Dec 16, 2020
David Litt entered the White House as a speechwriter in 2011, and left in 2016 as a senior presidential speechwriter and special assistant to the president. In addition to writing remarks for President Barack Obama on a wide range of domestic policy issues, David served as the lead joke writer for several White House Correspondents’ Dinner monologues. Since leaving government, David's work has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and The Boston Globe, among others. From 2016-2018 he was the head writer and producer for Funny Or Die D.C., and he has developed TV pilots for Comedy Central and ABC.
David's New York Times bestselling memoir, Thanks, Obama: My Hopey Changey White House Years, was published in 2017. His second book, Democracy in One Book Or Less: How It Works, Why It Doesn’t, and Why Fixing It Is Easier Than You Think, was published in June 2020.
Jamie Merisotis is a globally recognized leader in philanthropy, education, and public policy. Since 2008, he has served as the president and CEO of Lumina Foundation, an independent, private foundation that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. He previously served as co-founder and president of the nonpartisan, Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Higher Education Policy and as executive director of a bipartisan national commission on college affordability appointed by the U.S. president and congressional leaders. Merisotis is the author of AMERICA NEEDS TALENT, which was named a Top 10 Business Book of 2016 by Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association.
Merisotis is a frequent media commentator and contributor. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, National Journal, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Politico, Roll Call, Washington Monthly, and other publications.
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