Miami Herald (Sunday)

Voters can’t say they weren’t warned: Neither Biden nor Trump is fit for office

- BY NICOLE RUSSELL Fort Worth Star-Telegram Nicole Russell is an opinion writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Fort Worth Star-Telegram

It’s getting worse and worse for Donald Trump and Joe Biden. This is bad news for them but good news for voters. By now, there’s so much proof that neither of them should hold high office that if you cast your vote for one of them again, you deserve whatever happens after 2024.

Given all that’s come out, this news should persuade voters to get behind any other candidates but Trump and Biden.

Let’s start with Trump: In a recent interview with Fox News, anchor Bret Baier says from the outset that Trump lost the 2020 election. Before he can even go on, Trump falsely claims he won and says that the ballots people were counting were “fake ballots.”

“There was not significan­t widespread fraud,” Baier says. “There was not a sense of” widespread corruption.

Anyone running for office who can’t agree on who won the previous election should be completely ignored as someone who refuses to face the truth. A liar who can’t admit he’s lying or who has convinced himself of his own lies is a dangerous person who should not hold power.

This is, of course, on top of Trump’s arraignmen­t and charges that he mishandled classified documents. There are few good reasons to even consider casting a vote for Trump, and if he had any decency, humility and respect for his fellow Americans, he most certainly wouldn’t be running for the GOP presidenti­al nomination.

Now, let’s look at Hunter Biden, the president’s son. Trump proponents will often survey the post-2020 election landscape and say, “But what about Hunter Biden!” Today is the day they’ve been waiting for. But he won’t get what he deserves, and even if he does, no charges or punishment would let Trump off the hook.

Federal charges have been filed against Hunter Biden alleging two misdemeano­r tax offenses and a felony firearm crime. The Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for Delaware reached a plea agreement with Hunter Biden, and he’s expected just to plead guilty to the tax violations.

This is a legal victory for Hunter Biden and, by extension, his father. But it’s really a loss for the American people. That Hunter Biden will wind up with a plea deal after all of this is like getting charged with having an expired driver’s license after a dozen people see you leaving a hit-and-run. This is our country’s two-tiered justice system at its worst.

Multiple things can be true at once: Hunter Biden can be an alleged criminal, Donald Trump can be an alleged criminal and the criminal justice system can be split — one for the elite and one for the rest of us.

Joe Biden, of course, isn’t guilty by associatio­n. A 2022 Republican House Oversight Committee Investigat­ion report found that even though Biden “assured Americans he had always remained apart from his family’s business interests while he was vice president, [he] . . . has participat­ed in his family’s global business ventures with America’s adversarie­s. He has misused his public positions to further his family’s financial interests . ... A review of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, as well as informatio­n from whistleblo­wers, reveals a decade-long pattern of influence peddling, national security risks and political cover-ups.”

He’s got other problems, too, that include massive inflation — people are now calling it “Bidenflati­on” — a 39% approval rating for his economic policies, a White House Pride festival where a transgende­r person went topless and the fact that he frequently behaves like someone who is physically and mentally unwell.

All of this might seem depressing, but it’s not. The American people can look at the Trumps and the Bidens and never say they didn’t know what shenanigan­s were going on. Neither are fit for 2024, and it’s time for the country to move on and look for candidates that represent our values, on both sides of the aisle.

With several months to go until presidenti­al primary voting, both Republican and Democrat voters can ignore these garbage candidates and choose men and women of substance and integrity. The past few years and the previous presidenti­al election might have been a mess, but 2024 doesn’t have to be.

 ?? JACK GRUBER USA TODAY ?? Charges have been filed against Hunter Biden alleging misdemeano­r tax offenses and a felony firearm crime.
JACK GRUBER USA TODAY Charges have been filed against Hunter Biden alleging misdemeano­r tax offenses and a felony firearm crime.
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