The Language of Leadership: WH Alumni and Gov Insiders Share Speechwriting Secrets

Jeff Nussbaum is a Partner at Bully Pulpit International (BPI), leading the agency’s executive communications practice. Prior to joining BPI, Nussbaum served as a Special Assistant and Senior Speechwriter to President Joe Biden. In May 2022, Jeff’s book Undelivered: The Never-Heard Speeches that Would Have Rewritten History was published. Writing in The Washington Post, Historian Douglas Brinkley called Undelivered a “hell of a fun ride.” The Wall Street Journal’s Edward Kosner called it “ingenious.” From 2007 to 2020, Jeff served as a partner at West Wing Writers, where he helped clients create and manage their internal and external communications plans, pen and promote bestselling books, prepare commencement speeches and viral TED talks, and deliver winning comedy routines at venues ranging from the Alfalfa Club to the Al Smith Dinner. As a founder of The Humor Cabinet, he has worked on humor speeches for dozens of elected officials and corporate executives. He has also served as a creative consultant for the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Jeff also helped direct the speechwriting and messaging operations for the 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. From 2001 to 2004, Jeff served as Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle’s deputy communications director and speechwriter. Prior to that, he served as a speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore in the White House, and later as a senior speechwriter for Gore-Lieberman 2000. Jeff was the co-author and collaborator with James Carville on the 2003 bestseller Had Enough? Jeff also collaborated with former Senator Bob Graham on his book Intelligence Matters. Jeff has served as an adjunct professor at the American University School of Communications and as a Stavros Niarchos Foundation Ithaca Senior Fellow at the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware.