Jeffrey Nussbaum

On election night in November 2000, speechwriter Jeff Nussbaum had drafted three possible speeches for his boss, Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore. Gore didn’t deliver any of them: In a surprising twist, he won the popular vote but lost the electoral count to George W. Bush. Nussbaum’s speeches, which would have ushered in an alternate ending, were lost to history. But that night marked the first stop on a scavenger hunt whose clues Nussbaum has been following for two decades. The result is his new book Undelivered: The Never-Heard Speeches That Would Have Rewritten History, which comes out today, just weeks after Nussbaum stepped down from serving as a speechwriter to President Joe Biden. Nussbaum talked to Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch about how he tracked down the speeches, what they teach us about history — and shares some of his own undelivered speeches.

Track them down: “It started me thinking, there must be other instances in history — and not just elections, which are obvious — where an ultimate outcome wasn’t just envisioned, [but] the words that would accompany that outcome were drafted,” Nussbaum said. “I started to follow breadcrumbs for undelivered speeches wherever I heard them.”

Cool down: Each chapter gives readers insight into the complicated political calculus that goes into a leader’s speech. Former Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), a young civil rights activist during the 1960s, intended to give a heated address criticizing the Democratic establishment at the 1963 March on Washington. Martin Luther King Jr. stepped in to get Lewis to tone down his rhetoric. There was a “fear that John Lewis’ speech was so hot that the Catholic leadership would pull out of the event, and the Kennedys desperately wanted the Catholic Church’s seal of approval on this march,” Nussbaum explained. “That sort of fraught relationship between progressive religious groups and civil rights, I think, is tremendously fascinating.”

No peace: One speech that only appears in the book as an acknowledgment of defeat was the speech that President Jimmy Carter planned to deliver if the 1978 Camp David negotiations between Israel and Egypt fell apart. On the verge of collapse, the parties “moved so quickly to an agreement that they basically sprinted out of Camp David to the White House,” said Nussbaum. “Everything that was on President Carter’s desk, including the failure speech — basically, imagine someone taking an arm and sweeping it across the desk into a box, and into the box it went.” The Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta confirmed to Nussbaum that the box existed, but no copy of the speech was found in it.

Rumor mill: What about Nussbaum’s own undelivered speeches? There are “dozens and dozens” of them, he said. His favorites? “I have presidential announcement speeches for people who didn’t end up running for president.” Unfortunately for political gossip hounds, those didn’t make it into the book.

Read the full interview here.

It was long one of Saudi Arabia’s best-kept secrets — even among Saudis themselves — the ancient region of AlUla, known only to those living in its proximity and a few archaeologists and scholars. Access to this once-forgotten region changed when Saudi Arabia opened to international leisure travelers in September 2019, granting tourist visas to the country, which for years was closed off to visitors, Rebecca Anne Proctor reports for The Circuit.

Gulf goal: The AlUla Project, as it has been dubbed, is a plan to transform this ancient region into a global tourist experience under the direction of the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU), a Saudi government body established in July 2017 to preserve and develop AlUla. It is also a cornerstone of Vision 2030, a strategic framework to transform the Gulf nation economically and socially, open itself to the world and wean its dependence off crude oil.

Vacation destination: While the lure of discovering ancient desert lands and archaeological attractions as well as contemporary art and culture are central to the AlUla Project’s vision, the goal of the effort is also to transform the ancient region into a primary luxury destination in Saudi Arabia. The region, which is 22,500 square kilometers (9,000 square miles), approximately the same size as New Jersey, is now home to five-star accommodations. “AlUla’s positioning allows it to attract and host high-spending individuals from around the world and the kingdom itself and be a key generator for the kingdom’s tourism-related revenue,” added Philip Jones, chief destination marketing officer at The Royal Commission for AlUla.

Sightseeing: Visitors to AlUla can see the region’s curvaceous sand dunes, anamorphous red rock structures, famous “Elephant Rock” — a gigantic rock formation in the shape of an elephant, the 110 well-preserved tombs set into the rock formations with their ancient architectural structures featuring elaborate facades cut out of the sandstone outcrops surrounding AlUla’s walled urban settlement —akin to those found also in Petra, Jordan. Now, travelers can also take in a host of contemporary art projects, such as Desert X, featuring a land art exhibition every two years, and Maraya, a mirror-covered concert hall (also the largest mirrored building on earth, according to Guinness World Records) hosting such stars as Andrea Boccelli and, most recently, Alicia Keys, among many other attractions.

Read the full story here.

Nassau County Republicans have quickly coalesced around Hempstead Town Councilman Anthony D’Esposito, a former police detective and fire chief, as their best hope to flip the Long Island congressional seat currently held by retiring Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-NY), Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

In the race: D’Esposito told Jewish Insider last week that he’s running for Congress “because the country clearly needs a change” and people in the community feel “that our country and our state are on the wrong track… We really need some common sense in Washington.” The town councilman said that he would seek to “treat government like a business and make sure that you protect the taxpayer at all costs,” which he said would be a continuation of his work on issues like cutting taxes in Hempstead. He characterized public safety as “a huge issue” — both locally and at the U.S. southern border — and decried rising gas and food prices.

Policy platform: D’Esposito boasted of strong relationships with the local Jewish community and a strong record on Israel, including opposition to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in local government. “We’ve certainly done our part for a township on Long Island to really fly the flag and let everyone know that we not only stand with Israel, but we’re willing to put the pen to paper and let everyone across the nation know it,” he said. Like most Republicans, the Hempstead councilman opposes returning to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, but said he would “absolutely” support a stronger agreement, although he had not thought through what he’d like to see in such an accord.

Read the full interview here.

Mike Merinar, 63, leaves the polls at the Dallas Community Center on Tuesday, May 8, 2018 in Dallas, West Virginia. (Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)

It’s primary day in West Virginia and Nebraska. Here are some of the races to watch:

WV-02: In West Virginia, attention is on the 2nd Congressional District, where incumbent Reps. Alex Mooney (R-WV) and David McKinley (R-WV) are facing off. McKinley, who voted for the bipartisan infrastructure package, has been endorsed by Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican, and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), while Mooney is backed by former President Donald Trump. A recent poll showed Mooney, who has outraised McKinley by $1.7 million, with a 15-point lead.

NE-02: In the Democratic primary in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, state Sen. Tony Vargas and activist Alicia Shelton are competing for the chance to take on Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) in the Omaha-area seat. Vargas is likely to win the primary, according to one Nebraska political consultant who spoke to JI last week, and will “probably give Don Bacon a run,” although the Cook Political Report rates the district as “Likely Republican.” “If you can turn out the Latino [vote] and [largely Black] North Omaha areas a little bit more than usual, it could be a very tight race,” the consultant added.

NE-Gov: Most attention in the Cornhusker State is on the Republican gubernatorial primary, a dead-even three-way race among state Sen. Brett Lindstrom, agricultural CEO Charles Herbster and University of Nebraska Regent Jim Pillen. Herbster has been endorsed by Trump and is facing numerous accusations of sexual misconduct.

NE-01: Republican state Sen. Mike Flood is running to replace former Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE), who resigned after being convicted of several felonies for lying to federal investigators. State Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks is likely to pick up the nomination on the Democratic side. They’ll face off in a June 28 special election to fill Fortenberry’s seat for the rest of the current congressional term.