U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright was asked if he still thinks climate change is overhyped—even after Colorado’s devastating wildfires. His response? A calm, data-driven pivot: “Let’s talk about wildfires.” Here’s how that framing shifted the entire conversation.
When Richard Clarke responded to staff cuts at the NSC, he didn’t challenge the numbers—he reframed the entire debate by changing the question. A powerful move in rhetorical framing.
When Harvard’s president responded to proposed federal research funding cuts, he didn’t just defend the university—he reframed the debate as a national loss and questioned the logic behind the change.
Elon Musk reframes AI regulators as sports referees—necessary for fairness, but counterproductive in excess. It’s a powerful metaphor that shifts the debate from policy to playability.
When asked what Qatar expects in return for a $400 million jet, Trump’s envoy doesn’t answer. Instead, he builds a stack of deflections—legal, moral, and personal—that shift attention away from influence and toward praise. This is layered spin with structure.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt frames AI as a force of progress—first through awe, then through warning. But beneath the stories, analogies, and hypotheticals lies a deeper narrative: one that omits the real costs. This post breaks down the three biggest framing moves in his TED Talk—and what happens when influence is built not on argument, but on what’s left unsaid.
A veteran air traffic controller used a striking metaphor to describe FAA system failures: “It’s like driving your car knowing the brakes will go out at any time.” This post breaks down why that framing works—and how you can use metaphor to convey urgency without shouting.
On Meet the Press, former Rep. Patrick Kennedy framed emotional regulation in schools the same way we once framed STEM: as a national investment in competitiveness. This post breaks down the analogy and why it works.
Multiple headlines described the same Syrian leader in radically different terms—“interim president” in one, “former jihadist” in another. This post breaks down how a single attribute can reframe an entire narrative.
When a message sounds logical but shifts your attention from the truth to the speaker’s motive, you’re not hearing an argument—you’re experiencing a fallacy as a frame. This post unpacks how that works, using a real quote to show how logic quietly gets bypassed.