Trump, Defying Custom, Hasn’t Given the National Archives Records of His Speeches at Political Rallies – By Shannon Bow O’Brien, Assistant Professor of Instruction, The University of Texas at Austin (The Conversation) / April 14 2021
Almost 10% of the president’s total public speeches are excluded from the official record.
Public figures live on within the words they are remembered by. To understand the effect they had on history, their words need to be documented. No one is absolutely sure of exactly what Abraham Lincoln said in his most famous speech, the Gettysburg Address. Five known manuscripts exist, but all of them are slightly different. Every newspaper story from the day contains a different account.
In the case of modern presidents, for the official record, we rely upon transcriptions of all their speeches collected by the national government.
But in the case of Donald Trump, that historical record is likely to have a big gap. Almost 10% of the president’s total public speeches are excluded from the official record. And that means a false picture of the Trump presidency is being created in the official record for posterity.
Saving the Records
In 1957, the National Historical Publications Commission, a part of the National Archives that works to “preserve, publish, and encourage the use of documentary sources … relating to the history of the United States,” recommended developing a uniform system so all materials from presidencies could be archived. They did this to literally save presidential records from the flames: President Warren G. Harding’s wife claimed to have burned all his records, and Robert Todd Lincoln burned all his father’s war correspondence. Other presidents have had their records intentionally destroyed, such as Chester A. Arthur and Martin Van Buren.
