Experts in the News

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US News

How Biden and Trump Switched Sides on Abortion

"They both switched, in a way," says Barbara Perry, a presidential scholar and Supreme Court expert at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. For Biden, it was "an evolution," she says. A devout Catholic who lost a baby in a car accident, Biden was personally opposed to abortion, a view that was partly reflected in his voting record. But since then, with changing times and views towards women (not to mention being married to Jill Biden, the first first lady to hold a professional job outside the White House), Biden has become a strong supporter of abortion rights, Perry notes. For Trump, Perry says, the evolution was transactional.
Barbara Perry
Bloomberg

Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade

Miller Center Director of Presidential Studies Barbara Perry, an expert on the Supreme Court, offers analysis of the court's decision.
Barbara Perry
The Hill

Bully pulpit fizzles for Biden

Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, said she recently asked an audience of roughly 200 people, with the average age of 65, how many watched Biden’s prime-time speech on guns the evening prior, and only five or six raised their hands. “I was stunned,” Perry said.
Barbara Perry
Financial Times

Tensions simmer as US Supreme Court’s blockbuster summer drags on

Barbara Perry, Supreme Court and presidency scholar at the University of Virginia, described it as one of the most tense moments in the court’s history, with barricades surrounding the building like the ones that were erected in the wake of September 11 or the US Capitol attack in January 2021. The abortion draft opinion leak has given more time than usual for sentiments to flare over the deeply divisive issue, amid already rising discontent with the court expressed at protests around the country and on social media. The court is “in uncharted territory right now”, Perry said.
Barbara Perry
CBC

Jan. 6 riot hearings offer window into potential charges against Trump

Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia's Miller Center, says it's been important to see many of Trump's former aides and advisers, who had been supporting him, change their tune. Now, she said, they're saying: "'Oh, well, no, I wasn't [supporting him]. And this is what I was saying to him because he was wrong, absolutely wrong, on the Constitution and its interpretation. He was wrong about any kind of fraud. There was no fraud.'"
Barbara Perry