President Trump’s inauguration speech was written by two of the president’s closest aides and not Trump himself, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
A White House official told the Journal that Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon and senior advisor Stephen Miller penned the address.
Aides claimed before the speech that Trump was writing it on his own, and Trump even posted a photo to social media of himself with a pen and a pad that he claimed showed him writing the speech.
The speech struck an unusual tone for inaugural addresses. In it, Trump depicted the U.S. as a country ruled by a selfish political class and struggling to find its footing in a dangerous world.
{mosads}Bannon, the former executive chairman of right-wing Breitbart News, is considered by many to be a controversial pick for Trump’s White House strategist because of his ties to the conservative website.
“I don’t think we’ve had a speech like that since Andrew Jackson came to the White House,” Bannon told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s got a deep, deep root of patriotism.”
Miller wrote most of Trump’s prepared speeches throughout his presidential campaign, and was tapped last month to pen the inauguration address, according to a Politico report.