UNBIASED - New Bill Wants Airport Named After Trump, SB4 Oral Arguments, CONTEXT IS KEY: What RFK Jr. Said About Threats to Democracy & What You Should Know About Trump Leading in Swing States (WSJ Poll).

Episode Date: April 3, 2024

1. Appeals Court Hears Oral Arguments Over Texas' Controversial SB4 Immigration Law (1:02)2. Israeli Military Says Airstrike Resulted from 'Misidentification' (2:36)3. House Republicans Introduce Legislation to Change Washington D.C. Airport Name to Donald J. Trump International Airport (4:20)4. Two Brothers Enter Guilty Plea for Trump Media Insider Trading Scheme (5:37)5. CONTEXT IS KEY: Headlines Say "RFK Jr. Says Biden Bigger Threat to Democracy Than Trump"; Here's the Context You Need (6:38)6. CONTEXT IS KEY: Headlines Say "Trump Leads Biden in Six Key Swing States"; Here's the Context You Need (10:50)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 Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024, and this is your less than 20 minute daily rundown of today's news. If you love the unbiased approach that this episode provides, you feel more informed after listening, this is your reminder to please go ahead and leave my show a review. If you haven't already on whatever platform you listen and also just share the show with your friends. Those things really help me and if you're watching on YouTube, you can also hit that

thumbs up button, subscribe to this channel as well. So without further ado, let's get into today's stories. I have four shorter stories and then the last half of this episode will be a segment that I call context is key. It's basically the segment where I this episode will be a segment that I call Context is Key. It's basically the segment where I provide some additional context behind headlines that are either misleading or maybe they just simply don't provide enough detail. That way, you know, when the average reader just scrolls past this headline, they're left with the wrong impression.

So I'm going to provide some context there, and that'll be today's episode. Starting with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, they heard oral arguments in the case today dealing with Texas's controversial immigration law, which is known as SB4. A couple of things to keep in mind here. I was anticipating a decision sometime next month, maybe even in a couple of months, but others aren't expecting a decision before the election even. So just keep that in mind that we may not even in a couple of months, but others aren't expecting a decision before the election even. So just keep that in mind that we may not even get a decision in this case until after November, in which case it'll ultimately be, you know, it'll ultimately end up before the Supreme

Court, which means that if the Supreme Court agrees to hear this case, which I'm sure they will, we won't even have a final decision on this matter until probably mid-2025. Also keep in mind that the appeals court blocked this law from taking effect while they're considering the case, meaning this law will not take effect until a final decision is rendered. So if the court waits until let's say December to issue a ruling on this matter, this law won't take effect at all this year. And that's of course assuming the Supreme Court doesn't step in at some point and overturn the stay that was put in place. And again, the outcome of this case will ultimately come down to whether the provisions of SB4 conflict with federal law and whether the state of Texas has the ability to defend itself from, quote-unquote,

invaders under the state war clause. So I will update you once we do have a decision from the court or if there's some other update in the meantime, but this case is now in the hands of the Fifth Circuit as of today, the conclusion of oral arguments. In an update to yesterday's story about Israel's airstrike that killed seven aid workers, Israeli military officials are saying that the strike was a result of misidentification as per an initial investigation. So Israel's military chief of staff said earlier today, quote, I want to be very clear. The strike was not carried out with the intention of harming WCK aid workers. It was a mistake that followed a misidentification at night during a war in very complex conditions, end quote.

However, the official did not go as far as to say what the military believed it was targeting when it hit the convoy. In independent investigative group Bellingcat gave us a little more insight into the situation. It said that the type of damage that was done, so these small impact holes in the roofs of the cars, as well as some other damage, indicates the use of precision munition. And the group says that in order to hit moving targets with such munitions, you have to track that target in real time with equipment such as laser guidance from drones. Bellingcat also noted that all three of the World Central Kitchen vehicles were white, and at least one of them had the organization's logo clearly marked on the roof.

A former senior U.S. counterterrorism official similarly said that the strike likely involved multiple drones and two to three dozen operators and support staff. The official said, quote, the team either ignored their own protocols or over the course of the war, pre-war protocols had been dropped nearly entirely, end quote. So the public obviously still doesn't entirely understand what happened here, but that is what we know as of now. You may have heard that the House Republicans introduced legislation to change the name of Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. to Donald J. Trump International Airport.

So here's what you should know. This particular piece of legislation was actually introduced last week on Friday, though it just sort of started making the news yesterday. And it was introduced by Deputy Whip Guy Raschenthaler. And it was then referred to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. But the thing is, is this will not become a law. So even if it passes the House, let's say it passes the House, it will not get past the Senate. The Senate is controlled by Democrats. So this is just one of those things that gets a rise out of people. It makes for a good headline, but it's not going to turn into anything. But just for the sake of

keeping you informed, what the bill says is, quote, the Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia shall, after the date of the enactment of this act, be known and designated as the Donald J. Trump International Airport, end quote. So assuming it gets the stamp of approval from the House committee, it would then go to the full House for a vote, it would be voted on, and if it passed the House, it would then go to the Senate where it just will not survive. The fourth story is a short one. It was sort of a news story that came out towards the end of the day, but two brothers pled guilty today to illegally trading on non-public knowledge of Digital World Acquisition Corporation's plan to buy Trump Media and Technology Group. These brothers were actually arrested in June of last year.

They made more than $22 million off of this insider trading scheme that allowed them to profit off of the announcement of the deal between the two groups. So as we know, that merger wasn't actually completed until two weeks ago, but because they profited off of the deal's original announcement in 2021, that's where their charges came from. There was a third man charged who was actually a director at Digital World Acquisition Corporation, but he wasn't involved in the plea today. And just for clarity sake, Donald Trump himself was not involved in this scheme at all. It just involves Trump media, which is likely why this is even in the news in the first place. But let's move on to context is key. And we're going to start with a story surrounding RFK Jr. So earlier this week, RFK Jr. appeared on CNN for an interview where he was asked if he thinks that the threat to

democracy that Trump poses is an equal evil to Biden. And his response triggered the following headlines. So CNN said, RFK Jr. says Biden is a bigger threat to democracy than Trump. NBC said RFK Jr. calls Biden a greater threat to democracy than Trump. NBC said RFK Jr. calls Biden a greater threat to democracy than Trump. The New York Times said to RFK Jr., it's Biden, not Trump, who's the bigger threat to democracy. And Fox News wrote, RFK Jr. doubles down on warning that Biden is much worse than Trump, a genuine threat to our democracy, end quote. So hear me out. It's not that these headlines are wrong per se. It's that they don't provide all of the context, which is why this segment is called Context is Key. RFK Jr.'s

response, and I would normally play the clip, but it is a little bit long. So instead, I'm going to direct you to the sources section of this episode where I have the interview linked. But what RFK Jr. said is that he could make the argument that Biden is a greater threat because of his attempts to censor opposing political speech. And CNN's Aaron Burnett then said, Trump tried to overturn a free and fair election. How is that not a threat to democracy? And RFK Jr. said that is a threat to democracy, clearly. But the question was, who is a worse threat to democracy? And he said, I'm not going to answer that. He said, I'm not going to answer that. But then he kind of did.

He said, I'm not going to answer that. But I could make the argument that Biden is because of the fundamental importance of the First Amendment. And he goes on to say that the 2001 election between Bush and Gore was stolen. And in 2004, the election was stolen from John Kerry. So he said it's happened in the past where elections have been stolen. So I don't think it's fair to demonize and vilify people that say the 2020 election was also stolen. But he said, unlike people in the past claiming elections have been stolen, there's been no president in history, aside from President Biden, who used his powers to suppress opposing political speech within hours of taking office. And for that reason, the argument could

be made in his eyes that Biden is more of a threat to democracy than Trump. So that happened, and that's sort of when all these headlines started. And RFK Jr. then went on News Nation and talked with Chris Cuomo. And Cuomo asked RFK Jr. to clarify what he meant on CNN. And Cuomo said, quote, Do you want people to think Biden has done more objection could be seen as more of a threat to democracy. But he said that neither of the two are going to kill democracy. He said this is a theory that's being spread to stoke fear amongst the public ahead of the election, but that in reality, it's not going to be any one president alone that's going to kill democracy. So we have too many checks and balances in place for that to happen. Now, again, in these context segments, I'm not proving the headlines to be lies, right? I'm just giving you the additional context that the headlines don't, so that way you can walk away forming your own opinion on a particular matter rather than just reading a headline and potentially taking away the wrong message. Because even after RFK Jr. went on News Nation to reiterate what he said on CNN, and he said,

you know, not one president is going to kill democracy, but if I had to make the argument, here's what I would say. If I had to answer the question, here's what I would say. Those headlines didn't change. The headlines still stayed the same. And look, I get it. Headlines are headlines. They have to be clickbaity. They have to be short. They have to be to the point. Trust me, I know this. I do this whenever I upload a podcast episode and I have to make the title. Somehow I have to fit the gist of what I'm saying into a short phrase yet still make it interesting so that you guys listen to it. But because we don't all have the time to research like I have now that this is my job, I like to provide you with the context that you may miss. So in adding to that, allow me to provide

some context behind the headlines that say a new Wall Street Journal poll shows Trump leading over Biden in six swing states. Again, not an incorrect headline, but here's some more information. This poll was conducted via text or call between March 17th and March 24th, so just in the last couple of weeks. In total, 1,300 registered voters were polled, 600 in each of the seven states, those states being Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. It's important to this conversation to note that in each state, there were more people polled who considered themselves conservatives than those that consider themselves liberals.

And you can see this data in the actual poll itself, which of course I do have linked. The respondents were asked various questions, but the most important questions to this story were the following. Who did they vote for in 2020? And who would they vote for if the election was today between Trump and Biden. And so we'll take this state by state. In Arizona in 2020, 40% of respondents voted for Trump, 40% of respondents voted for Biden. When asked who they would vote for today, 47% said Trump, 42% said Biden. So it's a five percentage point lead for Trump as of now. In Georgia in 2020,

similar thing. 41% of respondents voted for Trump, 41% voted for Biden. When asked who they would vote for today, 44% said Trump, 43% said Biden. So a smaller percentage point lead for Trump, but a small change nonetheless. In Michigan in 2020, 41% of respondents voted for Trump, 44% voted for Biden. When asked who they would vote for today, 48% said Trump, 45% said Biden. So a three percentage point lead for Trump. In North Carolina in 2020, 41% of respondents voted for Trump, 40% of respondents voted for Biden. When asked who they would vote for today, 49% said Trump. 43% said Biden. Six percentage point lead for Trump. In Nevada in 2020, 37% of respondents voted for Trump. 39% of respondents voted for Biden.

When asked who they would vote for today, 48% said Trump, 44% said Biden. 4% difference. In Pennsylvania, in 2020, 41% of respondents voted for Trump, 42% of respondents voted for Biden. When asked who they would vote for today, 47% said Trump and 44% said Biden. So a three percentage point difference. And then finally in Wisconsin, in 2020, 45% of respondents voted for Trump, 46% of respondents voted for Biden. When asked who they would vote

for today, it was tied. 46% said Trump, 46% said Biden. So the general theme here is that the margins were closer in 2020 than they are now. And Trump is leading in six of the seven states that we just mentioned. So Michigan, Nevada, and Trump is leading in six of the seven states that we just mentioned. So Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania are the three states where Trump is now leading where he had previously lost, with the largest lead being in Nevada at 4%. But keep in mind, one, the margin of error here is plus or minus four percentage points. Two, only 600 people in each state were polled, and more conservatives than liberals were polled. And three, a decent chunk of the respondents are still undecided.

That number ranged from 8 to 13 percent in any given state. Also keep in mind that polls are polls, right? There was a Bloomberg poll released last week that showed Biden gaining ground in all of these states except for Georgia. That poll showed that Biden is ahead of Trump by one point in Wisconsin, where this Wall Street Journal poll showed they were tied. The Bloomberg poll showed the two are tied in Michigan and Pennsylvania, whereas the Wall Street Journal poll showed that Trump was winning. And the Bloomberg poll showed that Trump's points actually narrowed in Nevada, Arizona, and North Carolina. However, that Bloomberg poll did also show that Trump was ahead overall, 47% to 43%. So obviously, as I said, polls will be polls.

They're going to vary. But I wanted to provide you with some context behind the Wall Street Journal poll specifically because that's what was trending today. That's what was making headlines today. That is what I have for you today. Have a great night and I will talk to you tomorrow.