Trump Publicly Calls for China to Investigate Biden
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We ran the numbers: There are 2404 news articles covering this topic. 42% (1002) are left leaning, 47% (1133) center, 11% (269) right leaning.
On Thursday, President Trump publicly asked for China to launch an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, the exact same request he asked from Ukraine that triggered the current impeachment inquiry. Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Guiliani have “no evidence for their assertions of corruption regarding former Vice President Biden.”
Trump and his allies have claimed that Biden, serving as vice president at the time, worked to remove Ukraine’s-then top prosecutor as a way to shield his son Hunter -- who was serving on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma -- from legal action. The Chinese embassy in Washington has yet to officially respond to Trump’s call for an investigation into the Bidens.
Previously, Trump has said that the impeachment inquiry -- which was filed for the same action that Trump made public on Thursday -- was launched because the Democrats cannot beat him at the ballot box. “That’s why they do the impeachment crap - they know they can’t win,” Trump said.
Left leaning articles like this The New York Times article highlights the now increasing allegations against the President. According to the Times, Trump’s comments regarding China on Thursday now mean that he has solicited or attempted to solicit help from nations including Ukraine, China, Australia, Italy, and Britain for his own political gain. In defending his actions, the President has said there is “nothing wrong with seeking foreign help to fight corruption.” Additionally, the Times reported that, throughout his presidency, Trump has “repeatedly called on his own Justice Department to investigate his Democratic foes and eventually fired his first attorney general for not protecting him from the Russia investigation.”
A centrist article from NPR focuses on the severity of Trump’s recent comments to China. His call for a Chinese investigation of Biden is the public representation of the same action, when done privately, that launched an impeachment inquiry against him. According to NPR, Trump is “doubling down on wanting foreign governments to investigate the former vice president,” who is arguable his biggest adversary in the 2020 election race. Additionally, NPR noted how far off foreign policy trajectory it is to ask an authoritarian government to investigate an American citizen.
A right-leaning article from The Daily Caller, while discussing Trump’s Thursday comments, dove deeper into the allegations surrounding Biden’s son Hunter. The Daily Caller reports that, during a 2013 trip to China, Hunter was “in the midst of forming a Chinese private equity fund and planned to raise lots of money.” Additionally, Trump accused Biden’s son of using that Air Force Two trip to “get $1.5 billion from China for his fund.” The Daily Caller reports that Trump also mentioned that, if Ukraine and China were serious about these allegations, they would launch investigations into the Bidens.