Meet the Sask.-born speech writer who helped Donald Trump stump
Frank Buckley describes U.S. president's 1st year as 'largely successful'
U.S. President Donald Trump is known for his fiery rhetoric, but a lesser-known fact is that some of those speeches come with just a hint of Saskatchewan content.
If you write speeches for Trump you don't tell him how to win votes.- Frank Buckley
"There was something rather revolutionary about what happened in America last year," Frank Buckley said in an interview with CBC Radio's Saskatoon Morning on Tuesday, a day before the one-year anniversary of Trump's election on Nov. 8, 2016.
Buckley is a law professor at George Mason University who also helped write speeches during Trump's presidential campaign. A self-confessed fan of Canada's Constitution, Buckley was born and raised in Saskatchewan.
A year into the presidency, Buckley is still onside with Trump, offering this assessment of his record.
"It's been somewhat mixed, but largely successful," Buckley said.
How Trump won
From Buckley's point of view, the strong sense of voter dissatisfaction with the Washington status quo that swept Donald Trump into power remains, despite the president's low poll numbers.
Buckley said there was a sense that the American dream is somehow crumbling and it was that fear that Trump speech writers tried to address during his campaign.
"We would do drafts, but whatever came out would have some of our stuff but it would be authentically Trump speaking. His ideas on things like foreign policy during the campaign were immensely popular."
When questioned about the challenges of working with a man who insisted on putting a sometimes very controversial spin on a well-polished speech, Buckley agreed that "he's less than polite."
But Buckley said it is perhaps those rough edges and that unusual approach to politics that captured the hearts of so many American voters.
"If you write speeches you don't tell a guy how to do it, and if you write speeches for Trump you don't tell him how to win votes."
Prediction for 2020
As for what the future holds for the U.S. president, Buckley downplayed the potential impact of the investigation into Russian meddling in the election and instead highlighted the potential reform of the U.S. tax system.
If Trump can push tax reform through, Buckley said, he will win big in 2020.
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