Washington Secrets: The speechwriter behind the State of the Union who works in the shadows

ADVERTISEMENT Subscribe to the Magazine Forward this email View this as website          BY ROB CRILLY Welcome to Tuesday's Washington Secrets, which brings you a State of the Union preview. We explain why you need a subpoena to get Donald Trump's chief speechwriter to spill the beans on his process. We also run the rule over the Democratic response and take a look at the odds of the president saying "discombobulator" tonight… Ross Worthington may be the most important White House official that you have never heard of. Tonight is his chance to shine. Or at least his words will… while he remains in the shadows. Donald Trump's chief speechwriter has spent weeks huddled with other top aides, drafting and redrafting the State of the Union address, sending it back and forth to the Oval Office so the president can put his own stamp on the speech. But Worthington does it all from behind the scenes. In a White House where Trump is acknowledged as his own best communicator — throwing out social media posts around the clock, delivering speeches largely off the cuff, or even adjusting the lighting during interviews — there are no prizes for claiming credit for putting words in the president's mouth. But Secrets can reveal for the first time how Worthington goes about his business. The 37-year-old monitors Trump's Truth Social feed for useful nuggets, runs a "double-blind" fact-checking process to scrutinize key elements, liaises with other top officials, including deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and domestic policy chief Vince Haley, all while deciphering Trump's own feedback in the form of notes scribbled on computer printouts. The White House is reluctant ever to discuss the work of the team behind the president's speechwriters. It took a subpoena to get Worthington to lift the curtain on his work. "You know, our job as speechwriters was to give him what he would want if he were to spend time sitting down and writing it," he told the House Jan. 6 committee in a 2022 deposition. "And we had various ways of understanding what that was. But, yeah, that was our goal in speechwriting. That's the job." STATE OF THE UNION 2026 BINGO: FILL OUT AS YOU WATCH Worthington graduated from Brown in 2011 and worked on Newt Gingrich's 2012 presidential campaign alongside Haley. They joined the Trump administration in 2016 and jointly ran his speechwriting shop. When Trump returned to power last year, Worthington was named White House director of speechwriting, while Haley became director of the Domestic Policy Council. That long association, which included writing campaign speeches while Trump was out of office, makes him particularly well placed to capture the president's voice, said an insider. "Many people think they know how Donald Trump talks, but Ross is one of the very few who can create written remarks in the president's voice," said a former Trump aide. The 2022 deposition focuses on the words that went into Trump's Jan. 6, 2021, speech, when he urged supporters to fight. But it also reveals the broader process of drafting a speech for such a mercurial and demanding speaker. Worthington described a drafting process that might start in the West Wing with a conversation with Miller about the president's priorities. And then there were other ways that the writers might try to read the president's mind. "If the president tweeted something, that was an indication to us that that was something that was on his mind or that he wanted to get out there,' he said. He described a midnight meeting in the White House residence with the president, during which Trump was pushing ways to dispute the 2020 election results. Drafts of speeches would be sent to the Staff Secretary's office for circulation among key departments for feedback. "The president provided feedback and edits to drafts, sometimes handwritten on the printout, sometimes verbally, sometimes through others, like telling someone to tell us something," said Worthington. He would run two parallel processes to check out contentious issues, which he called a "double-blind fact-checking process of having the [communications department] do their independent fact-check and our researcher would do a fact-check," he said. And then, when the final draft was prepared, he might sit in on rehearsals. If that is, a president famous for his ad libs and extemporized weave around diverse subjects, actually rehearses. Sometimes he would be present, Worthington said in a rather understated way, "to the extent that the president practiced speeches." Worthington may have done the lion's share of drafting tonight's speech, but that doesn't mean he knows quite how it will go. Republicans ready to attack Spanberger's response Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) should be Republicans' worst nightmare. Running as a "national security mom," the former CIA officer cruised to victory in Virginia's gubernatorial election. And as a sensible centrist, she is hailed as the model for future Democratic victories. No wonder she was tapped to deliver the party's response to the State of the Union tonight. Yet Republicans are licking their lips and plan on turning her into the poster child for Democratic duplicity. On Friday, she signed a bill approving new congressional maps that will give Democrats four additional seats in Congress. That will be a surprise to voters who remember her saying in August last year that she had no plans to pursue redistricting if elected. "By awarding her this speech, Democrats are saying they think Abigail Spanberger has unlocked the code and they're holding her up as their new ideal candidate," Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA) told Secrets. "But she lied to get elected and concealed her true agenda, masquerading as a moderate and promising to address affordability," Cline continued. "As soon as she won, the mask came off, and she began governing as a leftist, immediately acting to raise electricity rates and entertaining every tax increase under the sun." Spanberger has defended her sudden conversion to redrawing maps as a response to Republican gerrymandering in Texas. Cline's district is expected to shift from a reliably Republican seat to one that leans Democratic. "Now she's also broken her promise not to gerrymander Virginia, and if she's not stopped, millions of Virginians will be disenfranchised," he added. "If Abigail Spanberger is the Democrats' model politician, it just proves that they're lying about who they are and what they plan to do." The discombobulator in chief You know by now that you can gamble on almost anything, including what comes out of the president's mouth. If you want a dead cert, you can wager that Trump will say the word "trillion." But priced at $0.94 on the Kalshi market, the returns are small. In contrast, the word "discombobulator" will bring a return of 10 to 1. That was the word he memorably used to describe the secret weapon deployed during the Venezuela raid to capture former dictator Nicolas Maduro. Perhaps a better bet would be that he says "the state of our union is strong" or variations thereof, which is priced at $0.70, bringing a profit of $43 on a $100 stake. Just don't blame us, or Worthington, if the president veers far off script. Lunchtime reading Sports to play big role in Trump's celebration of country this year: President Donald Trump has long understood the power of sports as a unifying force, a platform for patriotism, and a stage for bold leadership. One year after his triumphant return to the White House, the president's engagement with athletics continues to evolve. Is "Slopulism" Shaping Our Politics?: Secrets doesn't entertain "slopulism" but knows it when it sees it. This is a great deep dive into the slop that clutters up all our social media feeds. You are reading Washington Secrets, a guide to power and politics in D.C. and beyond. It is written by Rob Crilly, whom you can reach at secrets@washingtonexaminer DOT COM with your comments, story tips, and suggestions. If a friend sent you this and you'd like to sign up, click here. ADVERTISEMENT