English subtitles for clip: File:Inside the White House- The State of the Union Address.webm

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(music playing)

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Mr. Wasniewski:
The State of the Union demonstrates,

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I think, at a really fundamental
level that as much as the

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country changes, a lot of the
processes that were set in place

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by the Constitution
persist until this day.

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Ms. Brown:
The formal process of actually 
delivering the State of

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the Union I guess really begins
when the Speaker of the House

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formally invites the President,
sends a letter to the White

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House inviting the President to
deliver a State of the Union in the House.

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Ms. Fernandez:
I'm honored to invite you to 
offer an address on the

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State of the Union
on January 25th, 2011,

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before a Joint
Session of Congress.

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Thank you for your
consideration,

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and I look forward
to your response.

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Sincerely, John Boehner.

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Mr. Axelrod:
The State of the
Union is a different kind of

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speech because it is sort of an
all-encompassing speech across

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the sweep of what you're
doing, and it makes it a very

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complicated speech to write.

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Mr. Favreau:
As he finishes extra pages 
then I'll just walk over.

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I'll discuss it when
I get back to my desk.

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It looks like line
edits, you know,

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and he wrote an insert here
and there, some extra stuff.

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Yeah, it looks good.

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After we got back from 
Thanksgiving we just

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started a whole bunch of policy
meetings that involved just

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about everyone in
every department,

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every agency in the White House.

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Years ago speech writers and
Presidents probably had it a

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little easier because all you
had to do was deliver a written

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version of the State of
the Union to Congress.

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Mr. Wasniewski:
And the person who came 
along and changed that was

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Woodrow Wilson in 1913, 
and this was really a bit of a shock to

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Congress at the time because 
they were so used to

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receiving the annual 
message in written form.

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It changes in the 20th century
largely because of technology.

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Television comes along and
really over the course of a

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couple decades revolutionizes
the State of the Union.

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And that's when the address
really garners a wide public attention.

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Mr. Axelrod:
The State of the
Union is the one time that the

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President gets to speak to the
entire country and the Congress

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and report on where we are as a
country and where he believes we

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have to go.

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What invariably happens, and
it's going to happen now,

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is he reads through several
drafts, he's done that already,

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and then at some point he takes
the speech and he puts his own

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imprint on it.

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And I think Favreau and
everybody else would tell you

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that the President is the best
speech writer in this building

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and probably in any
building you'd walk into.

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Mr. Favreau:
Usually the way it's worked 
is I'll write a little,

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I'll send
it to the President.

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He'll write, he'll
send edits back to me,

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and then we'll just go back and
forth with each other, you know,

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for pretty much the
entire month of January.

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Mr. Axelrod:
He drives all of us and himself very, 
very hard to get it

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to where he thinks it ought to be.

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And, you know, he treats the
process with tremendous respect

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and just huge creativity.

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It's, it's a lot of fun.

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Mr. Favreau:
We have all
551 members of Congress,

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all the Representatives
435, five Delegates,

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a Resident Commissioner,
and then the 100 Senators,

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Cabinet members, the
Supreme Court Justices,

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and the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
and in the galleries there's

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probably about another 750
people who sit up in the

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galleries to watch the speech.

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It's a full chamber.

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The President:
Our Constitution declares 
that from time to time

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the President shall
give to Congress information

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about the State of our Union.

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For 220 years, our leaders
have fulfilled this duty.

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The spirit that has sustained
this nation for more than

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two centuries lives on
in you, its people.

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(applause)

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Let's seize
this moment to start anew,

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to carry the dream forward, and
to strengthen our union once more.

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(applause)