David Litt
Author, former Obama speechwriter
David Litt (born September 17, 1986) is an American political speechwriter and author of the comedic memoir Thanks, Obama: My Hopey Changey White House Years. He is currently the head writer/producer for Funny or Die's office in Washington, D.C.
01Biography
Born to a Jewish family in New York City where he attended the Dalton School, Litt attended Yale University, where he was a member of the Yale Ex!t Players and editor-in-chief of the Yale Record.
He first got involved in political speechwriting through an internship with West Wing Writers. He entered the White House in 2011, at the age of 24, and for four years served as a senior presidential speechwriter first to Presidential Advisor Valerie Jarrett, White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley, and ultimately to President Barack Obama, including as the lead writer on four White House Correspondents' Association dinner presentations.
Litt has also written for The Onion and McSweeney's Internet Tendency.
Litt married Jacqueline Kappler on August 4, 2018.
02Books
Litt's first book, Thanks, Obama, was a New York Times Best Seller and was named one of the best books of 2017 by Esquire magazine. His second, Democracy in One Book or Less, was released in June 2020.
Litt's third book, It's Only Drowning, A True Story of Learning to Surf and the Search for Common Ground, was released on June 24, 2025. The book discusses the author's friendship with his brother-in-law during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “David Litt”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- David Litt (cropped).jpg by The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain
- Barack Obama in the Oval Office with speech writers 19 November 2014 P111914PS-0791 (16786940752).jpg by The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain
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