By Alex G. ’21

• On August 12, an anonymous whistleblower reported a phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25 in which Trump asked Zelensky to investigate Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, and his son. The Inspector General of the Intelligence Community verified the complaint and forwarded it to the acting Director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire, on August 26. This report should have been sent to Congress by September 2, but Maguire overruled it. Thus, Congress was not made aware of the complaint until The Washington Post released an article about the whistleblower on September 19. Since then, Trump admitted to discussing Joe Biden with Zelensky, and the White House released their transcript of the call. On September 24, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that Trump’s call with a foreign official led the House to begin a “formal impeachment inquiry.” Keep up with the story at https://cnn.it/2ngKXYw
• President Trump filed for re-election on the day of his inauguration, January 20, 2017.  Beginning just a few months after Trump’s inauguration in August of 2017, Democrats began filing to enter the race for president in 2020. A wave of Democratic candidates announced their candidacy in early 2019 along with one Republican candidate, Bill Weld, who began his campaign on April 15, 2019. Weld was joined by Joe Walsh on August 25 and Mark Sanford on September 8. All three Republican candidates believe that they represent the Republican party better than Donald Trump; however, a poll from The Economist shows that Donald Trump is still polling at 89% for the GOP nomination. While the race for the Democratic nomination has been getting significantly more attention, the impending impeachment inquiry against Trump may change the polls for the GOP nomination in the future.
• Before dawn on September 14, 2019, more than half of Saudi Arabia’s oil exports were wiped out by devastating attacks on two oil facilities. Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, quickly placed the blame for the attacks on Iran. Iran was also the target of NATO Chief, Jens Stoltenberg, who said, “Iran is supporting different terrorist groups and being responsible for destabilizing the whole region.” Iran, however, has denied all accusations over the past few weeks. The day after the attacks, President Trump tweeted, “Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification…” The phrase “locked and loaded” drew much attention from the media, but Marc Short, the vice-president’s chief of staff, argued that the statement referred to how the US is now mostly independent in energy. No countries have retaliated or engaged their militaries, but tensions are still running high in the Middle East, and the US’s role in the disagreement in the future is still uncertain.