Experts in the News

Topic
Washington Post

Trump’s go-it-alone approach put to the test by global coronavirus pandemic

Trump’s approach reflects his us-against-them mind-set, tendency to assign blame and combative view of geopolitics — characteristics that have only been amplified by the global crisis, said Russell Riley, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. “It is a persistent, enduring and probably irreversible feature of this president that he’s going to approach a problem on his own and will rise or fall based on his ability to succeed in doing that,” he said, describing Trump’s strategy as a “recipe for a disastrous exercise in leadership.”
Russell Riley
The Independent

What an ex-White House staffer and a concerned psychiatrist told me about Trump's reaction to the coronavirus crisis

While an administration source said that the briefing call had been on Azar's and Verma's calendars for months, Chris Lu, who managed Obama's cabinet from 2009 to 2013, said the fact that the White House allowed them to appear in a briefing that wasn't about coronavirus shows the Trump administration isn't focusing its efforts on getting Americans the information they need to protect themselves. "Somebody at the White House should have thought to themselves: 'This is a little bit off-message from what we're trying to do today,' and said, 'You know what? This could either be done through a press release or pushed off to another day,'" said Lu, who is now a senior
Chris Lu
The New York Times

Democrats Eye a Vice-Presidential Consolation Prize for Women

“In the current political environment, it looks tone deaf to have an all-white, all-male ticket,” said Jennifer Lawless, a professor at the University of Virginia and an expert on women in politics. “There’s no question that the notion of a female V.P. is used as a strategy and I think that’s a little bit sexist. It’s sort of like an ‘insert woman here’ kind of conversation.”
Jennifer Lawless