The most recent political development involves former President Trump’s impeachment. Ever since the Capitol insurrection on January 6th, talks of impeachment began due to Trump’s role in inciting the riots. It’s important to remember that this wasn’t Trump’s first impeachment, either. In December of 2019, he was impeached by the House of Representatives, but acquitted by the Senate. The same result occurred just last week. Here’s a breakdown of what happened:
The arguments: Much of the Impeachment Manager’s arguments were centered around Donald Trump’s role in repeatedly stating election fraud and inciting the violence that occurred on January 6th. The managers also conveyed the threat to their safety, and that of the Capitol police officers and everyone in the building. The lead impeachment manager, Rep. Jamie Raskin, argued “It’s now clear beyond doubt that Trump supported the actions of the mob” (NPR). For the defense, the Washington Post explained that the main GOP arguments were that the impeachment was unconstitutional, would cause more division, was too rushed, was creating a double standard (Washington Post).
The Vote: In the Senate, the 50 democrats and 7 Republicans voted “guilty” and were only 10 votes short of the two thirds majority needed for impeachment. This was the most bipartisan vote in favor of conviction in history, meaning in the past impeachment convictions had votes primarily from one party. (NY Times). 
(CNN Town Hall)
Vaccine Roll-out and Covid-19 News: The newest concern surrounding Covid-19 is the rise of variants, and the importance of mass vaccination to prevent the situation from getting worse. During the February 16th town hall, President Biden explained the ideal vaccination roll-out that they want to accomplish, with “400 million by the end of May, 600 million by the end of July… We have made significant strides increasing the number of vaccinators” (CNN Presidential Town Hall). Biden mentioned increasing more vaccination locations, and the importance of having more people who can administer the vaccines. In terms of the end of the pandemic, Biden mentioned not making predictions about topics with so much uncertainty, but he did mention “a high probability that the vaccinations that are available today, and the new ones…with those vaccinations the ability to continue to spread the disease is going to diminish considerably because of herd immunity…by next Christmas I think we’ll be in a very different circumstance.. But we don’t know” (CNN). Biden still stressed the uncertainty of the situation, but his words were definitely encouraging to hear.
