UNBIASED - Poll: Trump Leading in Five Battleground States (A Deep Dive Beyond the Headlines), SCOTUS Hears 2nd Amendment Case, and Senators Introducing Resolution to Allow U.S. to Strike Iran.

Episode Date: November 7, 2023

1. The Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments in U.S. v. Rahimi: Can Federal Law Prohibit Individuals With Domestic Restraining Orders Against Them From Possessing Firearms? (2:39)2. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) to Introduce Resolution Allowing U.S. to Strike Iran. (14:06)3. NY Times/Sienna College Poll: Trump Leading in Five Key Battleground States; Biden Leading in One. (Reading Beyond the Headlines and Providing an In-Depth Explanation of the Poll Results.) (17:46)If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and share it with those you know that also appreciate unbiased news!Subscribe to Jordan's weekly free newsletter featuring hot topics in the news, trending lawsuits, and more.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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news and legal analysis. Enjoy the show. Welcome back to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast. Happy Tuesday. I hope you had a great weekend and you are now feeling refreshed and ready to get caught up with some news stories. I have three stories for you today. The first is going to be a case that's being heard in front of the Supreme Court on Tuesday. It's called the United States versus Rahimi. This is a very interesting case because it deals with the second amendment and who can possess firearms, and it's kind of going to either narrow or broaden the scope of the Second Amendment as well as a Supreme Court decision from last term. So it's just all around an interesting case.

We're going to talk through the background of the case as well as the arguments on both sides and some procedural history. Then I will discuss this new resolution brought by two senators that essentially allows for the United States to strike Iran if Hezbollah advances in any sort of way with its front against Israel. And then as the third and final story, I wanted to go over this new poll that a lot of people are talking about. It shows Donald Trump leading in five of the six battleground states.

And I'm sure you've probably read the headlines about it, but I'm really going to go in depth. I'm going to break it down a little more than you've probably heard. I'm going to talk through some numbers that you may not have heard. So that will be a very informative conversation. And I do want to address Donald Trump's testimony in the New York civil fraud trial. I won't be making a story out of it just because I don't feel the need to. I will touch on it a little bit once the judge's ruling is issued, whenever that is, because I'll basically recap what went into his ruling, and I'm sure Donald

Trump's testimony will be a part of it. So I may talk about it then, but as of now, I just don't think it's necessary to include in here, even though that has been the main headline across mainstream media outlets the past 24 hours. Before we get into the stories, let me just remind you, go ahead and leave my show a review on whatever platform you listen on. And of course, my legal disclaimer, yes, I am a lawyer. No, I am not your lawyer. So without further ado, let's get into today's stories. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case called the United States versus Rahimi and answer the question of whether a federal law which prohibits those who are subject to domestic violence restraining orders from owning firearms violates the Second Amendment. The federal law in question here is Chapter 18, Section 922 of the U.S. Code, more specifically, Subsection G-8. What it says,

put simply, is that it is illegal for any person who is subject to a restraining order to possess a firearm. Per that law, those that fall under this definition are those that attended a court hearing because there was a request for a restraining order against them, that person had an opportunity to participate in that hearing, and the court has to have found that that person poses a credible threat to the physical safety of either their intimate partner or a child. So basically, once that criteria is satisfied and the restraining order is granted, this particular federal law that's being challenged prohibits that person from owning a gun or possessing a gun.

So let's talk a little bit of background of this case. A man named Zachy Rahimi got into a fight with his girlfriend back in December of 2019. They were in a parking lot in Texas. The girlfriend tried to leave, but Rahimi grabbed her by the wrist, pushed her to the ground, dragged her to his car, picked her up, and put her inside the car rather forcibly because she actually ended up hitting her head on the dashboard. There was a bystander that saw this incident unfold, and when Rahimi saw the bystander, he got his gun from the

car and fired a shot. It's not really clear in what direction the shot was fired, but that's not really relevant for this conversation. During all of this, so while he's getting his gun and firing the random shot, Rahimi's girlfriend manages to escape the car and run away. Rahimi then calls her and threatens to shoot her if she told anyone what happened. A few months later, in February 2020, a court granted Rahimi's now ex-girlfriend a restraining order against him because the court found that violence was likely to occur again in the future. All of the criteria in which we just talked about a few moments ago was established, and the court issued this two-year restraining order. Rahimi ends up trying to get in touch with his ex-girlfriend. Only a few months go by, and it's August of 2020,

he's trying to contact her through social media, and then one night he shows up at her house in the middle of the night, which led to his arrest. He was ultimately released, and in November 2020, he was charged in a completely separate incident with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for threatening an entirely different woman with a gun. Between December 2020 and January 2021, Rahimi allegedly shot his gun at five different people the first one was after someone had bought drugs from him and I guess started talking badly about Rahimi on social media and Rahimi found him and shot at him two other incidents stemmed from apparent road rage another shot was fired in a residential neighborhood. And then the fifth one happened when one of his friends had his credit card declined at a fast food restaurant.

Apparently, Rahimi figured firing multiple shots in the air would allow them to get their food without paying for it. Following all of these shooting incidents within a two-month period, police identify him as the suspect and execute a search warrant at his house. Now, you maybe could probably guess what the search warrant turned up, but specifically, there was a pistol, a rifle, some magazines, ammunition, there was some cash, and also a copy of the restraining order. Rahimi then gets indicted by a federal grand jury. He's sentenced to six years plus three years of supervised release. Now, he was charged with this one particular federal law that's being challenged,

but he had other charges aside from that, so keep that in mind. He then decides to challenge this one charge based on this federal law that it violates the Second Amendment. While he's in custody serving his time, the Fifth Circuit holds that that one law is unconstitutional. So the United States, who is the one who prosecuted Rahimi, appeals this case to the Supreme Court and is now asking the Supreme Court to hold that this law is in fact constitutional and can stand. So that is where we're at.

Now, I do want to discuss a little bit of the procedural history, how we got here. I gave you just kind of a brief recap, but I want to talk a little bit about the history of this case, what the rationale was from the appellate court, and then talk through what the arguments on both sides will look like when this is presented to the justices. As I said, this all starts when Rahimi challenges his conviction. At the district court level, which is the lowest court, his challenge was rejected. The court upheld the federal law and it was done. Then Rahimi appeals that decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. And at first, the Fifth Circuit also

upheld the federal law. But then Rahimi petitions for a re-hearing of the case. And while the re-hearing is pending, the Supreme Court decides a case called Bruin. You may remember this, this was last summer. In Bruin, the Supreme Court held in part that when you assess the constitutionality of a state or federal gun regulation, you have to look at the historical tradition of that regulation. And if there's no historical tradition to back it up, it's not constitutional. expect, that ruling in Bruin led to quite a few gun restrictions being overturned because of the lack of historical tradition behind them. So it seems the reason the Supreme Court may have decided to hear this case is to clarify its Bruin holding, because the Bruin holding caused some conflicting rulings out of the appellate circuits. So it seems they're trying to clarify, you know, exactly what they meant in their ruling last term. But once Bruin was decided,

the Fifth Circuit in Rahimi's case threw out its previous decision, that decision that upheld the law. They threw it out, and it was re-argued in front of a new panel of three judges at the appellate level. And the court issued a unanimous ruling in Rahimi's favor because of Bruin. So in other words, the court found that this particular federal law was in fact unconstitutional and could not be enforced because it lacked the historical tradition consistent with the Bruin decision out of the Supreme Court. Now, one thing to note is that different appellate circuits in our country have jurisdiction over different states, right? So the Fifth Circuit only has jurisdiction over Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. So that means that the court's decision in finding this federal law unconstitutional only applies to those three states.

But once the Fifth Circuit issued its ruling, the United States immediately takes this to the Supreme Court, right? And they're saying, this was wrong. The appellate court should have never ruled this federal law unconstitutional, and we need you to make it right. We need you justices to step in and make it right. The argument on both sides is fairly simple when you really break it down. The United States is arguing that historical tradition does exist for banning guns from those

who pose a risk to others, whereas Rahimi is arguing that historical tradition doesn't exist and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals got it right. Basically, the United States, their whole petition is really based on a history of statutes or legislation, you know, going back to the England days. this 17th century statute in England, which allowed the government to take away all arms in the custody or possession of any person who was judged dangerous to the peace of the kingdom. The United States also cites two colonial and early state legislatures, which disarmed those people who, quote, posed a potential danger, end quote, to others. Other laws that the United States is citing, too, are some early laws of this country. We're talking 1776 and 1777, which categorically disarmed entire groups deemed dangerous or untrustworthy, like those who refused to swear alliance to the country. Other early laws called for a case-by-case judgment about

dangerousness, like a 1777 law out of New Jersey. At the Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention, there was a proposal that was presented that stated no law shall be passed for disarming the people unless for crimes committed. Similarly, Samuel Adams presented a proposal at the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention that said Congress cannot prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms. Later, in the mid-1800s, some states like Massachusetts enacted laws that said those threatening to do harm had to post bond before carrying weapons in public. So the examples of the historical tradition continue on from the United States, but all of this to say that the government's argument here is that historical tradition does in fact exist

for the purpose of preventing dangerous people or people capable of harming others or non-peaceable citizens from possessing guns, and therefore this federal law should be upheld. Rahimi, on the other hand, as I said, he's saying the Fifth Circuit got it right. You know, this particular federal law criminalizes conduct protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment. There's no question that on its face, this is an unconstitutional law. And furthermore, that the government can't meet its burden in showing the historical tradition to the extent necessary to uphold this law. So those are the main arguments that the justices are going to hear, and it'll be up to them to determine whether this one federal law that prohibits people who have restraining orders issued against them from owning or

possessing firearms, they have to decide is this law constitutional or unconstitutional. And that decision, the effect of it, will either narrow their prior decision in Bruin or, in a sense, broaden the Second Amendment. We'll have a better idea tomorrow of where the justices are leaning based on their questions, comments, concerns, etc. So if you want me to update you on Friday's episode, let me know and I can definitely do that. And the best way to do that is by submitting a contact form on my website jordanismylawyer.com. The second story I want to talk about is this resolution that Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal plan to introduce in the Senate. They originally said on Sunday that they'd be introducing it on Monday. However, it's not totally clear if they did end up

introducing it on Monday, so I don't want to, you know, speak that as fact. But nonetheless, this resolution says that if Iran advances in any way with what's going on in the Middle East, so if Hezbollah opens up a second front against Israel, or if more American troops are killed in the Middle East, then the United States will strike Iran. A few things I want to note before we get into what the resolution says, this is a non-binding resolution, which means the United States is not obligated to abide by it, but it instead kind of sends a message, if you will. I also want to mention that Lindsey Graham is a Republican, Blumenthal is a Democrat, and both of them were part of the

bipartisan trip that some of the senators took to Israel after the war started. So Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal, they went on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday morning to explain their resolution. And what Graham said is this, quote, it basically says, if the war expands, if Hezbollah opens up a second front in the north against Israel in a substantial way to overwhelm the Iron Dome, then we should hit the Islamic Republic of Iran. There is no Hamas without the Ayatollah's support. There is no Hezbollah without the Ayatollah's support, end quote. And just as a side note, Ayatollah is Iran's leader. Blumenthal said, it's aggressive, but it's absolutely necessary. And they both said that the purpose of the resolution is deterrence. It's all about deterring Iran from getting involved any more than it already has. So to give you a little bit of context, you know, as to what all of this is about, Hezbollah is another group that the United States has deemed a terrorist group. It has been striking Israel for the last couple of weeks from Lebanon. Israel and Hezbollah have been kind of going back and

forth with each other. Hezbollah, like Hamas, is backed by Iran. And recently, we've seen a little bit of escalation. On Friday, Hezbollah's leader issued a threat of increased tensions with Israel, and on that same day, the House here in the United States passed a bill to increase sanctions on Iranian oil. On top of that escalation, United States troops have faced at least 27 attacks in the Middle East since the start of the war from Iranian-backed groups, and the Pentagon has ramped up its own preparations in the Middle East, saying that they expect to see an escalation of attacks against United States troops as more adversaries move into the region.

So this resolution is really to put Iran on notice that if they expand the war by either activating a second Hezbollah front or killing more American troops, the United States will be sending strikes their way. Now, again, this is not binding, so it doesn't mean the United States will definitely strike Iran if, you know, things escalate, but it is a good indication of where the United States is at. Let's take a break. When we come back in 10 seconds, I want to talk through this new New York Times Siena College poll that everyone is talking about that shows Donald Trump leading in five key battleground states.

A new New York Times Siena College poll that was released on Sunday shows Donald Trump leading Biden in five key swing states, which are Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan, and Biden is leading in Wisconsin. Before we get into the numbers, I do just want to say, you know, we're not relying on these polls to predict the election, okay? These polls just give us a feel for where registered voters currently stand. Now, I could just keep this simple and say, according to this survey, Trump is leading Biden 48% to 44% among registered voters, but that's not why you listen to me. You listen to me for the more in-depth explanations in detail, so that's what we're going to do. And look, I'm well aware, some people don't like hearing about these polls, but I know a lot of people, like myself, we like to hear numbers.

We want to be informed as to what's going on, even if it's just a small sample size. So if you don't want to hear it, the good news is you can just click pause here and that'll be that. But for those that are curious, let's get into it. Here's how it worked. 3,662 registered voters between Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, so all of the key battleground states, were polled via phone from October 22nd to November 3rd. The people included in the survey were asked a wide range of questions from, do you think the United States is on the right track or headed in the wrong

direction, to demographic questions, to who will you vote for, to, you know, who do you trust to do a better job with immigration, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, abortion, things like that. In total, there were about 42 questions, though some questions were meant specifically for people who were undecided about who they were voting for, so on and so forth. Of the roughly 3,600 people that were surveyed, 30% are Democrat, 32% are Republican, 30% are Independent, and 9% are either affiliated with another party or didn't answer. As far as who these people voted for in 2020, 41% voted for Biden, 38% voted for Trump, 16% didn't vote. So it's pretty evenly split. Let's start with question one. And I'm not going through all 42 questions. I just

kind of picked out the questions that I felt illustrated, you know, the views of the respondents the best and the things that we care about the most. So let's start with question one. Do you think the United States is on the right track or is it headed in the wrong direction. 22% of all registered voters said the country is on the right track compared with the 67% of all registered voters that said it's headed in the wrong direction. These numbers were pretty consistent across gender, age, state, and income. So what I mean by that is it didn't really matter whether you're a male, female, 18, or 65, lived in Georgia or Wisconsin, or had an income of under $30,000 or over $200,000. It didn't matter. The numbers were pretty much right around that 22% that feel the country is on track and the 67%

that feel the country's headed in the wrong direction. There was significant variation when it came to party affiliation and vote choice, as I'm sure we could have guessed. 42% of Democrats said the country was headed in the right direction, compared to 6% of Republicans that said the same. 88% of Republicans said the country was headed in the wrong direction, compared to 44% of Democrats who said the same. Question number two, if the 2024 election were held today, who would you vote for if the candidates were Joe Biden and Donald Trump? 44% of all registered voters said Biden, 48% said Trump. Now, if we break this down by state, Trump is leading in five of the six battleground states, whereas Biden is leading in one. And before we dive into the numbers,

keep in mind the margin of sampling error for each state is between 4.4 and 4.8 percentage points. In Arizona and Michigan, the survey shows Trump leading by five points. In Georgia, Trump leading by six points. In Pennsylvania, Trump leading by four points. And in Nevada, Trump leading by 11 points. Biden is leading in Wisconsin by two points. Just to give you a comparison from another survey, Real Clear Politics has Trump leading in Nevada by about two and a half, Georgia by about five and a half, Arizona by about four, Michigan by less than a percentage point, Pennsylvania by two, and in Wisconsin, which the New York Times poll didn't show, but only by less than a percentage point. Now, the reason that these states are important and the

reason that people are talking about it is because in recent elections, these are the six states that have proven to be decisive in the Electoral College, and that trend is expected to continue in 2024. So these six states actually make up 69 of the Electoral college votes. And if we look at those same states in the 2020 election, more respondents said that they voted for Biden in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin, whereas Trump only led in 2020 in Nevada and Pennsylvania. And I do just want to mention that if you, so a lot of the stats that I'm going to talk to you about are based on all registered voters, but you can also filter these results by likely voters. So who's likely to vote in the election. And if you do that, in that case, the numbers for Biden do improve slightly,

but he is still trailing. When we look at gender, 37% of men said they would vote for Biden compared to 55% of men that said they'd vote for Trump. 50% of women said they would vote for Biden compared to 42% that said they'd vote for Trump. Age and income both show a pretty even split. Race and ethnicity have a slightly more significant discrepancy. 39% of whites said they would vote for Biden. 54% of whites said Trump. 71% of blacks said Biden. 22% said Trump. And 50% of Hispanics said Biden. 42% said Trump. And then when you look at political party, of course, you know, these numbers are not crazy surprising. 88% of Democrats said they're voting for Biden. 7% of Democrats said they're voting for Trump. 5% of Republicans said they're voting for Biden. 91% of Republicans said they're voting for Trump. Independents were evenly split, so even split for both candidates. Those that weren't supporting Trump or Biden were asked who they would lean towards if they had to choose today, and the response was split. 27% said Biden, 27% said Trump. However, the vast majority of them,

46%, said they didn't know or they didn't want to answer. Moving on, the survey then paired up, instead of Trump and Biden, it paired up Biden versus DeSantis, Biden versus Haley, and Harris versus Trump. So in the Biden versus DeSantis question, 43% of all registered voters said Biden. 44% said DeSantis. And again, compare those to the original numbers we talked about for Biden versus Trump. 44% said Biden. 48% Trump. Then Biden versus Haley. 38% of all registered voters said Biden, so Biden's numbers drop a bit, and 46% said Haley, so they increase a little bit from DeSantis but are still lower than Trump. And third, Harris versus Trump. 44% said Harris, same number as Biden against Trump, and 47% of all registered voters said

Trump. The respondents were also asked if they approve of the way President Biden is handling his job. 38% approved, 59% disapproved. And those numbers are actually right around where Trump was at the end of his presidency. So if you compare these numbers to December 2020, which was the month before obviously trump left office 39 of people approved of the way trump was handling his job 57 disapproved so those numbers are almost exactly the same next the survey then gets into the importance of issues. So the question is, what types of issues are more important in the 2024 election? 57% answered economic issues like jobs, taxes, cost of living, etc. 29% answered societal issues like abortion, guns, or democracy. Now let's hone in on those. So I want to talk specifically about

the particular issues. When asked who they would trust to do a better job with the economy, 37% said Biden, 59% said Trump. And these numbers, by the way, are all registered voters. When asked who they would trust to do a better job with immigration, 41% said Biden, 53% said Trump. And those percentages were actually exactly the same when the respondents were asked who they would trust more with national security. When asked who they would trust to do a better job with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 39% said Biden, 50% said Trump. Who would they trust to do a better job with abortion? 49% said Biden. 40% said Trump. And who would they trust to do a better job in handling democracy? 48% said Biden. 45% said Trump. Respondents were then asked if they felt that either Biden or Trump were too old to be an

effective president. Remember, Biden is turning 81 later this month. Trump turned 77 just a few months ago in June. 71% of all registered voters said Biden is too old to be an effective president. 27% disagreed with that statement. When asked about Trump, 39% of all registered voters said Trump is too old. 59% disagreed with that statement. So more people think that Biden is too old to be an effective president than they do Trump. Finally, the survey also asked respondents how they felt about Biden's involvement in foreign business dealings and Trump's federal charges. The question about Biden said, to the best of your knowledge, do you think Joe Biden personally profited from his son's business dealings in Ukraine?

50% of all registered voters said yes, 35% said no. When you break it down by party affiliation, 17% of Democrats said yes, 69% said no. 80% of Republicans said yes, 10% said no. And of the independents, 48% said yes, 35% said no. The question as it pertains to Donald Trump said, thinking about the investigations into Donald Trump, do you think that Donald Trump has or has not committed any serious federal crimes? 54% of all registered voters said they think he has, 36% said they think he hasn't. And again, when you break it down by party affiliation, 90% of Democrats say he has, 7% say he hasn't. 18% of Republicans say he has, 71% say he hasn't. And 59% of independents say he has, 29% say he hasn't. So those are really the hot topics in this poll. And I really do think I went over like the hottest of issues. But if you

want to read it for yourself, I do have it linked for you on my website in the sources section. I will say though, unless you have a New York Times account or you kind of finagle the system with a new email address and are able to look at, you know, a limited number of articles for free, you won't be able to see it. But check it out, see if you can. It's there for you in the sources section. Following the release of the poll, a spokesperson for President Biden's re-election campaign talked to Axios. And what he said was that the predictions that are more than a year out tend to look a little different a year later. He said, don't take our word for it. Gallup predicted an eight point loss for President Obama, only for him to win handedly a year later. We'll win in 2024 by putting our heads down and doing the work, not by fretting about a poll.

On the other side of that, one of President Biden's fellow presidential candidates, Representative Dean Phillips, said on X, quote, I could offer no statement more powerful than the one made by suffering Americans in today's New York Times poll. That's why Trump beats Biden 48 to 44 in the battleground states, while a generic Democrat beats Trump 48 to 40, end quote. And that's obviously signaling that President Biden is not the right candidate for the Democratic Party. I am curious to hear your thoughts too, though. As always, you can share your thoughts with me via my website, jordanismylawyer.com, in the comment section of each episode or by submitting a contact form.

Or if you're a Spotify listener, you can always write in in the Q&A section. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode. I look forward to hearing from you. Please don't forget to leave me a review and I will talk to you on Friday.