- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
US president Joe Biden on February 7 delivered his second annual State of the Union (SOTU) message to the Congress. While the content of the speech remained a subject of interest, for many, it was the mind behind its drafting which generated no less curiosity.
Just like the Democratic president’s speeches in recent years, the chief architect of the SOTU message was Vinay Reddy, an Indian-American who is the White House director of speechwriting in the Biden administration since January 20, 2021, the day Biden became the commander-in-chief.
Vinay Reddy is the chief speechwriter for Biden. He did a wonderful job tonight. pic.twitter.com/l4UOH808We
— Archie_Tex (@Arch_E_Texture) February 8, 2023
Reddy has been part of the group that worked with the US president on the speech, besides senior advisors Mike Donilon and Anita Dunn; political advisor Bruce Reed; counsellor Steven Ricchetti; and historian John Meacham.
The family of Reddy, who was born and raised in Ohio, has its roots in a village in the southern Indian state of Telangana. His father Narayana Reddy had migrated to the US in 1970 after completing MBBS degree from Hyderabad, the former capital of undivided Andhra Pradesh.
Reddy went to public schools in Ohio, Miami University and then to the Ohio State University College of Law.
It is not the first time that the Indian-American man has associated himself with Biden. He had worked as a speechwriter for the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris campaign and was also the chief speechwriter to Biden during his second term as the vice president. He also served as speechwriter for officials of different departments in the former Barack Obama administration. He also worked as the vice president of strategic communications for the National Basketball Association.
The first Asian-American to work as the White House director of speech writing, Reddy was a senior speechwriter at the US Environmental Protection Agency and the department of health and human services when Obama was the president. He was also the deputy speechwriter for the Obama-Biden re-election campaign and speechwriter for his home state senator Sherrod Brown.
