The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. That's what you have to do: you have to be confident in… — Jon Lovett Copy Share Image
Regardless of how lyrical or rhetorically gifted they are in conveying big ideas, any candidate can do a good job of giving a speech if the goal of a speech is more than just delivering it well but achieving some… — Jon Lovett Copy Share Image
Most of my time at the White House, I wrote very unfunny speeches, but every year, I would work on the correspondents' dinner, which… — Jon Lovett Copy Share Image
I worked on one speech about the financial system that caused the Dow to drop, like, 200 points. — Jon Lovett Copy Share Image
There is that definition of leadership that says, 'Leadership is convincing people to do things that they otherwise wouldn't have done because you've made… — Jon Lovett Copy Share Image
Part of my job as a presidential speechwriter (along with great writers like Jon Favreau and David Axelrod) was finding that sliver where 'presidential'… — Jon Lovett Copy Share Image
If there is one way that I would sum up what the 2016 election was on cable news, it was world-class journalists interviewing morons. — Jon Lovett Copy Share Image
There are a lot of heartbroken, anxious people that thought better of their country. We're heartbroken by how far Trump has gotten to the… — Jon Lovett Copy Share Image
More and more people support equality for their gay friends and neighbors, and that is not because the 'Duck Dynasty' guy almost lost his… — Jon Lovett Copy Share Image
We need people to point out groupthink - We need people to point out stale, old, dumb thinking - and we sometimes need to… — Jon Lovett Copy Share Image
There's only so much mistrust we can take before things get much worse. — Jon Lovett Copy Share Image
