UNBIASED - Donald Trump Announces Abortion Stance, Biden Unveils New Loan Forgiveness Plan, NY to Pay $17.5M in Hijab Lawsuit, Democrats Want to Rename Prison After Trump, and More.

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

1. Solar Eclipse Recap!! (0:14)2. Weekend Recap ($1.326 Powerball Ticket, NY to Pay $17.5M for Hijab Lawsuit, House Democrats Want to Rename Federal Prison After Trump)(1:12)3. Donald Trump Makes Clear His Stance on Abortion in New Video (3:14)4. President Biden Unveils New Student Loan Forgiveness Program; Here's What It Entails (5:22)5. Trump Appeals Gag Order, Venue in Hush Money Case Seeking Postponement of Trial (10:21)If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and share it with those you know that also appreciate unbiased news!Watch this episode on YouTube.Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok.All sources for this episode can be found here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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call the Conax Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased. Today is Monday, April 8th, 2024, and this is your daily news rundown. I'm in an especially good mood right now because I just came inside 15 minutes ago from watching the solar eclipse. And granted, I'm not in the path of totality, but from what I saw was just so cool. I'm just, I'm such a nerd for things like that. And I made the decision on Saturday to order some eclipse glasses on Amazon. They got here the next day. Maybe I ordered Friday. Regardless, they got here in time.

My sister came over today. We sat outside and watched it. It was her first time ever seeing it. I saw it back in 2017, but I'm just such a nerd for things like that. I thought it was so cool. I hope you guys got to catch a glimpse of it at least because it's not going to happen again until 2044. And yeah, I'm just really excited to have seen that. But anyway, let's get into today's news. As always, if you love the unbiased approach that this episode provides and you feel more informed after listening, please go ahead and leave me a review on whatever platform you listen. If you're on YouTube, go ahead and hit that thumbs up button. Both of those things really help me out.

So without further ado, let's get into today's stories. Now I will say the solar eclipse kind of took everything over. So today is a light day in the news. I'm going to start with a Friday through Sunday recap. So a weekend recap sort of, and then we'll get into a few stories from today. So first and foremost, a single single Powerball ticket was sold in Oregon over the weekend, meaning one lucky winner is now a lot richer. The $1.326 billion jackpot was the fourth largest in the history of the game. In some other weekend news, the state of New York will pay $17.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit for forcing women to remove their hijabs

for mugshots. So more than 3,600 women are part of this lawsuit. It's been going on since 2018. It was originally filed by two women, and the lawsuit alleged that the NYPD would threaten to prosecute women who didn't remove their hijabs for their mugshots. And the women say that this was a violation of their religious rights. The NYPD did end up changing its policy only two years after the lawsuit was filed in 2020. So now they do allow arrestees to keep their religious head coverings on unless they fall within limited exceptions. But four years later, they ultimately settled this lawsuit. So each woman will receive between $7,000 and $13,000 when and if this settlement is approved by the judge. House Democrats introduced legislation on Friday that seeks to rename the federal prison in Miami, Florida, from Miami Federal Correctional Institute to the Donald J. Trump Federal Correctional Institute. Now, this comes roughly a week after I had previously reported that House Republicans introduced legislation to rename Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. to Donald J. Trump International Airport. So they're playing a little bit of a game

in the House of Representatives. The representative that introduced the Democratic bill said, quote, when our Republican colleagues introduced their bill to rename Dulles after Donald Trump, I said the more fitting option would be to rename a federal prison, end quote. Good to know that House Republicans and Democrats are really working hard to get things done. You know what I mean? So let's move on to some news today. Donald Trump released a video this morning on Truth Social proclaiming his official view on abortion rights. Now, this has obviously been a question that a lot of people have been wondering, right? He's hinted at it a few times, saying first that he would potentially support a federal 15-week abortion

ban, and then more recently saying that he would find a solution that everyone is happy with. But as we know, that is entirely not possible. You can't please everyone. Even doing what I do, which is staying neutral, you can't please everyone. So now we have a little bit better of an idea of what he's thinking. So I'm going to play his statement for you. And just so you know, I have clipped it a little bit. The full statement from him is about four and a half minutes. I, of course, have that linked for you in the sources section on my website if you do want to watch the whole thing. But I've included only the most relevant pieces of this statement for time-saving purposes in this episode. So here is what you need to know. Many people have asked me what my position is

on abortion and abortion rights. My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both. And whatever they decide must be the law of the land, in this case, the law of the state. Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks or some will have more conservative than others. And that's what they will be. At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people. You must follow your heart or in many cases, your religion or your faith. So that was the gist of his statement. Now, he also touched on the importance of IVF and his

desire for it to remain. He thanked the Supreme Court justices that voted to overturn Roe versus Wade. He iterated that he is in favor of abortion ban exceptions like rape, incest, and the life of the mother. He also stated the need for Republicans and Democrats to work together, as well as the importance of voting in the upcoming election. So as I said, that full video, that full clip is available for you in the sources section for this episode. The second piece of news from today is that President Biden announced a new student debt relief plan that he says, if implemented, will fully eliminate accrued interest for roughly 23 million borrowers. It would cancel the full amount of debt for more than 4 million borrowers and provide more than 10 million borrowers with

at least 5,000 in debt relief or more. So I'll touch on some key points of this proposal. If this is implemented, because remember, this still has to go through a period of public comment. It then has to be finalized before anything is set in stone. But if implemented as proposed, any borrower, regardless of income, could have up to $20,000 in interest canceled. For those that are enrolled in income-driven repayment plans and make less than $120,000 a year as a single

borrower or are married and their joint income is less than $240,000 a year would have all of their interest forgiven. And no application would be necessary for either of these plans. In the past, we've seen Biden roll out some student debt relief where you have to go, you have to visit the Department of Education online and actually fill out a form and apply for relief. But in this case, it would be an automatic discharge by the Department of Education who plans to use the data it already has on file for each borrower in determining who gets relief. The administration wrote in its written statement on the White House's website that it estimates

the proposal will forgive at least some interest balances for roughly 25 million people, with roughly 23 million people falling into that income-driven repayment plan and receiving full forgiveness. Now, another component in this proposal, which would also be an automatic forgiveness, is for long-term borrowers. So borrowers who still have undergraduate debt and have been in the repayment phase since July of 2005 would qualify for forgiveness, and then same goes for borrowers with graduate school debt who started repayment in July of 2000. And then finally, a third group of borrowers that would qualify for forgiveness under this proposal is those experiencing economic hardship. For instance, if a borrower is at a high risk of defaulting on their loans, they may get automatic relief.

But then for others who maybe claim to be suffering that aren't necessarily close to defaulting but are experiencing economic hardship, they would have to actually apply. So that wouldn't be an automatic forgiveness. So again, the education department first has to get public comment on this proposal as is standard in federal rulemaking. And then after that, they would issue a final rule. And then it's still possible at that point that the plan faces legal challenges, which could further delay actual implementation. Now, I do quickly want to address how this forgiveness and recent forgiveness from the Biden administration is different than the plan that was previously

struck down by the Supreme Court, because I got an email from a listener last week who was a little confused by this and why the plans we're seeing now are permissible, whereas the one before wasn't. So here's the deal. Before, when the Supreme Court struck down Biden's loan forgiveness plan, one, that was a much broader plan, and two, it all came down to the authority upon which it relied. So to the first point, the plan applied to pretty much anyone who fell into a certain income category. But as for the authority, the plan relied on a piece of legislation called the Heroes Act.

The Heroes Act was implemented following 9-11. And basically what it did, along with a lot of other things, is it forgave the loans of those who suffered financially as a result of the 9-11 national emergency. So Biden's rationale here was that the COVID pandemic classified as a national emergency, which it was at one time. And what he said is that national emergency permitted the forgiveness of loans for those who were financially impacted by the pandemic, which was basically the whole population, right? However, what the Supreme Court said is that the HEROES Act did not grant the type of authority to permit such a broad nationwide forgiveness plan,

not to mention at the time the national emergency that was COVID had ended. So for that reason, the Supreme Court struck it down. But for that reason, the Supreme Court struck it down. But following that decision, the Biden administration turned to another piece of legislation called the Higher Education Act. And that piece of legislation is what's been relied upon since. And it allows for forgiveness on a much smaller scale and in certain instances. So two very different situations, what we saw before in front of the Supreme Court and what we're seeing now. And the Biden administration was actually sued over this newer authority too, but the lower court ultimately ruled in the administration's favor. And that case is currently up on appeal in the Sixth Circuit, but I do not see it being

overturned. The last piece of news from today is that Trump's legal team filed a notice of appeal in his hush money trial today, which is set to start a week from today. So as of the time I'm recording, the documents are not available online yet, but sources are saying the basis of the appeal relates to the recent gag order that the judge imposed on Trump, as well as the venue for the trial. So the trial is currently set to take place in Manhattan, but Trump's lawyers have previously requested a change in venue due to New York's more liberal population. So they've requested a postponement of trial and a change in venue, as well as a lift of the gag order. Now, I would expect the appeals court to rule fairly quickly on whether they'll even take up the case considering the upcoming trial is next week.

But of course, if the court does decide that they will hear the issue, the trial would then be postponed because they have to take a little bit of time to issue their ruling. So that is what I have for you today. Today was a shorter episode than normal, but I will be back tomorrow with some more news. And I'm assuming now that the solar eclipse is behind us, we'll have a little bit busier day in the news tomorrow. So thank you so much for being here. And I will talk to you tomorrow.