And now from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, the Act Spiles, with your host, David Axelrod.

One of the greatest experiences I had when I worked in the White House was to meet each day with this core of young creative writers who produced the president's speeches.

And that group was led by John Favreau, then just 27 years old, when he came to the White House. I've been working with him since he was 23 and he joined Senator Obama's staff. I call John Mozart because at a very early age he could produce masterpieces that bespoke talent and wisdom far beyond his years.

And we recounted some of our experiences together and with Obama and talked about speech writing.

John Favreau, welcome. It's not as if we need an introduction to each other. But you remember the first time that we met?

I do remember the first time we met. I told the story often. I was 22 years old. I was working for the Kerry campaign and it was the Democratic Convention in Boston. I was a deputy speechwriter for the Kerry campaign at the time and my job was...

I was 22. They couldn't afford a real deputy speechwriter because things weren't going well in the primary. Anyway, we won the primary. So for the convention, my job was to sit backstage with a bunch of other speechwriters and try to make sure that all the speeches reflected the message of the Kerry campaign to the extent that there was a message of the Kerry campaign.

I got a call from the road where Josh Gahnheimer, who was our chief speechwriter at the time, was with Kerry. He said, there's a line in Barack Obama's keynote address.

Barack was a state senator. He nominated for the U.S. Senate and he was the keynote at the Kerry convention.

Obama's got a line in his keynote address that Kerry wrote in his acceptance speech. He said, we need to get rid of the line. I'm like, how are you going to do that? He's like, well, you're going to go do it.

So they asked me, so I, they're like, well, you know Gibbs, Robert Gibbs was at the time working for Barack Obama but previously had been my boss on the Kerry campaign before leaving the campaign. So they're like, you know Gibbs, he's practicing with Obama right now. Why don't you go down the hall and ask him to take out the line? So, great task for me.

Do you remember the line? I do. It was the line. So it was the end of the red state blue state ref said there are no red states or blue states. There's just the United States of America. All of us pledging allegiance to the red white and blue. I believe that was.

Yeah, that was roughly it, but that's how it culminated. He played off of the red state and blue state and said all of us pledging allegiance to the red white and blue. Right. Right. Love the line. He loved the line. It was a good line.

Yeah, it remains a good line. I think as he's often said. So I walk into the, I walk into the room and I think Obama is practicing on teleprompter for the one of the first times and Gibbs is there and I go up to Gibbs and I said, you know, here's what happened. Could you mind him taking out the line and Gibbs said, I'm not telling him it's his favorite line. You go tell him.

So I walk up to Obama and I like sheepishly mumble something about the line and he kind of stands like an inch from my face and looks at me and he's like, are you trying to tell me I have to take out my favorite line in the speech.

And I think at that point I might have lost consciousness. And then I was there. I remember this. And then about a still I crew cut it kid coming in and trying to shake us down for our favorite line.

Well, that's when I met you. And then and then you pulled me aside and said, David X rod. Why don't we why don't we go out and rewrite the line together. And so then you and I, that was our first collaboration together.

You stepped outside in the hall and we we wrote the line. So after after you left, he formulated for a while. I heard that. After the session, he was still angry. And he said, they're stealing my favorite line.

Totally outrageous. Who is this kid anyway? But I pointed out to him that we were going to be we had a chance to talk to 18 million people thanks to carry in the opportunity to speak. So it was probably worth the trade off. I'm not sure he was convinced. And the speech seemed to go pretty well without.

I know it was a it was an okay speech. Yes. And then he didn't so much later in 2000 when he hired me in 2005 in the Senate office. He did not remember that was me. Or or I may not have been hired. And then it was a year after that in the Senate office.

We were sort of hanging around talking reminiscing Obama Gibbs me a couple other people and they started talking about the speech. And Obama turns to Gibbs and he goes, do you remember that kid came in and told me to take the line out. I was like, yeah, that was me. He goes, what? I would have never hired you if I knew that.

So obviously you went on to become a great collaborator minorly of mine majorly of his. And but I think folks be interested in knowing how the hell you got there.

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