that i'm a middle aged woman i feel like maybe i should have been a little more pushy because i was so like oh, my god, i can't believe i have this. but overall your reputation will like carry you very far and if people know you're reliable, you don't panic, you don't fail and you won't be a prima donna, that reputation stays with you and people 20 years down the line remember that. and they will help you, you never know when but it will help you at some point and you

have -- they have warm feelings for you, you have warm feelings for them and you can tap that network. >> well, and also the principal knows you're reliable. i remember vice president cheney saying to me one time -- i always wrote for him eight years, him and the president and i remember one time he said "don't let anyone make your life difficult." he said "you're doing things the way i need them down -- done." and i didn't hold that over anyone but i appreciated that level of confidence. >> i think people in this room are familiar with john favreau. he was a speech writing director for president obama and he's now operating this podcast, pod save america and the people that hear john favreau now, he's a very outspoken activist on the front line

lines for you and i think most people coming to washington are getting involved in politics because they want to be politically engaged, how can they make a difference? and when you're a speech writer you're representing the principal speaking for the principal writing for the principal. to what extent was that balance like? june, you worked on domestic issues you were passionate about. what was that process like in infusing your own thoughts, opinion opinio opinions knowledge base with that of trying to accomplish the goal of representing the principal and what you wrote? >> it was pretty easy. i definitely am -- i'm still a clinton democrat. i'm a moderate, now liberal because of the way the world has gone but democrat. i didn't have any sort of -- i was politically aligned with them and then what was great is that i -- because i was one of the few minority speech writers, i got a lot of the race

speeches. and i got immigration speeches and that was easy because it was like everyone was aligned on the immigration issue, on immigration good and america is not defined by a race but our common ideal, all of those things were, like, amazing for me to help and there was no controversy there, unlike today. so it was not a -- i didn't have any sort of, like crisis of conscience because i was aligne aligned. >> can i ask? because 1997/1998, president clinton announced he was going do a year of town halls when it came to race relations. >> exact ly. >> i'll let you speak to it but it didn't go necessarily as the administration hoped. >> yes. >> and it was a tough issue, he

got a lot of criticism that he wasn't forceful enough and gave overarching themes that it's important to have a conversation. so how did you when you were planning those town halls. was there coaching? what was it like in communicating the message? i'm sure you had thoughts on race working with the president. >> there was another speech writer who worked on those, too, and there was a whole race commission or whatever -- i can't remember what they were call called so i wasn't on deck for every speech. so there was the speech at little rock central high school and that was amazing because it really did sort of -- it was more like a -- it was more a statement of the case, it didn't

have many solutions because we haven't figured that out but it was remarkable that he was commenting on it. it was sort of like a proto barack obama speech on let's recognize that we still have so many hurdles, segregation ended then but we still -- you know, so it was a great -- i don't know what it was but its conjured up the right feelings and we thought we were on the right path but as the initiative continued and i wasn't involved it was very hard to speak 100% frankly and maybe that's where we're reaping -- >> how did you do that? how did you -- you had thoughts i'm sure. how do you write a speech outlining that knowing the extent to which the administration wants to go. >> i wrote that speech with

another speech writer and we wrote what we thought. it was like self-segregation in schools. more like honoring the bravery of the people of the past and america changing, not just a black and white country. more than half the population. so it was dealing with the multicultural part. so we just wrote it and we got it to clinton and there were always these people say nothing, we cant say that, can't say that and clinton got it and he called us up at like 2:00 a.m. and we were working on in the the hotel hiss person said can you come see him, talk to him about it and we're like okay. he have's at his mother-in-law's house and we're like oh, my god, where is that? so we had to wake up people to find out where he was and we woeblg up someone and we got there at 2:00 a.m. and he's in

his hope watermelon festival t-shirt and he had rewritten it. he had written a good part of it, reminisced about his childhood and talked about being alive during integration and did his masterly clinton thing about understanding all sides and it was -- i don't know, it was great. and i can't -- i don't know. it was sort of like a frank address of what the state status was, honoring the past and going forward it was more like let's recognize this around let's have a conversation. but i don't know. i don't know how the conversation went as it did. >> i always say that the person elected president of the united states, definitely president clinton, president bush who i worked for is entirely capable of writing his own speeches but he doesn't have time. he won't have time.

the president speaks 500 times a year so that's why you have, glad to say, the speech writing office. but your job really is to remember ideally the work you're doing expressing the president's best thoughts on the matter at hand. not yours. you're obviously going to make the case as strongly as it can be made, you want to martial sh the best arguments, you want to bring your most compelling thoughts and anecdotes through the use of your own research or the research of your speech writing office staff but a writer should never confuse a speech for a president that they're doing with their own body of written material. you are not contributing to your corpus of work.

i don't believe you should think of it that way. you should think of it as the president's words and so if you're emphasizing something in a way that the president really wouldn't, of course the president will catch in the the editing process and will be annoyed by it and he will be really annoyed if you do it to him again so that's why although there are tons of able writers, the proportion of them who would be able speech writers for is not 100%, it's significantly less and i think some people who might be thought of as good potential speech writers aren't happy in the position because they don't like to change their style to suit the president they're working for and they think of it in terms of being their own body of work in terms of writing about things you care

about it, you're better if you agree. >> you bring that passion. >> right. i'm a lawyer by training so i can make an argument for the opposing position. one of our professors told us the way to become the best advocate for your own position is to become an expert in your adversary's position. that's where you spot the weaknesses and you will know where the listener will see where you you skipped a logical st step. by the same token you don't want to spend everyday applying that talent and writing an argument for things you don't agree with so you can do that on occasion. i think it was more common in my own case to be writing about something i didn't care about. not so much something i didn't agree with but i didn't have strong opinions on every matter of federal policy. sometimes i thought you can teach it round or flat. >> john, you're one of the few that has served all eight years in the administration.

you worked with vice president cheney, you also worked with george w. bush. >> can y-- can you walk us thro how you get to putting the words on paper, talking directly with the president. for instance you can go through any number of -- speech on tarp, hurricane katrina or the war in iraq, september 250, 200, 2001, the words that came out was "the taliban will act immediately, they will hand over the terrorists or share in their fate. from this day forward, any nation that harbors or supports terrorism will be regarded as a hostile regime. americans should not expect one battle but a lengthy campaign unlike any other we have seen. it may include dramatic strikes, visible on television, and covert operations, secret, even in success." how do those words ultimately

get spoken inside that capitol building? >> with specific reference to that speech, that would have been direction we got from the president, from doctor rice who was the national security advis adviser. i don't remember -- i saw the president a lot in the days after 9/11 because there were a number of speeches before the one on september 20 which was the third -- it was the thursday of the week following and that was the speech to the joint session but he speak at the national cathedral on friday at the service of remembrance. but anyway, so that would have been direction we got from the president we meaning myself, mike gerson, the chief speech writer and matthew scully. the three of us were colleagues starting in austin and starting -- starting in austin by dividing up the speeches and then editing them together we ended up writing them together

and throughout the president's -- governor bush's campaign and then president bush's first term. we literally wrote on that basis three guys in the same office at the same computer writing the speeches line by line and gerson who is now a columnist with the "washington post" very often would come in before a single word was written with a very clear sense and clear direction on how the speech was going to be put together. kind of a theoretical construct so we often started from that. a major speech like that, addressed to the joint session, state of the union, there will be input from the president on the front end and a lot of input from the president once the thing has been drafted and put through staffing process and revi reviewed. he would give input on all speeches but these -- state of

the union is a different thing all together because you have dress rehearsals in the family theater of the white house where the president reads it throw aloud and the speech writers are there. a lot of changes are made. that's in distinction to the dedication of a museum or something. the president will make his edits on it but you won't get direction on where to go with this speech. it will be assumed the speech writers are i believe to put together -- ronald reagan dies, gerald ford dies, pope john paul ii dies. >> take us into the room of that what that process looks like? what does that conversation look like? >> on a big policy speech? >> yes, are you working with the chief of staff? >> well, there are policy people in the white house? >> are you called down the hall? >> you'll get direction. there will be big picture direction from the white house

communications director. this is going to be social security week and okay what is our policy. well, talk to the policy wants principles to be followed in whatever reform is enacted, so this is going to be a speech on the five principles. this is the big speech at the beginning of the week. then he's going to do a town hall meeting in kansas the next day and he needs a page of talking points. he doesn't need a speech. and so you will just put those things together. now, speechwriting, we don't have to come up with the policy, thankfully. but there are great policy people in the white house. one of the 10,000 joys of working for the president of the united states is the talent around you. you want someone to tell you about trade or whatever else? pick up a phone and there's going to be a great expert to tell you everything you want to know and to tell it to you in very precise, you know,

ironclad, clear, understandable terms which helps you a lot to understand to be able to write it yourself. i will say i can think of a couple examples where the fact that a speech was on the calendar drove the policy process. >> it created a deadline, right? >> i was in the deputy chief of staff's office one day, and it was called the deputies meeting, and i was there and deputy chief of staff said to me, do you guys have what you need for that speech on so-and-so next thursday? i said, no, we don't have anything. we know where the event is, but that's it. and he turns to the person in charge of the policy. he said -- or the deputy of that office. he said, you tell your boss that if we don't have the policy by the day after tomorrow, the speech is canceled.

and the policy appeared in the speechwriting office in due course. but as you say, the speechwriting sometimes drives the policy process. typically not and it shouldn't. >> i had that question because i was unable to cover the administrations you guys work for, but i've been able to travel with vice president pence. for the first year of his administration, he had one speechwriter who was essentially going from campaign-type rallies to overseas trips and it was impressive to watch somebody put into words and articulate a very different tone, a different message day to day. question now to that is, how do you do that? campaign versus the more actual policy, actually white house official side of it? because you guys have both done campaigns and official, and you guys did it within the same period of time. how is that process like and is it different working with the

campaign versus the official side? >> i think the campaign is more like there is a stump speech, there is a message, you just sort of redo the message the same but different r tievery ti. it's all about getting the crowd into -- when you're the president, you definitely try to bring in more of a sweep of history, why this is important and sort of like taking america along this road. and so -- and there's -- not always, but usually there is a little more time to make it beautiful. you get -- policy guys will give you a fact sheet and your job is to, like, write a speech based on the fact sheet that doesn't read like a fact sheet, right? you bring in that poetry and you have that time. yeah, and the campaign is just very responsive and what's the sound bite? even now in the internet age,

you worry about sound bites. i don't think sound bites are even an issue anymore, right? like, everything is on line everywhere. before in the '90s and '80s, it's like what's that 20 seconds that will get on the evening news, what's the line? all the senior people are sweating the sound bite. i don't think that happens anymore. >> dick cheney writes in his book about when he was chief of staff to president ford and they lost, of course, to carter and mondale to '76 which to that point was the closest presidential election in 60 years. and ford told cheney, okay, i want this to be a smooth transition, so cheney immediately got in touch with the people. in his book he said, overnight you go to how do we beat them to how do we help them? when the election is over, it's

over. so if the speechwriters keep writing like the election is on, it's not going to sound right because it is very different. campaigning is about -- to use an unfavored word -- dividing, defining choices and especially -- >> contrast. >> yeah, contrast. >> all that contrast. where is the contrast? >> exactly right. exactly right. and by the time the votes are cast, the idea of campaign speeching is to have it as clearly set in the mind of the voter who is listening as you can possibly do so. what is the choice in this election and what are the stakes of making choice a versus choice b? that's one of the -- and then, of course, when you're president, it's all about, as june said, speaking in broader tones. jeff shesile, your colleague,

described the narrative of the policy. the speeches should differ but they should all have a similar thread that goes through them through the presidency, and you should attempt any way you can to bring people together. there is another difference that you discover after working on a campaign and your boss is elected president. in the campaign speeches you're always saying things like, i will propose to the congress such and such, or if elected president, i will direct the secretary of state to reform such and such an act. and then when you're president, you're saying, i am proposing for the congress. i have directed the secretary of state. you go from the language of persuasion and vote gathering to the language of power. >> could you guys share what

your principles were like? i know when vice president quayle left office, you continued working for hillary. who was he running against on the republican side before he bowed out of the race? >> rudy giuliani. >> things could have been different. what was your working relationship like and your working relationship like? >> with hillary, it was definitely like the smartest person i've ever worked with. she's just a very, very, very smart person, and you cannot get away with that stuff. you know, she sees it right away. she's very kind about it, but you're just like, if you -- i did my best to avoid it. and this didn't come through in her campaigns, but she's actually a lovely, warm woman.

just very gracious and funny, really funny. you know, and i started out helping her with her column, and it's just like sometimes me and her talking about it. it was just kind of a warm relationship. the president, president clinton, he was always very nice to me, too, and like once again really smart. he held back a bit, because i think he knew i came from hillary's staff, so if he didn't like something, he didn't always tell me right away. i could tell he didn't like it because he knew -- but also very smart, and like, amazing. like, there are a few times, you know, you get to talk to him about a speech. for me i only had a few times after the speech i got to talk to him, and we would go over the speech after he delivered it, and he would tell me why he

tweaked a line and it literally was because he was reading the audience and he could tell that he should do it this way instead. it was just like being in the audience of a master communicator. and it was like -- is it a clinic or seminar? he was really just telling me, i did it this way because of that. so they were both very kind and generous. and when clinton was going to china in 1998, they, like, i was chinese-american, so even though the clinton white house divided foreign and domestic speechwriters, there was a foreign team and a domestic team, both clintons wanted to be sure i got to go. so there are those personal touches, too, that are quite heartwarming, i guess. >> president bush, i loved the guy. he was a wonderful person to work for. demanding but very appreciative person. i never saw him slight anyone.

i never saw him condescend. a very decent fellow. if i had never met the guy i had a sense of who he was because he is an easy person to read. his feelings go directly to the expression on his face. happy, sad, annoyed, bored, irritated immediately. i always describe him as -- there are people who thought he was impatient, but he is not an impatient man, he is, in fact, patient, and i have, on many occasions, watched him hear someone out, whatever it was, whatever the point they wanted to make. he would listen to it, but he would not be patient anymore when they would start to repeat themselves. and he would say, you're losing altitude or something like that.

but patient, considerate. a great memory. he knew everyone's name. he would call you by name. if he saw you on a saturday, we had many unexpected events that required fast, quickly produced speeches on a weekend, and he would thank you for coming in on a saturday or sunday. of course, it was your job, but he was very considerate in that way. he was also a very serious editor of his speeches line by line. he could read a speech once, an eight-page, ten-page speech, read it once, throw it down on his desk, look up at the ceiling and recite to you that speech in outline form. once on one reading he would internalize it. he had a real sense of how things were structured and he could find the one or two paragraphs in a speech that were out of place. he called me one morning.

it was really early. and as i recall it to this day, i was just sitting at my desk. it was about 7:00 and i was staring down into a cup of coffee. and my phone rang and that little window on your phone says potus. and i said, yes, sir. there was a speech coming up that morning, and he was going to be leaving in about an hour. it was a hotel across town. and he said, i have a couple changes on this speech. the speech was one of those tough ones that had one part and it had another part that had to be said that day but it didn't really fit with the first part. anyway, so in the middle of it, the president says, what's this paragraph in the middle of page 4? >> you have to blame the policy staff, right? >> i mumbled something about, well, it's just in the nature of a transition. and he goes, it's just words, isn't it? i said, yes, sir. he said, take it out.

he would spot those things. vice president cheney was not a big editor. he would like the speech or not. he would modestly say, i'm not a speechwriter. but he would write inserts and he had a beautiful, beautiful hand, and he would write in this flawless handwriting these inserts without any crossouts or anything else, just had perfectly formed in his mind what he wanted to say and where to put it in the speech. but less of a line editor unless -- but don't be wrong on a fact on a piece of history or something. cheney is going to be on top of it. he wasn't pedantic or anything like that, but he would make little notations and he cared about his speeches. he called me one day, john, i got us into some trouble. and i said, oh? and he said, yeah, the president is going to europe. he was going to speak at -- i forget what one of these big

dinners where the president has to be funny. a and cheney said, i have to stand up in his place tomorrow night and i have to speak for ten minutes and be funny. then he says, i don't do funny. and i said, oh, don't worry about it, mr. vice president. matthew scully and i will write you a little speech that will have some nice stuff in it. so i talked to him a little bit about it. i think mrs. cheney, i think, talked to her a little bit. anyway, dick cheney was a wonderful guy to work for. i enjoyed him every bit as much as i enjoyed president bush as a person. just nice and considerate and appreciative and always treated everyone, met everyone as an equal. i will add one thing about vice president quayle. he's the only boss i ever worked for that wrote an entire speech

and gave it to me. he did this on a fairly regular basis when he was vice president of the united states. that was back when you shared disks. the first time it happened i was called into his office in the west wing, and it was early in the morning, and i didn't know why i was being called in. i walked in and he goes, john, i wrote a speech this weekend. and he holds up a blue disk. and he hands it to me and there was a fully written speech. dan quayle was a newspaperman for some years before he entered politics. so he could write and he could write fast. when i worked for him as a former vice president and he had a newspaper column, he could write a six, seven-hundred-word column in a half hour. >> this president is known to go off script. he is known to go without a teleprompter. he speaks in the white house when reporters are in there. he speaks off the cuff. there is also a demand -- there

is a desire for what they say authenticity. you see it in senate campaigns. you see bader drop in the f-bomb here, drop in the f-bomb there. it seems there is a demand in the electorate of this administration and the president has continued it. where do you guys see the art of the word, the art of the speech, and how do you convince the public that through the words that you are writing that there is authenticity, that you're not just another politician because of twitter, the demand to have quick, rapid responses that are not packaged up perhaps in the way that you guys did? where do you see it going? are you concerned about it, and what do you say to individuals entering office and these campaigns are in 2020. what do you say to someone you would be working for now? >> i don't think -- so much of these times are not normal, but like if you just go back to

barack obama. the speeches made him, right? so i still believe that there's room for excellent speeches, and i think what made him so successful was they were beautiful speeches. they were speechwriterly speeches, but they were still authentic. so he was able to bring himself, convey himself through quite, you know, amazing and beautiful work. so there's still -- and i think that's where america -- so he came across as authentic but he was also very articulately so authentic. i would still counsel a candidate to go that way. and you need to say real things. i think that's where you got in trouble, where you're saying beautiful things but you're saying nothing. so, of course, like -- yeah, so i think that's when it really

works is -- trump would say very real things and there's not substance, but there was just something bracingly not true. i don't know what the word is, but i think you could still find that, and for the sake of comedy and the civilization and the country, let's think these things through and find a way to talk about them. bring your authenticity in but in a way that -- i don't know, i'm foiling. >> for example, the president's state of the union speech was a pretty good speech. >> that's because dave wrote it and he read it, right? >> a year ago when he was first president and he came up with his first state of the union, i was so curious. what's he going to do? because throughout that campaign in 2016, you would see him. he would come out and stand in front of a crowd. he would reach in his jacket pocket, throw down a couple sheets of white paper with his

own notes. and he would give a speech. no one has ever run for president successfully doing this, no one. and yet he did it. so when he came out for that first speech to congress, i thought, is he going to do that? is he just going to reach in his pocket and throw something down? of course, he didn't. and then, as i say, the most recent one, i thought, this was his best thoughts put down in a polished way. and nothing inauthentic about it at all. and so as you were saying at the outset, authenticity does not mean declining to share with people your best thoughts or spending time polishing your words or working with writers. i think -- i work a lot with

ceos now, and i remember one ceo a few years ago said to me, i'm not good at giving speeches. and i said, you can be. you're good at everything else you've ever tried. it's not a mystery. i think some people just don't want to do it, some people do want to do it, but it is something that a person who is intelligent and has a point to make can do and can get better at. one of the elements seems to me will always be getting your best thoughts down in writing just to prepare, like you prepare for anything else in life. >> right, and the best speechwriters can really help you find your authentic voice, right? a speechwriter will listen to you and what you want to say and listen carefully and may be doing some research on you. as you said earlier, we serve our principals in really capturing their voice. you don't have to -- i don't

need to write it yourself as a principal as long as you find people who will help you say what you mean but better. >> can i tell you a quick story? i worked for senator dole in the '96 campaign. traveled across the country with him for the last six months of the campaign. and at one point, and i was writing speeches on the plane, and at one point during the campaign, headquarters -- the senator traveled all the time. headquarters would get in touch with me. well, we have a policy address, and it wasn't written by anyone on staff, i don't think. i think it was done by a consultant. but at any rate, we have this policy address that we want the senator to deliver sometime this week. it's really important. they told me this because it was my job as a speechwriter on the plane to present this to the senator and tell him it was

really important that he deliver this speech. so i did, and i gave it to him. i said, well, they want you to do this speech this week and it's important. and dole looks at it and he makes no commitment to me about what his intentions are. and he looks at it and then i thought, well, he'll let me know what he thinks. well, he didn't. i get another call from headquarters a day later, when is he going to give the speech? i said, well, i don't think there's going to be any speech, not this thing you had me give to him. no, no, no, it's really important. you go talk to him and you tell him it's really important. so i found my opportune moment to go up to the senator on the plane, and i said, sir, you know, that speech draft, i guess it's pretty important and they want to get it on the calendar, so if we need to make edits or

whatever, i can get to work on those. and dole just looked at me, saying nothing. and i said, you never want to see this again, do you? and he just shakes his head, so i took it and gave the bad news to headquarters. >> we've got some time to open up questions. >> this is a question for mr. mcconnell. you mentioned that the difference between an election and campaigning and working for the president is language gathering versus hope versus the language of power. how do you distinguish between those besides just the tenets of grammar? >> really the points are summed up in the example i gave. a candidate for president says, i can do this as president, i

intend to do this as president, i promise you i will do this as president. but as the speechwriter learns when you're writing for the president, you're saying, i am doing this. i am happy to tell you that i have just done this. or i am happy to tell you the secretary of state is going to the middle east tomorrow because i have sent him. you're just -- it's no lodnger the aspirations of a presidential candidate, it is now the actions of a president. >> first of all, these are very busy times. thank you both for taking the time to talk to us. since you both have written for various people, and we talked about tone. did you find it difficult that, like, i mean, on the -- i mean, i guess hillary and bill, they have a similar tone to how they speak, but dan quayle and dick cheney appear almost different of the words that they use and

how they present their arguments. so was it difficult for both of you to kind of find that tone and basically how did you also find that tone for having to deal with various people and politicians? >> you really have to pay attention and learn and ask questions. as you say, george w. bush, dick cheney, bob dole, dan quayle. very different in their styles. they all, of course, are comfortable speaking in public. if you're comfortable speaking in public, you can read a speech that's decently written that follows the basic elements, one of the main ones which is the sentences need to be short. it's like writing an essay. it's the spoken word, and so

it's a little bit different, and in some ways significantly different from other types of writing. you've got to read it aloud, for example, if you've written it because you have to be careful when things don't rhyme or you have a literation that's not intended or any other structural distractions that would hit the ear differently from how you would expect it. but the main point of variation among the people that i've written speeches for is how they get into a speech, how they start it, what that first page is like, how they bond with the audience and how they get comfortable. president bush liked to do extensive acknowledgements, so extensive that we wouldn't even write these things. they would be gathered up and entirely accurate and it would be the mayor, the governor, the

councilman, the local city councilman, the eighth grade band. he wanted to thank everybody. >> clinton, too. we had acknowledgment pages. >> did you write them or just list them? >> we had to list them. if we wrote them it would take forever. >> and he would read off of them. vice president quayle, i remember he always liked to get right into his message. vice president cheney was a little bit more that way, too. bob dole, if you wrote in quality jokes, he would tell jokes for five or ten minutes. he was -- bob dole, you won't be surprised to learn, liked people. he had been in politics since just a few years after he got out of the army in world war ii, and he had a very good sense of humor. he made up a lot of jokes on his own, and he liked to do that kind of thing, and he was good at it.

but, really, the main point of variation is if the text is decently written, it's written as the spoken word and doesn't have any kind of quirks that would be obviously unique to one person or another, really, the important thing is how is he going to get into this speech and what's going to be comfortable? >> yeah, and related to that is like -- i worked for people -- bill and hillary clinton are both excellent extemporaneous speakers. they don't really need speechwriters. so what's your value added? your value added is finding that nugget or finding, like, the story that can sort of help them get into the speech, finding, you know, the historical anecdote that will, like, sort of frame whatever policy you're proposing, or if you're visiting a country, like where the history of u.s. relations here.

so finding the historical nugget or the real person connection or the biographical story. you know, americans love biography and it's a great way to connect with an audience. so it's really finding those sort of factoids and anecdotes that will help them launch the speech and personalize the speech, you know, and so you do that thinking for them. you do that prep for them. but then you know they can go -- they can speak anywhere, but you just sort of do the tailoring for the audience. >> that's where the researchers can help a lot, too. >> the researchers help a lot. but it's a bit of a struggle. sometimes you're like, oh, there's nothing here. but that's the value added and they very much appreciate that because that's something they can't do on their own. they don't have time. >> right, and for example, if -- i mean, the writers, you're so

busy and you've got so many plates in the air, but if a researcher comes in and tells you, look, the president is going to be speaking before a huge statue of general grant, you're very happy to learn that in advance. you don't want to read it afterwards, the president, comma, speaking in front of a giant statue. >> so you mentioned having different policy teams and research teams aiding you with drafting the speeches. to what extent are you performing personal research and how did you kind of come across, like, fine-tuning those research skills? >> i think it depends how much time you have and how big of a staff you have. in a campaign, you're on your own for a little bit, and sometimes you have lots of them.

you have to figure out how to assign them and get the most out of them. i'm sorry, what was your other question? [ inaudible ] >> on that, to serve your principal really well, you should know their biography, like, backwards and forwards. i read all the quirky bios, the autobios so you had this sort of catalog of personal stories from the principal. you read all their old speeches as far back as possible. you really internalized this person so you could channel hillary clinton or bill clinton. so that's how you -- you get their voice that way. and then, yeah, you know, i was working before google, so it was lexus nexus and all the old auto

dial things. i think there was netscape, the interns were on netscape, and then you had the library. i did a lot of personal research, too, because i'm very hands-on and want to know everything. you know it when you see it instead of people bringing you random things. it's hard. >> well, yeah, and sometimes only you know what you're looking for to be able to articulate it. and that's true. i remember we had the assignment during the president's dedication speech for the world war ii memorial. and one of my favorite writers of all time is ernie pyle who wrote a daily column through most of the 1930s and throughout world war ii until the day he was shot dead by a sniper. but talk about beautiful, beautiful writing.

and so when that assignment came up, the first thing i thought was, we got to get ernie pyle in president bush's speech on world war ii. every living person in the english-speaking world who remembers that war remembers ernie pyle and will be touched when they hear his words. and you go looking for something nice in ernie pyle, i've got news for you, it's on every page. that was just a joy and a delight. and then, you know, when an imminent person dies or you are preparing for that event, you really can't say to the research, give me ten things on ronald reagan. reagan was my hero, so it's not a good example. i had a lot of stuff in the b bank. but by the same token, if it's something you'll be giving someone their due, you really can't leave that reading to the

research. you've got to do it on your own. and there is a line you probably both heard. henry kissinger who worked in the white house for a long time, even when he was secretary of state he was also a member of the white house staff, if you can believe it. he was the national student adviser. he said the white house is a place where you spend i understand electrici-- intellec capital, you do not accumulate intellectual capital. there is a lot of background knowledge which every speechwriter brings to it. >> and another thing is former reporter interviews, right? you could interview almost

anyone to get the background, right? so that was pretty cool just to get the live anecdotes from friends or, you know, if you're doing a eulogy for -- you know, like a friend that there's not a lot of written material about, you're interviewing all these cool people and getting these great stories, and that was actually a delight, too. >> what's your favorite writer and why? who is your favorite writer? >> i always feel inadequate when i answer questions like this. i think in categories of charles dickens but he didn't write much american history or biography so i have to add david mccullough

who has written eight or ten great books, all of which are still in print, the first one being on the johnstown flood which was published in 1966 about an event that happened in the 1880s and there were still survivors who he interviewed. and david mccullough, i always mention also as someone who gave me -- not personally but imparted some of the best advice i've ever gotten for speechwriting, and that is when he was asked about the variety of books he had written, and there's no clear theme to all of the books, and so the question was how did he decide what his next book was going to be? and he said, i write the book i want to read. and i remember that stuck in my mind. i thought, that's a good attitude for a speechwriter. write the speech you wouldn't mind listening to. >> exactly. >> i could go on but there's two

in different categories. >> i recall, too, john adams' biography. it was amazing and brought history to life, like you were riding his horse with him. but to this day, one of my favorite books of all time is "to kill a mockingbird," just wait it evoked summer in the south. and jennifer o'leary because she really talks about how it is to be a child of immigrants. the woman who wrote "americana" is really amazing. and miranda, really cool. love him. >> you both mentioned instances of conflict with your principal or when your genius is unappreciated. can both of you recall specific

moments when you felt really strongly that you had written something really important and you got disagreement from a chief or principal or somebody? what did you do in that situation? did you push back? you say you were diplomatic. what was that like? how do you tell what's so important that you have to advocate for it and how do you tell when you should just let it go? >> for me i was thinking the speech he gave at little rock central high school, i really wanted to start with this anecdote about elizabeth eckfort who was one of the little rock nine who didn't get the phone call they were going to the back door. she showed up at the front door and all these protesters surrounded her and there was the photo of the mean girls who were like -- there is that famous photo. i don't know if you know of that. so i really wanted to start with that. and there were people who thought that was not the right

way to go, and some just thought it was a slow beginning or whatever, and so i was a little, like, oh, my god, this is wrong, you can't do this. and my boss is like, don't worry. look at my pen. my pen is not moving. but there was -- it was almost on its way out and then -- clinton was concerned about it, but in the end he read it and decided to keep it. but, you know, at the end of the day, it's not your speech, and while you're powerful as a speechwriter, there are people who outrank you. so i -- you know, i think i reacted a little too strongly, but i just hoped that the principal would see the value of it, and he did. but it doesn't always go that way and you just have to remember that it's not your speech. it's never your speech. it's always going to be -- they

take credit for it and they stand to lose if they -- so you just have to let it go, and most of the time i could just let it go. >> in the drafting process of the speech to congress after 9/11, the september 20th speech, karen hughes, the president's counselor who came -- who worked with him in texas in his first campaign in the governor's office all through the campaign and then at the white house, she advocated for the line "live your lives and hug your children" about what is asked of us now after these attacks and looking ahead to life in america, and i believe that was the line. live your lives and hug your children. and i remember a couple colleagues and i, we didn't like that and we tried several times

to remove it from the speech. and i think we may have even removed it from the speech at some point. but it stayed in, and it was a line that touched a lot of people and is still remembered. we were wrong about that. that's one memory that comes to mind. i can't think of something that i really tried to insist be kept and wasn't, although there was probably a joke along the way that we thought was funny -- definitely that happened. some jokes we amused ourselves with in the speechwriting office but didn't really resonate anywhere beyond the door. >> so i'm in the middle of ben rhodes' new book, and he talked about bill's memoir.

have you ever worried that you would lose your writing voice? >> i guess those five years i probably didn't have much of my own voice. but it comes back. you know, there was no time to write for yourself when you write in the white house. and i don't -- maybe i did. clinton liked to write lists and maybe i write more lists first and second. >> yeah, i guess i feel the same. i will say that i felt as long as i was involved with george w. bush, that made me a better writer because of how careful he was as an editor and how logical he was as a thinker. so i was never afraid of losing my own voice because i always --

every day i was there, i felt like my tools as a writer were being sharpened just because of the demands of it. >> yeah, i always wanted to, like -- i wanted to give my best to them and i always wanted to find the best -- the most evoc ativ e image and the best words. so i wanted to be very economical and i think that makes you a better writer. just the best verbs, fewer adjectives, the best nouns and ways to be economical but yet evoc evocative. i think that made me a better writer and careful about word choice. >> so i was curious, what advice would you have for a policy person to be a better communicator of policy?

>> that's pretty good. >> well, think first -- the first question i always ask about a speech assignment aside from the obvious one, what's the speech about, is who is the audience? because that has a huge influence on how you're going to be writing it. is your audience a roomful of nasa engineers, or is it a graduating class of a college, or is it a group of political donors? you just go through the endless variety. and in terms of policy, i would say to become a clearer, more direct, more persuasive, and more economical policy writer, think really hard about an audience, perhaps an audience

that's really not technically familiar with the material, but not unintelligent and not uninterested, but rather, simply not conversive in the matter. i remember chief justice renquist wrote a series of books in history, and in the middle of one of them, he said when he was writing, he thought constantly of his wife who was educated at stanford like he was but was not a lawyer, but these books were about law and about the court. and he said that having his wife, an interested, intelligent reader in mind, but not a technically trained reader, was a great advantage to the final product. so whether it's thinking of one person or of a larger audience of a type of person, i promise

you, what you write tomorrow will be better than you write today if you sort of put it in those terms. i know this from experience. >> also keeping in mind what the policy means for real people, so painting the picture of what's the human result of this policy? i think, you know, sometimes because we had to turn things over really quickly, you get the fact sheet and you end up, like, if you get really tired or lazy, you're just rewriting the fact sheet trying to elevate a little. but really, you should stop, write the fact sheet and then figure out what this means to just build on -- like, what is the human impact and what does this mean for an average family of four, like this person in ohio, how is his life transformed by this policy, and keep that in mind and then paint that picture. and that will really sort of communicate to a broader

audience what a policy means. >> thank you for a very interesting discussion. my question relates to the relative lack of media exposure of presidential speechwriters in the last decade or more. in the '90s, you had people reputed for negativism or negativism put into speeches. so my question is because people's speeches are for erudite presidents like president and hillary clinton rather than people like nixon or

agnew. my other question is for presidential speechwriters, is it easier to write for an articulate president or the president who takes a speechwriter's speech hook, line and sinker? >> i think there are a lot of famous speechwriters. the whole obama team is famous. everybody knows john -- want everyone, but they've gotten plenty of credit and coverage from the media. i don't think it's -- you know, they've gotten their fair share of credit, too, i would say. i don't know about that. maybe there are more outlets now because they're all over their

podcasts, but now there are many ways to get your voice out and to claim credit and be famous. >> does everyone here know that wes matthews was a presidential speechwriter? he wrote for president clinton. you mentioned bill sapphire who i knew and was a fine man and a presidential speechwriter for nixon and also did some very effective speeches for vice president agnew. another person on that staff was pat buchanan. he had been with nixon before he was president, and he had mnixof had hired buchanan based on reputation sometime in the mid-'60s when he was still getting ready to run again for president in '68. and i heard buchanan tell the story that nixon, who worked very, very hard on his speeches, probably harder -- as hard or harder than most of his su

successors since then, he remembers nixon saying, why can't i get speechwriters like woodrow wilson? and they said, well, mr. president, woodrow wilson wrote his own speeches. >> we got one more. >> could each of you share a few anecdotes about mistakes or screw-ups that you either made or witnessed in the white house? >> yeah, i'll jump to that one. we were very proud of our fact-checking operation in the speechwriting office. the fact-checking operation was 100% successful. but shortly before we had an up and running fact-checking

operation, i remember there was a reference to pope john paul leading a flock of a trillion. well, there aren't a trillion people on earth or anywhere close to it, it was a billion. but it was during the budget season, i remember, and everyone was throwing around trillions. everything was in trillions. so we wrote this speech about pope john paul. it was about his whole life. it was at the dedication of john paul ii cultural center here in washington. and the speech went through. the speechwriter wrote multiple drafts with the staffers. and somewhere late in the game said, do you mean billions? but that was one of the quality control processes that came in to correct things before the president was involved.

>> i was super paranoid about making a mistake. so it was almost ocd. just triple-checking everything and having other people check it, and harassing the policy people to check things. just never wanting to send out something incorrect or off by a zero or anything like that. so it was a very nerve-wracking part of the job, right? you just think, i'm going to get fired if i get something wrong. this is self-serving but i can't think of a major mistake. maybe there were and just never came back. but i do have a good story. this was about washington ranks and titles and there are all these titles and deputy outranks an assistant and all this stuff. so i was on the plane coming back from england with hillary, and she was giving a list to

this guy larry somers. i was at harvard and larry somers was a professor at harvard, so i was like, hey, professor somers, good to see you. i read your articles and they were great. what are you doing now? oh, no, i said, you're in treasury, right? and he said, i'm the deputy secretary. and i'm like, good for you! and i got home and i talked to my boss and i'm like, i met larry somers. he's something like the deputy secretary. and he said, oh, my god, do you know what the deputy secretary is? and i said, no. he said, that's number two in the department. and i was like, i'm so sorry. i didn't get that i was insulting him because i had no idea that deputy secretary was like number two. that was embarrassing. >> at one point i was reading a

best-selling book and it had a very interesting, little story in it that was irresistable and it was about john philip souza and his name was actually so. that because of his love for the united states, he added the usa. well, it wasn't true. it was in a best-selling book, but the first person who sees it is the fact-checker. there was no truth to this story. >> you have to like 5 million check something. >> i remember one historian i talked to, i told him, yeah, every now and then i read something in a book or a

biography, and i just wonder if it really was that way. and he said, well, you know, as we say in the history profession, some stories are too good to check. >> or it's like if you can't get that triple check, you're like, oh, i'm going to have to kill this. you don't want to kill it. >> last question from me. a lot of people around here are looking to jump into speechwriting. and i think the opportunity is now quite interesting. if you look on the democratic side 20/20, you've got young congressmen looking to jump in. it's kind of open game. should someone go out to iowa, should someone work for the labor department, should someone take that jump and move to california? in order to really break in and have an effective impact on what you believe you're able to offer, what type of individual would you suggest really going and trying to break in with and gain confidence with? >> what kind of person should do it? >> what kind of principal would

you be looking for? would you recommend starting as a fact checker in an office? would you recommend starting and working with a younger principal. what kind of route would you recommend in this day and age that we're looking at now. >> find someone you really like, and if you can't get a job as a writer for that person, go to work for that person, anyway. if you really like this person and you really want to write for this person, and you can write, i can almost guarantee that if you get onto that staff and they find out that you're a writer and that you're able to do this and that you can do it under the conditions of a campaign or whatever other intense or demanding conditions they have, they will use you. maybe you're on the finance staff, maybe you're on the clerical staff administrative

team, fa team. fact check, research, whatever, press. and if you say, if you have a spare project, press release, policy paper or something, i'd like to take a crack at that if you wouldn't mind. i don't think they're going to say no to you, and if you're really good, they will come back and back and back, and there will be no limit to how far you can rise in that operation if you can meet that standard. >> that's exactly what i was going to say. in a campaign there are battlefield promotions, and really the talent rises. other situations are kind of murky, but in the campaign it's like all hands on deck and the best people will rise and will get opportunities. also there are not a lot of good writers out there. so if you can write, it's like a needle in a haystack, especially on a campaign. there are so many operatives and vision people with ideas, but

very few people can write. if you can do that and you go in at any level, any job, and volunteer yourself, and once they figure out you can write, there are so many things that need to be written in a campaign. not just speeches but all kinds of texts and answers and questionnaires. all those things, they need good writers. once you're identified, they will keep coming and you'll get great jobs. back to that thing. so you're going to take a small low-level job, and for little money. the only way to stay happy is to believe in the candidate and really think they're the best thing for america. so you should find someone you like and think should be in the job. and then it becomes much more easy. it's like a mission. you're on a mission. >> we both know people who have made that very decision, and in many cases, maybe a majority, it's a snap decision. that's my person. >> you fall in love, right? >> trust your instincts as well.

>> and getting coffee is not beneath you. do everything. be a yes person. just make copies. get the coffee and then say, oh, if you're overloaded with talking points, i'd like to try it for you. let me try it for you. >> eric fleisher, i think it was, said the good interns always go and make the copies. the great interns read the things that are copied. >> but yeah, there are so many young people i've run across who are like, i want to do the social thing. no, make the copies, too, then do the social thing. >> thank you guys very much. [ applause ] >> thank you, everybody, for joining. there is a little reception and you can join us. thank you, guys.

our look at writing that deals with presidents continues in a moment. we're using this week's congressional break to show you american history tv programs normally seen only on the weekends. coming up, historians who write presidential biographies talk about challenges in striking a fair balance on various views of former presidents. presidential speechwriter with former speechwriters for bill clinton and george w. bush on how they communicated policy ideas from the president's point of view. if you missed any of today's discussions, you can see them tonight during american history tv prime-time. it begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern. thursday evening, we look at a conference hosted by the

national world war ii museum in new orleans, focusing on the 1998 academy award-winning film, "saving private ryan." that includes a discussion among historians comparing "saving private ryan" to other films about the 1944 d-day invasion. american history tv prime-time begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern. >> sunday night on q&a, congressional historians richard baker, donald richie, and ray sma. >> one of the fquestions that i hear people asking all the time, is this the most uncivil time in history? >> it's got to be close, if you were to pick another period, certainly the years leading to the civil war, when, you know, a host member came over and became a senator in 1856, because he disagreed with what he said and there are a lot of senators who kind of cheered on that host member. >> there's a broadway musical now about the shooting of alexander hamilton.

he was shot by the sitting vice president of the united states. that's pretty dramatic. we've had terrible times, political times. >> there was one brawl in 1858, before the civil war, that had 80 members rolling around on the floor, fighting one another. one of the members who had a wig, his name was kite, one of the members pulled his wig off, and someone else yelled, he scalped him! and that was enough levity to stop the fight. >> congressional historians richard baker, donald richey, and ray sma sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. next, from the society for historians of american foreign relations' annual conference, five historians who have written about u.s. presidents and the presidency discuss the challenges and importance of writing presidential