On Tuesday, Joe Biden was officially selected as the Democrats’ presidential candidate for the 2020 elections in the United States, on the same day that the Senate presented a report definitively showing that Trump was assisted in the previous presidential campaign by Russian forces.
At the time of his election, Biden was the sole candidate for the Democrats after all other candidates had halted their campaigns between February and April. All candidates then publicly endorsed Biden.
The presidential nomination came following a virtual roll call that showed videos of all United States delegates in their natural habitats, standing next to cornfields or on the beach, or simply in their own back yards. The delegate from Washington D.C. announced his selection from the Black Lives Matter Plaza, which received its name last June.
Should Biden win the presidential race, which is officially set to take place on 3 November, Senator Kamala Harris of California would become the United States' first-ever female vice president.
However, it is unclear at this time whether the elections will be held in November. There is still some discussion on the form and the date, with President Donald Trump suggesting to delay the elections for an unknown period of time. He also suggested holding a mail-in vote, which he later said would be the “most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history”, adding that such a procedure “will be a great embarrassment to the USA”.
On Monday night, former First Lady Michelle Obama slammed Trump for being “the wrong president” and asked the American people to vote for Biden “like our lives depend on it.”
Additionally, the Senate committee assigned to investigate the 2016 presidential elections and Trump’s possible collusion with Russia on Tuesday concluded that Russia did indeed assist Trump in his campaign.
Wikileaks was reportedly used by Russian forces to boost Trump, and the whistle-blower organisation allegedly knew that it was being used for these purposes. President Vladimir Putin personally oversaw Russian efforts to hack networks and email-accounts linked to the Democratic Party in order to leak information to Wikileaks which would damage Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Some of the leaked emails revealed that Clinton had wanted to strategically move the date for the Illinois election and held plans to secretly intervene in the Syria conflict. Trump used this information during his election campaign under the hashtag #DrainTheSwamp, in which he told Americans that he would rid Washington D.C. of corrupt officials.
According to the Senate, Trump’s campaign chair and consultant Paul Manafort enabled contact with the Russians, stating that Manafort’s “high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services… represented a grave counterintelligence threat.”
Trump told reporters that he didn’t “know anything about it” and that “it is all a hoax.”
On his Twitter account, Trump tweeted a quote from the Washington D.C. news service the Daily Caller.
“Senate Intelligence Panel found absolutely no evidence of collusion. There was no evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government to influence 2016, affirming the findings of other investigations.” Daily Caller
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 19, 2020
Amée Zoutberg
The Brussels Times
