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Advisory Opinions

Crimes, Plural

Advisory Opinions

The Dispatch

News, Government, Politics

4.7 • 4K Ratings

🗓️ 13 July 2020

⏱️ 80 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

With Joe Biden’s popularity rising in battleground states (according to several recent polls), Democratic lobbyists and party officials are urging the presidential candidate to try and win over purple and even conservative-leaning states like Georgia and Texas. But most of his advisors are urging a more conservative path, encouraging him to focus on states he knows he can win. David and Sarah discuss these opposing strategies and offer their insights on what a winning 2020 presidential campaign should keep in mind. In today’s episode, they also discuss the president’s pardoning power, theological and constitutional arguments related to the death penalty, and Trump’s tweet about re-examining the tax-exempt status of academic institutions that “are about Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education.” They wrap the podcast by responding to a listener’s question about what to include in an intro philosophy course. Show Notes: -New York Times piece on warring factions within Biden’s campaign, Fox News poll, University of Texas poll, Dallas Morning News poll, CBS/YouGov poll. -Death penalty opinion. -Andrew Kent’s congressional testimony. -Ex Parte Garland case from 1866. -Notes on Virginia ratifying convention from Brookings Institution. -“The Traditional Interpretation of the Pardon Power Is Wrong” Atlantic article by Corey Brettschneider and Jeffrey K. Tulis. -John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

You ready?

0:02.0

I was born ready.

0:04.0

Welcome to the advisory opinions podcast. This is David French with Sarah Isger and listeners, you may have thought that this podcast was just going to fold up its tents and go home after that action packed Supreme Court term.

0:33.0

We would have nothing left to give, but you would be so, so wrong because the new cycle marches on the law never sleeps and the need for Sarah's political expertise is only increasing as time goes by.

0:48.0

So we've got a lot to talk about today. We're going to talk about whether or not Joe Biden should violate the ancient Southern lawyers maximum that admonishes as I've said before, pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.

1:04.0

We're going to also talk about whether or not or can or should Nancy Pelosi attempt to limit the president's pardon power. We're going to talk about the president's threat to weaponize the RS against progressive institutions.

1:18.0

We're going to, if it's possible to even do this, have a brief conversation about the death penalty and then we're going to answer a reader question about the philosophy of law at the end of this pod. So there is a lot there to cover.

1:33.0

And we also have multiple sponsors today. So that tells you this podcast has momentum.

1:41.0

Sarah, you are a noted political analyst, a noted political operative and you are a public Texan.

1:55.0

So I'm going to read a couple of paragraphs from a New York Times report that came out last late last week and on Saturday.

2:09.0

And I'm going to ask you whose side are you on? Okay, so here, here are the two paragraphs with president Trump's poll numbers sliding and traditional battlegrounds as well as conservative leaning states and more and money pouring into democratic campaigns.

2:26.0

Joseph R. Biden Jr. I love the way the New York Times begins with that full name is facing rising pressure to expand his ambitions, compete aggressively and more states and press his party's advantage down the ballot.

2:40.0

In a series of phone calls, democratic lawmakers and party officials have lobbied Mr. Biden and his top aides to seize what they believe could be a singular opportunity not only to defeat Mr. Trump, but to route him and discredit what they believe is his dangerous style of racial demogoggy.

2:59.0

Now, when I say whose side are you on, he Biden is being pressed to go for it to swing for the fences and some of Biden's advisors are urging a more conservative path.

3:13.0

Are you, if you were advising Joe Biden today, Sarah, would you advocate for the swing for the fences or the conservative path and why?

3:23.0

Let me explain first why it's an even harder decision than I think the New York Times made it out to be, although footnote real quick, at least in 2016, the campaigns got to decide how their candidates would be referred to for the first time in writing in the New York Times.

3:39.0

So, you know, if you had a nickname or your full name or whatever else, because like Carly's name is actually Carlton.

3:46.0

So, we got to pick what she was referred to as, so I find that interesting because at least if things hold like that means that probably the Biden campaign chose to have that middle initial there.

3:56.0

Funny.

3:58.0

I guess the junior does make him seem younger.

4:01.0

That's it.

4:02.0

Maybe I mean he's a junior.

...

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