UNBIASED - July 18, 2024: Attempted Assassination Investigation Update, Biden Forgives $1.2B in Student Debt, Final Night of RNC, Here's What Happens if Biden Drops Out, and More.

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

1. Attempted Assassination Investigation Updates (1:34)2. Quick Hitters: What to Expect at Final Night of RNC, Biden Diagnosed with COVID, Biden Cancels $1.2B in Student Debt, Microsoft Dissolves DEI Team, Alabama Set to Execute Inmate (4:19)3. Miscellaneous Q&A: What Happens If Biden Drops Out? Is There a Deadline to Do So? What Happens to VP Harris? Was Trump Really Hit By a Bullet? Is It True Secret Service Wasn't Given Clearance to Shoot the Suspect? When is the Deadline to Register to Vote? And More. (5:59)Support ‘UNBIASED’ on Patreon.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 Thursday, July 18th, and this is your final news rundown of the week. I do have a bit of a scheduling update to share with you. Next week, I am taking a vacation. So what that means is I'll be putting out episodes Monday and Tuesday, the 22nd and 23rd, but that'll be it until August 5th as far as podcast episodes go. So no episode Wednesday or Thursday of next week, no episodes at all the following week, and I'll be back Monday, August 5th. With that said, I'll still be posting on

social media, so if you don't already follow me on Instagram or TikTok, now is the time to do that because I'll still be posting some news updates there while I'm away. If you don't follow me yet, my username is at Jordan is my lawyer, at Jordan is my lawyer. And then of course, those links are always in each episode description. So you can find my social platforms there as well. The format of today's episode is a little different than usual. There wasn't really too much going on in the news today. So what I decided to do is I'll first do a little update into the attempted assassination investigation, and then we will do quick hitters. And then I'll finish with sort of a miscellaneous Q&A. So I'll be tying up some loose ends just as far as questions go that you guys had,

you know, stemming from some recent events. And that'll be today's episode. So without further ado, let's get into today's stories. Starting with an update in the investigation into the attempted assassination. I believe I've given one update every day this week. So today's update will be an update from yesterday. However, if you have not listened to my every day this week, so today's update will be an update from yesterday. However, if you have not listened to my other episodes this week, you might want to do that just so you're fully caught up on everything that we have learned so far since the attempted assassination. Since yesterday, here are some other facts we have learned. Number one, law enforcement officials say that they found pictures of various politicians

on Crook's devices, including Trump, Biden, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Rudy Giuliani, Trump's former attorney, and Fannie Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia. The pictures don't really have anything, you know, accompanying them that might give way to motive. There's no threatening language. There's no messages, nothing like that. It's just simply pictures from what we know now. Two, investigators found on Crook's search history some searches dating back to the spring, which include the dates of both the Democratic National Convention and Republican National Convention, as well as dates and locations of

Trump's rallies. He also searched about major depression disorder. Three, investigators had said previously that Crooks posted to a popular gaming platform and wrote, quote, July 13th will be my premiere. Watch as it unfolds, end quote. But then later they said that they believe the account that the account that posted that was actually fake and not tied to the actual shooter. Four, Crooks had built three homemade bombs. Two were found in his car and one was found at his home. Five, Crooks was first identified as a person of interest at 5.10 p.m. the day of the rally, so that's one hour before the shooting, 20 minutes before

security spotted him with that range finder that we talked about yesterday. He was first spotted on the roof by Secret Service at 5.52 p.m. That is 20 minutes before the shots were fired and 13 minutes before Trump took the stage. New video analysis also shows that two minutes before the shots were fired, the sniper team actually repositioned, turning in the direction of the shooter. And finally, the sixth update is that House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and other members of the committee sent a letter to the FBI director today saying that the committee had learned that the Secret Service was understaffed at Trump's rally because of the NATO summit

that was happening at the same time in Washington, D.C. The FBI director is set to testify before the House committee next Wednesday. Those are the updates we have as of today. As I said, if you want to get caught up fully, go listen to my other episodes this week. Now we'll move on to quick hitters. Tonight is the final night of the RNC and also the night that Trump will officially accept his nomination. Some of tonight's speakers will include Mike Pompeo, Trump's former Secretary of State, Alina Haba, Trump's attorney, Tucker Carlson, Hulk Hogan, Eric Trump, Dana White, and Donald Trump himself. Donald Trump will be the last speech of the night. President Biden tested positive for COVID yesterday. He'll be isolating himself at his home in Delaware. And the Biden administration announced the cancellation of

$1.2 billion in student debt for public servants. If you're wondering how the administration is able to continue canceling debt despite the 2023 Supreme Court decision, this is a question I get a lot. The short answer is that the cancellation authority stems from an entirely different piece of legislation than what was at issue in the Supreme Court case. But I have covered this in much greater detail in past podcast episodes. Microsoft sent an email to employees today informing them that the company's DEI team was officially dissolved as of July 1st due to, quote, changing business needs. Microsoft says that while the team is no longer, the company is still committed to promoting equity and inclusion. And finally,

an Alabama death row inmate is set to be executed tonight via the lethal injection. Keith Gavin was convicted on two counts of capital murder in 1998 after fatally shooting a delivery driver who was sitting in his car outside of a bank. The murder took place after Gavin was released on parole for another murder years prior. Now, I want to finish this episode and finish this week with a Q&A because as I said, it was a slower day in the news, so I ask those of you that follow me on Instagram to submit any questions that you have about recent events so I could answer them and tie up any loose ends. I do want to say this though, before we get into the questions, I got a lot of questions about topics I've already covered

and I really want everyone to be as knowledgeable as possible. So if you're ever questioning whether I've talked about a particular topic, go to my website, jordanismylawyer.com, click episodes in the menu, and then in the search bar on the episodes web page, you can search for whatever topic you're interested in. If I've covered it, every relevant episode will pop up in the search results. So as an example, a lot of people asked me to talk about JD Vance and his views. I just released an episode talking about exactly that two days ago. So always use that search feature on my website first, because that is your best bet in finding out if I've covered a particular topic or issue. Now with that said, and that out of the way, we can get to the first question, which is why was the Trump shooter already a person of interest to the FBI prior to the shooting?

So I don't believe the shooter was a person of interest to the FBI, but rather the Secret Service and law enforcement, because from what I've seen prior to the shooting, he was pacing the area hours before Trump took the stage, specifically around where the warehouse was, where he ultimately climbed up on the roof. So he was spotted then, law enforcement officers took a picture of him, circulated that picture. Then he was spotted with the range finder, which is what someone with a gun would use to focus in on a long range shot. So that clearly set off some more alarm bells. And that is what led him to be considered a person of interest to law enforcement on the scene, but not necessarily the FBI.

If there were FBI agents present, yes, but just generally he was a person of interest that day. Second question. A lot of questions about this one, actually. What is this new California law banning schools from sharing information about students? So Governor Gavin Newsom just signed a bill on Monday called Assembly Bill 1955, or the Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today's Youth Act, otherwise known as the SAFETY Act for short. And what it does in part is it prohibits school district employees, whether it's teachers, administrative staff, school nurses, whatever, whoever it is, from disclosing any information related to anyone's sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to any other

person without that individual's consent, unless of course the disclosure is required by law. So the law uses pretty general terms, like it says pupils instead of students, but the source of the controversy is that this law prohibits school district staff from talking to a student's parents about that student's sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression without the student's consent. That's the source of the controversy. And I do have that law linked for you in the sources section if you want to read it for yourself. There has already been a lawsuit filed challenging the law, so we'll see if it withstands the constitutional challenge. Third question, any recommendations for unbiased pre-election polls? I don't have one specific poll to point

you in the direction of, but what I can do is point you to All Sides, which is a media bias and misinformation checker, and it'll tell you which polls lean which way and which are the most center. So go to allsides.com. It's a really great resource just generally for checking on media bias, not even just for polls. It's just generally a great resource. But other than that, I would suggest if you know which way polls tend to lean, you can obviously take that into account when you're reviewing the numbers

or look to many different polls and then assume that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. That would be my suggestion. Fourth question, what is the process to replace Biden? What is the timeline and cutoff date? So there's not really an official cutoff date that Biden would have to drop out by. However, whether he dropped out before or after the DNC is what would make a world of difference. If he were to drop out before the DNC, which is currently scheduled for mid to late August, then the DNC would become this open convention. And in that case, anyone can seek the nomination. Ultimately, it's the delegates at the convention who determine the nominee.

So if Biden hypothetically were to drop out before the DNC, then you could have multiple Democrats that end up, you know, stepping up to the plate, seeking the nomination, and the delegates would nominate one of those potential candidates. That person would then become the official Democratic nominee. If Biden doesn't drop out before the DNC, he would presumably become the Democratic nominee. He's on that path currently. But if he were to drop out after becoming the nominee, that's when it would cause a lot of

problems. And honestly, because of that, I don't see a world in which he intentionally drops out post-DNC, but pre-election. But for hypothetical purposes, let's assume he does. In that event, the DNC would vote for a replacement. So in 1972, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, his name was Thomas Eagleton, he withdrew from the race post-DNC, but pre-election. And what happened is the members of the DNC chose the new nominee during a special session. But this has never happened with a presidential candidate or a presidential nominee. So I would imagine that if it were to happen, there would probably be a lot of lawsuits. And then that would put the issue with the courts rather than election officials. It would just be a mess. And it may go directly

to the Supreme Court in that case, because we'd be sort of in a time crunch situation before the election. And when it comes to any matters concerning federal law or federal law conflicting with state law, the Supreme Court is going to review it. So long story short, we don't really know the answers. But because of that, I don't see the Democrats putting themselves in that position. I think if Biden does drop out, it'll be before the DNC, which is mid to late August. And maybe even later, though, because just yesterday we heard that top Democrats are trying to delay the DNC. So I think if Biden does drop out, it'll be before the DNC whenever that ends up being. Fifth question, if Biden steps down, how does that

affect the vice president and speaker positions? Well, again, this hypothetical answer comes down to whether Biden is stepping down pre DNC or post DN post-DNC. Pre-DNC, anything goes. Harris can then step in and become a presidential candidate or someone else can run for president and then select Harris as their VP pick. It's all really fair game pre-DNC. Post-DNC, Harris will presumably have already accepted her nomination for vice president. Because remember, at the DNC is when the delegates not only choose their presidential nominee, but also their vice presidential nominee. So if Biden, let's just say, were to step down post-DNC, but pre-election, Harris would have already accepted her nomination for vice president, and she would likely stay

on as the Democratic vice presidential nominee. It would just be the presidential nominee that would need to be replaced. And as we just talked about, that would be done by the DNC members voting at a special session, and that would be it. But again, all of this is very much unprecedented, so we don't really know for sure what would happen in these situations. Sixth question, I keep hearing Trump got hit by teleprompter fragments. Was he actually hit by a bullet? I mean, look, we haven't seen his medical reports or anything like that. It would be foolish to say it was anything other than a bullet. We've seen the picture, the now famous picture of the bullet flying through the air, the teleprompters were completely intact after the event.

And so far, everyone that has spoken about it, except for, you know, your rogue users on X have said that it was a bullet. So although we haven't seen medical records, I think it's pretty safe to assume it was a bullet. Seventh question, any truth that the Secret Service didn't give the green light to eliminate the threat? So here's the thing i think you're asking if the director of the secret service you know if there's any chance the director didn't give the green light secret service agents can take out a threat as soon as they identify it they do not have to get clearance they don't have to get approval the

nature of their job is to quite literally take someone out on a dime if they have to. So at this point, there is no truth to the fact or to the idea that the sniper wasn't given the green light by someone else in the Secret Service. Unless we find out that for some reason standard procedure wasn't followed, that's just not likely because these agents, these snipers are trained to take someone out the second they identify a threat. They do not have to wait for permission. Eighth question, when is the deadline to register to vote? The deadline to register to vote depends on your state. States make their own election rules even for federal elections, so make sure you check on your state government's website. That is where you'll find your answer. Ninth question, and I believe this

is the final question. When is the next presidential debate? The next and only other scheduled presidential debate is supposed to take place September 10th at 9 p.m. Eastern time. It's being hosted by ABC News. The vice presidential debate between Harris and Vance has not yet been set. Harris had actually agreed to either July 23rd, August 13th, or August 12th, but Trump's campaign just said yesterday that they're going to wait until the DNC, you know, until the nominee is official to schedule a debate between the vice presidents. That is what I have for you today. Don't forget, next week there will only be two podcast episodes and then I'm off for a week and a half. I'm just as sad as you. Don't forget next week, there will only be two podcast episodes and then I'm off for a week and a half. I'm just as sad as you. Don't worry. Have a great night. Have a great

weekend. And I will talk to you on Monday.