David Gergen, an adviser to four presidents from both parties, died Thursday at age 83, his son confirmed to media outlets.
Christopher Gergen said his father died from Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disease, at a retirement community in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Gergen began his political career as a speechwriter for President Richard Nixon. He later served as communications director to Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. He returned to the White House as a counselor to Bill Clinton, the first Democrat he served.
“It was a controversial appointment – both for him and for me, as I had worked previously for three Republican presidents,” Gergen would write in a memoir, CNN reported. “But he was a friend, and he was our president, so I said yes. And indeed, I was honored.”
It was under Reagan that Gergen suggested a question to use against then-President Jimmy Carter in a televised debate in 1980: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” according to The New York Times.
It’s a line that Donald Trump used often during the 2024 election cycle.
Gergen was the founding director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School but also held a prominent job with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, The Washington Post reported.
Gergen was a longtime political analyst for CNN.
In addition to his son, Gergen is survived by his wife, Anne, a daughter, Katherine Gergen Barnett, and five grandchildren, according to Deadline.
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