Experts in the News | Miller Center

DC insiders are worried Trump might have a coronavirus quid pro quo up his sleeve

Chris Lu, who served as a Deputy Labor Secretary under the Obama administration, predicted that such a plan would likely disincentivize testing and hurt efforts to slow the virus’ spread in so-called “red” states. “That would just be an odd thing to basically say that in certain counties, you don’t have to social distance, but in certain counties you do. That strikes me as at odds with not only what most governors would say, but what public experts would say as well.”

Chris Lu

Talking through a pandemic: Trump uses words as a weapon in coronavirus response

“You see all these positive images and positive statements for the president, and this president has never appeared to suffer when he’s said things that are inaccurate,” said Barbara Perry, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs. “It bolsters up the base, and it may just be that those who don’t love him but just are crying out for leadership view that as leadership.”

Barbara Perry

Pandemic upends rules of partisan politics in Washington

A more accurate comparison to the novel coronavirus pandemic is an incident like the deadly polio outbreak under President Harry Truman in the late 1940s, said Barbara Perry, the director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. “Localities would shut down their pools and theaters and people would social isolate in the summertime, when it seemed to spread. Nobody pointed to a person or a country. That’s just the way it was,” Perry said.

Barbara Perry

‘Opening a door that was closed too long’: the hunt for a female vice-president

Biden and Sanders, the last men standing, “don’t look the way the party looks”, said Jennifer Lawless, a professor at the University of Virginia and an expert on women in politics. “They don’t even look the way the primary field looked.”

Jennifer Lawless

Top Political Scientists Weigh in on Cuomo’s Political Future

“It seems that Andrew Cuomo has exceeded expectations not only among New Yorkers but nationwide — and he’s basically the person that people are looking for for a sense of calm, cool, and collectedness that they don’t get from Donald Trump,” said University of Virginia Professor of Political Science Jennifer Lawless, when she appeared on GoLocal LIVE.

Jennifer Lawless

As economy struggles, what can we do?

Two years ago, University of Virginia professors Robert Bruner, David Smith and David Leblang teamed up to teach a class on the 2008 financial crisis, going over what happened in that crisis and how the country could prepare for the next one. Now they are turning their attention to the brewing economic crisis fueled by the global COVID-19 pandemic. On Thursday, Bruner, Smith and Leblang will lead a webinar, “The Developing Economic Crisis and the Pandemic,” hosted by UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, McIntire School of Commerce and Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.

David Leblang