Presidential Debates, Primaries, and Biden’s Business
Hello everyone and welcome back to another fantastic week of Politics Explained! If you’re new, we publish short and concise blogs every Friday that recap the happenings of Capitol Hill. We hope all you students out there are having a good AP exam week and are crushing them! This week we have lots more news in US politics including President Biden and Donald Trump agreeing on debate dates, 2 big primaries for the Senate, and some other quick recaps surrounding President Biden. We have a lot to cover, so let’s dive right in.
It’s safe to say that the presidential election is starting to heat up because on June 27th and September 10th President Joe Biden and Former President Donald Trump will have their first debates. On June 27th, CNN will host the debate with Jake Tapper and Dana Bash as the moderators. On September 10th, the debate will be hosted on ABC News, but no moderators have been set yet. This will be the first time these two have debated since the last Presidential Election in 2019. The Trump campaign has also stated that they are happy to do more than just these two debates. This is just the start of the elections so make sure you stay tuned here to keep up with this election as it goes on.
Next, primaries in the States of Maryland and West Virginia happened to replace the former members of the Senate. In the primaries for Maryland, the former Governor of Maryland Larry Hogan has won the Republican bid to become the Republican candidate on the ballot. On the Democratic side, Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks won the bid. Additionally, in West Virginia there are more primary elections. Jim Justice, the Governor of West Virginia, will be running for the Republicans. For the Democrats Glenn Eliott, the Mayor of Wheeling, will be running. This will be another very important race in the Senate as the former West Virginian Senator Joe Manchin was a Democrat in a very red state. There will be lots more to come in these elections, so stay tuned.
Lastly, some quick recaps:
President Biden used executive privileges to deny access to recordings of his interview with a special counsel
The special counsel was investigating his handling of government documents
This protects Attorney General Merrick B. Garland from prosecution if House Republicans hold him in contempt* for refusing to turn over audio of Mr. Biden’s conversations with the special counsel
The House of Representatives passed a bill that would force Biden to reverse his pause on arms shipments to Israel, however, this is more of a symbolic move to highlight the divisions in the Democratic party as this legislation has no chance of going anywhere
Biden would veto this and Chuck Schumer, majority leader of the Senate, says it would be going nowhere
Definition of the Week (contempt): refusal to comply; disobedience
