TJ Walker reviews and compares Donald Trump’s victory speech and Hillary Clinton’s concession speech after the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He judges Trump’s speech as unusually humble, inclusive, and calming (helping stabilize markets), and praises Clinton’s concession as gracious, upbeat, and appropriate given the surprise result. The episode closes with an invitation for listener comments.
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Speaking with TJ Walker, the show where we dissect how and what world class leaders communicate. So the 2016 US presidential election is over. We had two speeches in the last 24 hours, a victory speech and a concession speech. How do they do? First, Donald Trump gave a victory speech early, early in the morning, the day after the election. How did he do? Now, this was a very, very different speech for Donald Trump. Everything about his style was different. He came across, believe it or not, humble. He came across as someone who seemed happy, but yet not in any way arrogant or boastful. His message was that of inclusion. He talked about being president of all the people. Now, this is in stark contrast to most of his campaign messages for the previous 17 months where he really stressed that he wanted to be the president primarily for white, Christian people, America. So his message, much broader, much, much more inclusive, quite generous to Hillary Clinton, said nothing but positive things about her. Gone were all the references to locking her up, appointing investigators. Talked about how dedicated she was, how hard she had campaigned, completely, utterly gracious. The other fascinating thing about what he put out there was his main sort of policy initiative. He talked about building infrastructure. Now, it is true, he did talk about building infrastructure throughout his campaign, but that was typically seen as a second tier, even third tier issue behind immigration, banning Muslims, putting up a wall between the United States and Mexico. Now, interesting that building infrastructure is a message that in fact appeals more to Democrats and to liberals than it does necessarily conservatives. So it was, I think, a wise choice of a message as far as being conciliatory. The other thing it did is calmed the markets down. Initially, the futures markets, markets around the world were in chaos, dropping quickly. There was a little bit of chaos early Wednesday morning Even in the U.S. but then things stabilized and actually went up a little. Most observers think the reason is, and I agree that Donald Trump's message was very calming and reassuring. It's almost as if he's sending a message of, okay, the campaign is over, I'm now going to be presidential, mature, express empathy, be inclusive. Now, many, many observers thought he would do that once he won the Republican nomination and was appealing to all voters in a general election, there really wasn't a pivot along those lines, even though it was widely anticipated. Are we seeing that now? Well, based on this one victory speech and one victory speech only, he did a good job of that. He calmed the markets, he struck the right tone. As far as celebrating with his own supporters was very specifically appreciative. Family, friends seemed to be enjoying the moment. But really did extend an olive branch to Hillary Clinton. Democrats, liberals, progressives, people who, frankly, are in complete, utter shock and are in the depths of depression. When he was giving that speech, he wasn't putting salt in the wounds. He certainly wasn't making them feel. He wasn't rubbing it in. He wasn't taunting anyone. He certainly wasn't doling out nickname. So I give him very high marks for his victory speech. Of course, as president, you get to speak all the time, nearly every day. So a victory speech, while it does set a tone, many people well remember Barack Obama's victory night speech back in 2008. It's only one small piece of a puzzle. Donald Trump has a very, very specific reputation among voters. Those who voted for him obviously like it more than the reputation of Hillary Clinton. But for those who don't, he has the highest negatives of any president elect in the history of the United States. A speech like this does help, doesn't erase overnight the negatives, but it did help him take one positive step in the right direction. Now let's switch our attention to Hillary Clinton. She did not make any concession speech the night of the campaign. She waited till about 10:30, 11 the next day, Wednesday, to give her concession speech. And she was pretty much exactly what you would expect. She pledged support to Donald Trump. She said, he's now my president. He's everybody's president. Anything I can do to help. She did not spend a lot of time dwelling on the fact that she actually earned more votes than Donald Trump. He, of course, won in the Electoral College, which is all that really matters in the way the US Democracy is set up. She didn't try to minimize his. His credibility as president. She didn't suggest that his election was rigged or that his presidency was illegitimate, even though she did win more votes than he did. And that's only happened four other times in the history of the United States, Al Gore being the most recent one, and Jeb. Excuse me, not Jeb. George W. Bush having fewer overall votes in 2000. So she didn't dwell on those things. I think that her supporters were very impressed, and she seemed like a class act. She also, frankly, seemed very upbeat. She obviously has to have been profoundly disappointed. Anyone who runs for president and spends a couple years of their life working that hard and doesn't win and has got to be profoundly disappointed. I don't care if you lose 49 states and it's not a surprise, it's still got to be wildly disappointing. But in a situation like this, where all the polls told her she would win. In many cases, supporters, pollsters, consultants, people she respects, have been telling her for weeks, if not months she was going to win in a landslide. To lose in such a shocking situation you would think would break almost any person. But she wasn't teary, she certainly wasn't bitter. She didn't sound like Richard Nixon after one of his defeats, talking about, you won't have Nixon to kick around anymore. She really did sound a bit positive and putting things in perspective, her supporters were very, very pleased with it. They, of course, are distraught about other things, namely having lost the election. And so far in the commentary, even Hillary Clinton's worst nightmare, worst enemies, did not see anything in this speech to pick apart. They're more focused on their own celebration, which is normal and customary in this situation. For Hillary Clinton, this may be the last big speech where she ever captures the attention of the world. Now, she's someone who is obviously committed to public policy, and I really don't think she's just going to be a full time grandmother. But at age almost 70, I do think this was her last campaign and this was her last campaign speech. It's not the way she wanted to go out, but as a politician, you can't necessarily control that. You can control how you speak. And I have been very critical of how Hillary Clinton has spoken over the years. She's often had a problem of yelling too much, but she didn't do that. She struck the right tone. She seemed appropriately sad. It wasn't sort of some sort of fake phony, ha, ha, everything's great. It wasn't that she had the right tone. She was very, very positive and supportive of Donald Trump, the President elect. She was very gracious towards all the people who worked for her. She was very supportive to the notion of democracy, stability, transition of power, and yet did lay down some markers of, okay, here are our ideals, our principles, and the people who supported me need to continue focusing on this issue and holding people in power accountable. So I frankly don't know how she could have done the speech any better. Is it going to make much of an impact on the historical record? No, but it's a nice way to go out. And it's a lot better than your final statement going out, leaving a bad taste in people's mouths. And I would give high marks to both the loser in this situation and the President elect. As far as their very first speeches after the ballot box is closed and the votes were counted, they both did as well as they could possibly do. I'M TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me. What do you think? Post your comments. You can post them here on YouTube, on my Facebook page, on Twitter J. Walker or the new podcast blog at Speaking with TJ Walker. Thanks a lot. Thanks for listening to speaking with T.J. walker. Sam.
