TOPICS DISCUSSED

President Biden Pardons Hunter Biden
The Joe Biden of It All
Outside of Politics: Wicked

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TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers.

Sarah [00:00:10] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.

Beth [00:00:12] Where we take a different approach to the news.

[00:00:14] Music Interlude.

[00:00:29] Thank you so much for joining us today. We are going to talk about President Joe Biden. If you've not been following the news this week, President Biden issued a pardon on Sunday night for his son, Hunter, and that pardon was a very expansive one. It covered any crimes Hunter committed or may have committed from January 1st, 2014 to December 1st, 2024. Hunter had been convicted on gun charges earlier this year. He also pled guilty on tax charges. And the circumstances of this pardon are almost undoubtedly related to President elect Trump's intended Cabinet appointments. So we're going to have more conversation about that. In all the discussion and writing and rumination about the pardons, people are obviously still working out post-election feelings, so are we. We're going to talk more about how we're viewing President Biden and what we're learning about ourselves right now. So a ton of international news that's a little hard to follow without some background. So rest assured, we will get to you on Friday. We're going to devote Friday's episode to breaking down headlines from the Middle East and South Korea. We'll, end the show talking about Wicked, because that's what people are talking about right now. And we, like many of you, saw it over Thanksgiving.

Sarah [00:01:37] You might notice this episode is on your feet a little later than usual. Because of the pace of the news right now and what we anticipate the future pace of the news will continue to be, we're experimenting with recording our episode on Tuesday morning and publishing it as soon as our audio team has it ready for you. We'll still publish new episodes on Tuesday and Fridays, and you should typically see those Friday episodes in the early morning. But our intended plan is to react to the news on Tuesday and think about bigger picture questions on Friday. So that Tuesday episode will come a little bit later. We're experimenting here and on Substack throughout the month of December as we continue to evaluate the world and our contributions to it post-election.

Beth [00:02:14] Next up, President Biden's decision to pardon his son.

Sarah [00:02:25] Beth, before you heard the news about Joe Biden pardoning Hunter, what were your thoughts on presidential pardons?

Beth [00:02:32] I have always felt that presidential pardons are the closest thing the Constitution gives the president to a magic wand. It is exclusively in the president's power to do this. There are very few checks on it. We had a lot of conversation about presidential pardons when Donald Trump's presidency was coming to an end and there was speculation that he might pardon himself. Could he pardon himself? No one knows. And the scope of that power was largely undefined then, and I think it became wholly undefined and undefinable when the Supreme Court said that what is a core presidential power is none of our business. And so I think it's basically a magic wand.

Sarah [00:03:17] Yeah, they've always felt like treats to me. It doesn't feel like a check on the court. It feels like we're going to give you a little treat because you were president and it's hard being president and here's a little treat for you. So you can pick any of your friends or family members, influential donors, perhaps, that you would like to pardon. And the list of pardons is super weird. I saw this list on X of Jimmy Carter's pardons. That was Wild. G. Gordon Liddy. Why, Jimmy? Why would you pardon G. Gordon Liddy? And this weird legislative thing he did with former confederates like Jefferson Davis. I'm like, what were you doing? He pardoned his brother. Bill Clinton, pardoned his half-brother. So it has never felt in any way, shape or form like an important constitutional check or some way to exercise policy. And it was just felt like a treat and just like a little gift to the president on the way out the door.

Beth [00:04:18] And like many treats, it can turn to poison pretty quickly. I think maybe some presidents-- and maybe this is Jimmy Carter, I don't want to speak for him. But I think some presidents have maybe a high minded view of the pardon as closure. We often discuss the pardon as closure related to President Nixon. When people have advocated for a pardon of Donald Trump, it has been discussed as a closure, a unity, ...