Hello and welcome to Whistle Stop Series 2, a podcast about the presidency.

I'm John Dickerson of Face the Nation.

Donald Trump has reminded me of John Kennedy lately and yet not reminded me of John Kennedy at all.

This is not the total ball of relativism episode of Whistle Stop, but a meditation on the ways in which presidents communicate.

John Kennedy mastered the new medium of television in much the same way Donald Trump has taken

advantage of social media. Kennedy used it to get around the traditional newsprint media.

Kennedy also tried to change the conventional wisdom of the way people thought about

certain policies in the same way Donald Trump does. Those are the similarities. The difference is

Donald Trump uses social media to make assertions, not arguments. He uses his new media to simply

claim what is true. Kennedy, on the other hand, used his new medium

that he was trying to master to make a case. He was a great believer in the idea that a patient,

careful argument, delivered in a well-crafted speech, could change minds. We're going to look at a

single Kennedy speech to try to figure out what we think about the

power of presidential communication. This is a big field, this communication questions. You could

walk around it with your sweetheart and never hear the dinner bell. And we're not going to try

and plow the whole thing or cover all the territory or otherwise fill out the four corners of

this metaphor. But we are going to try to make a start.

12,000 persons attend graduation ceremonies on Yale University's old campus.

As President Kennedy and Dean Yatchison receive honorary degrees,

the President, a Harvard graduate, is made an honorary doctor of laws before delivering the commencement address.

On June 11, 1962, John Kennedy received an honorary degree from Yale University and used the opportunity to make the case for his tax and spending programs.

His goal was not simply to outline what they were, however.

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