This is CBS High on the World.

I'm John Batchelor.

The Big Speech, the President of the United States.

I welcome Bill Whalen at the Hoover Institution, writing most recently about the big speech,

because Bill is a speech writer.

And the planning for a speech is endless, and the notes and the scrabbles and

the changes. I remember famous stories about Bill Clinton's taking several hours to substitute

words before he gave big speeches. Well, then we come to President Trump. Bill, a very good evening

to, if I understand correctly, the big speech that President Trump gave just a few days before now

was not a State of the Union speech because of some odd decision made that your first year in office,

you don't give a State of the Union speech.

But it served like a state of the union speech.

So is it, can we take it as policy?

Good evening, Hugh Lowe.

Good evening, John.

You know, boy, Bill Clinton's speech writing stories.

He was notorious for, you know, rewriting his speech literally in the car driving up to Capitol Hill

to give a state of the union.

So his speechwriters must have burned out

pretty fast, and he developed ulcers pretty quick. So, right, what Trump did was he delivered a

joint address to Congress, not to be confused with the state of the union, but the same purpose,

John, which is to lay out what his agenda is. So here he did it. But it just may be curious,

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