By: Sonali Mudunuri
With the 2020 election drawing dangerously near in such a time of crisis, it is easy to get caught up in the whirlwind panic of the pandemic and forget it is up to us to elect a leader who will not only effectively aid us in matters of health and public safety, but pulling the United States out of its economic despair. As the campaigns of Joe Biden and Donald J. Trump continues, we have been seeing recent developments in the claims Trump and his attorney (Rudy Giuliani) made against Biden; specifically that Biden is colluding with Ukraine. On May 20th, phone calls between Biden and Ukraine’s former president, Petro Poroshenko were leaked by a Ukrainian associate of Giuliani in an attempt to smear Biden’s campaign. Both Trump and his supporters have advocated that these phone calls are proof that there will be foreign meddling in the upcoming elections, although the actual contents of the recordings are difficult to understand. In these calls, Biden and Poroshenko discuss Porshenko’s potential successor to the presidency. However, the crucial part is Biden offering one billion dollars in aid in exchange for the firing of Viktor Shokin, a former general prosecutor with a reputation besmirched by corruption. According to Trump and his supporters, Biden did this to end the Shokin’s investigation of his son, Hunter Biden. However, this is no secret –– Biden has publicly stated his strong desire to remove Shokin from office; the phone calls are still difficult to decipher and might not hold the strong negative pull the Republican party is hoping for. At such a difficult time, all we can do is put our trust in our fellow Americans and pray that the elections will help unite us, rather than further tear this country apart.
The Roar 