Next fall, on November 5, Americans will be faced with a choice of who they want as the next president. The choices will be between the Democratic incumbent president Joe Biden, and the Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump. And yet it’s already time to pay attention.
In 2020 the roles were reversed as Trump was the incumbent president and Biden was the challenger. That election ended up with Biden on top as he won the election. Fast forward three and a half years, and both candidates have been involved in unpredictable controversy.
Legal Woes
Trump has had some run-ins with the law as some cases against Mr Trump include classified documents case, election interference, hush money scandal, another election interference case in Georgia, and multiple civil cases. Special counsel Jack Smith is the man leading the charge against Donald Trump in the classified docs case, which alleges that the former president mishandled classified documents at his Florida estate Mar-a-lago. The documents he allegedly hid included details about U.S. nuclear weapons, spy satellites, and the U.S. military, according to reuters.com. The election interference case is also led by Special Counsel Jack Smith and led to the indictment of Donald Trump on felony charges for efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in America, and the state of Georgia. The third case against Mr Trump is the Hush Money payment scandal which involves a series of payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels who alleges a sexual encounter between her and the former president in 2006. The Civil cases against Trump are an alleged bank-duping scandal where Trump allegedly inflated his net worth, and a case where the former president was found to have sexually assaulted and defamed.
Mr. Baldwin, government and history teacher said.“Some of Trump’s federal charges are not going to take place until after the voting, which could set up an interesting scenario where you have a convicted felon facing jail time, who also has the power of a president.”
As for president Joe Biden’s legal issues, they are more focused on his son Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was indicted on charges of not being able to pay at least 1.4 million dollars in taxes through the years 2016-2019. Another issue that Hunter Biden is facing is that he lied about his drug use in order to buy a firearm which he kept for 11 days. Republicans in Congress are trying to connect Hunter Biden’s issues to involvement with his father. . There have been many questions raised in terms of Hunter Biden’s business dealings and if he used his fathers powerful resume to make money. The major thing that has been paid attention to the most is what Hunter was doing in China and Ukraine while Joe Biden was the sitting Vice-President. In 2013 Hunter Biden became a co-founder on the board of BHR, an equity farm backed by some local governments in China. In 2014 Hunter became a board member of Burisma, a natural gas company in Ukraine where he made 1.2 million dollars a year. With the amount of money made by Hunter in these two countries questions were raised as to if Joe Biden was involved, which the president denies to this day. Devon Archer, a former business partner with Hunter Biden, claimed that Hunter Biden frequently put his father on speakerphone during calls with people that they were doing business with, however, no link has been confirmed between Hunter and his father. One informant who claimed there was illegal activity, Alexander Smirnov, has recently been charged with lying.
Population’s concerns
Many voters have concerns with both candidates. Three quarters of voters have concerns about Joe Biden’s age and mental fitness, while two thirds of voters are concerned due to Trump’s many trials he has faced in the past, according to NBC news. By the 2024 election, Biden will be 82 and Trump will be 77. If Biden wins, he would continue to be the oldest president to ever serve in office, and Trump would be the second oldest. According to Voice of America, 59% of Americans believe that the nominees are both too old to serve another term. Another concern many Americans have is that Trump will act like a dictator if re-elected as he told a rally, “Only on day one, After that I’m not a dictator.” A recent poll by Harvard-CAPS-Harris found that 56% of voters believe that very idea, but another poll done by the same people show that 59% of voters believe that Democrats are unfairly trying to scare people with that narrative.
Callan McManus, sophomore, says “I don’t want 80 year olds running, I’d rather have a younger person running like Vivek Ramaswamy.”
Controversies
The biggest controversy involving the former president Donald Trump concerns the attack on the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. After a rally by the president Donald Trump that morning, his supporters, who had obtained a permit to demonstrate on the Mall, marched over to the U.S. Capitol where the certification of the 2020 presidential election was taking place. What began as a typical demonstration march turned ugly, as many stormed the Capitol building. The Senate and House of Representatives had to evacuate the building because of this incident, and parts of the building were ransacked. As of the 3rd anniversary of January 6 “749 federal defendants had their cases adjudicated and received sentences,” according to the Department of Justice. Two police officers died due to this, and this happened as a result of the 2020 election. Biden won the election in 2020, however Donald Trump and some of his supporters still push the lie that Biden stole the election.
The controversies involving Joe Biden are more to do with his term as president more than anything. Many Americans have been unhappy with his handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict, as many young peoplethey belive that he shouldn’t be so heavy in his support for Israel and belive there is a genocide happening in Gaza, while others support Israel vehemently..
Thomas Greene, senior, says “Even though people don’t like how he handled things, I think he did a good job that he kept us out of the war, and didn’t pull us into anything.””.
Another issue that Americans have had with his presidency is that of his handling of the Southern Border. The president has been facing issues of the fact that many people are entering the United States as 2.5 million of them crossed the southern border in 2023 with many illegal crossings. Some voters think that Trump handled the border better than Biden which may raise trouble for him come this fall. Congress developed bi-partisan legislation to address the border, but the Republicans in the House killed the bill.
“It’s not so much that the candidates are the same as last time, or the ages of these candidates that is the biggest problem,” Curtis Marshall, freshman said. “I would like to see more of a variety of candidates as opposed to just two.”