The President's Daily Brief - April 26th, 2022. Drone Wars in Ukraine. An Incoming Subpoena for Twitter Executives?

Episode Date: April 26, 2022

It’s April 26th. You’re listening to the President’s Daily Brief. I’m your host and former CIA Officer Bryan Dean Wright. Your morning intel starts now. First, the Supreme Court is hearing a case today that might determine border security for a generation. I have an update on Mexican lawmakers who are angry at Joe Biden. Your second brief, Drone Wars. We’re pumping Ukraine full of drones. The Russians and Chinese are too. So what happens if those suicide drones fall into the wrong hands? And, as always, I’m keeping an eye out for developing stories. This one is already on your radar - Elon Musk is buying Twitter. But I’ve got an angle on this story that we need to talk about. And it involves lying to Congress. All up next on the President’s Daily Brief. ------ Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's April 26th. You're listening to the President's Daily Brief. I'm your host and former CIA Officer Brian Dean Wright. Your morning intel starts now. Before we start, a quick reminder to those new to the show, the brief you're about to hear is in the same spirit of the actual President's Daily Brief, which is a top secret summary of the most critical events of the past 24 hours, all delivered to the President each morning by the nation's spymasters. And so, ladies and gentlemen, I am your spy, and this is your brief. Here's what we're going to be talking. about this morning. The southern border back in the news, the Supreme Court is hearing a case today that might determine border security for a generation. Meanwhile, I have an update on Mexican lawmakers

who are angry at Joe Biden. That's coming up. Your second brief, drone wars, were pumping Ukraine full of drones. The Russians and Chinese are two. So what happens if those suicide drones fall into the wrong hands become the next generation of suicide bombers? I want you to think about this like a spy does, and we're going to discuss. And as always, I'm keeping an eye out for developing stories. This one is already on your radar. Elon Musk is buying Twitter. It's official, and it's a big deal. But I've got an angle on this story that we need to talk about, and it involves lying to Congress. All up next on the president's daily brief. Your first piece of intel this morning. The southern border is back in the news this morning in a big way. Two parts of this brief,

let's talk about the Supreme Court first. The court will hear a case today called Biden versus Texas, and depending on how it's decided, it could affect border security for a generation. The cases about President Trump's remain in Mexico policy. So to refresh our memories, that policy dealt with asylum seekers. Now, U.S. law says that anyone can request asylum at embassies or at our border, and their cases have to be considered. Most asylum cases that we get are from Central Americans, and most get rejected, actually, anywhere from 70 to 80% or more.

The issue is that that process can take up to two years' time for any one person's asylum claim to be processed. The question is, what is the U.S. government obligated to do with that person during that two-year period? Trump's remain in Mexico policy says that, well, you had to wait in Mexico during that period. And it worked. About 70,000 people had to wait outside of the country instead of inside. Joe Biden and immigration activists were and remain very outraged by this. they want to let everyone in. All the asylum seekers can come into the country, even knowing that most applications will eventually be rejected. The problem, of course, is that once those rejections are eventually decided, people have long disappeared into cities around our country. And then, of course,

Democrats argue you can't deport those people because that's inhumane. It's basically a manufactured loophole in the process, an inventive strategy to get more people into the country. But, let's get back to this morning Supreme Court hearing. At the heart of this case is this. As you all now know, the law says that the U.S. government is supposed to hear these asylum cases. Congress has actually authorized some beds to be provided to these asylum seekers, about 34,000 beds, in fact, all in detention centers, mostly along the border. But what happens if there are more than 34,000 asylum seekers? Because that's what's happening. Biden says release them all into the U.S. That's why he's rescinded the Remainting Mexico policy. Texas says, no, no, send them back to Mexico,

and they can wait there. And that's what this lawsuit is really all about, whether Biden unlawfully rescinded the Remainting Mexico policy, plus some violations of administrative law. Most reasonable observers say that Texas is probably going to win this case, in no small part because of the 1996 immigration reform bill, which expressly allows this remain in Mexico concept. I mentioned the 1996 law because it was supported by a senator from Delaware, Joe Biden. He voted for it. Regardless, the Supreme Court hears those arguments today. We'll see who wins. It'll be about a month before we know what they decide at least. Now, there are going to be a lot of people who are very anxious to know what that decision is and not just here in the U.S. And that gets to the second half of this

very important border brief. A report out yesterday shows Mexican government officials are growing very angry about the border crisis. In other words, it's not just Republicans in the U.S. These Mexican officials are claiming this morning that no one from the Biden administration is talking to them about how to manage the humanitarian crisis that's about to unfold if another Trump rule, Title 42, is repealed next month. That's the plan, as you know, that kept migrants out of the United States because of COVID restrictions. Biden wants to dump that rule, although a court just recently said that he couldn't. It's a very important development, but negotiations continue on exactly what that ruling means. Regardless, Mexican officials

are not happy with Joe Biden or his administration about the lack of communication and coordination on whatever his intentions might be. Rosa Maria Gonzalez, a lawmaker from Mexico's National Action Party, went on the record saying that there's been no talk of additional resources or assistance to help manage what she and others in Mexico are calling an out-of-control flow of migrants. Ms. Gonzalez, it should be noted, represents a border state and heads a migration committee in Mexico's Congress. So she's in a pretty good position to know what the government thinks, or at least her party. She added in her interview that repealing Title 42 is an enormous incentive, her words,

for criminal gangs to encourage a big push of illegals while the border is effectively down. She spoke those words just days after the U.S. State Department labeled six Mexican states as no-go zones and slapped a warning on 10 other Mexican states advising Americans to, quote, reconsider travel as drug-related crime and violence continues to boil over in those states. All right, so that's the brief. We've got a Supreme Court case up this morning and some very angry Mexican government officials who haven't gotten a call from Joe Biden on how he plans to help them with this crisis. So let's talk key takeaways that I'd be sharing with the president if I were in the White House this morning briefing him or her on this issue. First, Mexico is a violent mess. So two are Guatemala and El Salvador and Nicaragua. We could talk about the numbers and the causes. We could talk about which elements of the Mexican military might be able to help partner with us on migrant issues.

And all of that would be fine. But the bottom line is that we can't stop or fix any of the violence right now, not in the short term and not in any meaningful way. So people will continue to stream north, desperate people, absolutely desperate, folks that just want a better life. And that's heartbreaking. But there are also criminals sneaking across the border and terrorists. Remember, our Border Patrol agents captured 23 known terrorists last year. The same goes with drugs, fentanyl especially, and other illegal activity. So if there were ever a time for a strong border to disincentivize people from coming north, now is it. But let's be candid.

Joe Biden is just not going to do that. He's just not. So, folks, if this story moves you, I want to remind you of the actions that you can take right now. I've spoken of contacting your U.S. senator or representative. So let's talk about how to do that. For senators, go to Senate.gov, click on senators. Find the two that represent your state, write down their contact. information and start calling. Tell whoever answers the phone that you'd like to convey your opinion

on an issue. Be respectful, but don't hold back. The same process is true for the House. Go to House.gov, click on representative, find your person for your district, and away you go. Because folks, this is your country. This is your government. And this is your border. If you decide that's important, it's time to speak up. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin, way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full moon.

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On the flip side, the Russians are bringing their own drones, some of them Chinese. Military and intelligence professionals call most of these devices suicide drones. These munitions stay in the air for a modest period of time and then dive bomb like a kamikaze pilot into their targets, all controlled by a soldier on the ground with an iPad or something similar. These are relatively cheap weapons, fairly simple to train and often. operate and very deadly. We've sent at least 500 of these munitions so far. Some estimates suggest a much higher number. You're probably going to see many more headlines about this kind of drone warfare in the next several weeks. A few reasons, but one in particular. Eastern Ukraine is mostly flat,

unlike the forests around Kiev. The new battlefield space then is a perfect place for drones. Now, put aside whether you think Ukraine should or shouldn't be getting these weapons. Instead, want you to think like a spy this morning to understand the future threats that this operation of flooding the zone with drones creates. First, are we tracking where all those armed drones are going? The answer is no. If you've listened to previous briefs, you know that the U.S. government has little to no tracking of most of the weaponry that we are sending into Ukraine. Because, as we now know, we are just dropping the material off, in fact, in Poland, and then resistance fighters take them into Ukraine, where we lose all ability to track it. If I were inside the CIA headquarters this

morning or the Pentagon, I would be asking some very tough questions about this issue because we have a very long, very nightmarish history of us doing this kind of thing and it ending very badly. For instance, I would press them about everything we left behind in Afghanistan and how and why that failure happened. Fundamentally, why are we not learning lessons from that fiasco? Folks, the Taliban has an army and an air force because of our mistakes. I would also remind the CIA and Pentagon about our provision of Stinger missiles. We're providing those to the Ukrainians as well in this fight, in addition, of course, to the drones. And those missiles can bring down helicopters and low-flying aircraft, and we're not tracking them.

Now, you may recall that we handed out these missiles to Islamic radicals in the 1980s in Afghanistan to defeat the Soviets. And we lost track of a whole bunch of those stingers after we were. left. Now, without going into details, that created a nightmare, because quite obviously those missiles can bring down not only Soviet helicopters, but civilian airliners. And now we're doing it again, with stingers that could go missing in Europe, and now a bunch of suicide drones that could go missing in Europe, at least 500 of them, perhaps north of 1,000. And we should be talking about that. All right, second question. What happens if these suicide drones fall into the wrong hands? Because we know that Islamic radicals have been wrapping themselves up in explosives and blowing up

buildings and people for the past 20 years. That includes a number of my friends, unfortunately. We could also imagine that drug cartels would love to get their hands on these things. Separatist groups who want to break away from a country. I'm thinking of the Kurds and Turkey, for instance, they would love these. Or what about the Iranians who could reverse engineer our latest technology and then use it against us or the Israelis? folks, we could spend an entire brief talking about who could use these drones against us and how. But the bottom line is this. We're putting many hundreds of suicide drones into the field.

They're easy to use, highly portable, and very, very deadly. And we're not tracking any of them based on credible reporting. So whatever you think about providing these drones to the Ukrainians, that you like it or not, we need to start thinking about the tomorrow's problems that we're trading today. Because that's how you think, not just like a spy, but as a smart American. How many discounts does USAA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount. Safe driver discount. New vehicle discount. Storage discount. How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usa.com slash auto discounts.

Restrictions apply. As always, I'm watching a few other stories this morning, and I know this one is already on your radar. It's confirmed. Musk is buying Twitter. You don't need to have an account with his new company to understand the importance of this story, but you already knew that. PDB listeners heard me talk about this first on April 15th and then again last Saturday. So, well done. You were two weeks ahead of the rest of America on why this story is important. By the way, if you missed either of those briefs, don't worry. Finish this one and then go back and check those two out. Meanwhile, I want you to focus your attention on one additional angle that we haven't discussed, and I think you're going to be

hearing about this one soon. About four years ago, Twitter's then-CEO, Jack Dorsey, testified to Congress that his company did not ever consider political affiliation or political beliefs when they made decisions about censoring accounts or stories. He said, and I quote, let me be clear, ladies and gentlemen, about one important and foundational fact. Twitter does not use political ideology to make any decisions, whether related to ranking content on our service or how we enforce our rules. Dorsey continued on by telling the Congress, we believe strongly in being impartial. We do not shadow ban anyone based on political ideology. In other words, he insisted under oath that Twitter would never limit the reach of conservative

people or their stories. Well, now there's a new owner of Twitter, and he's going to be able to confirm whether or not, Jack Dorsey lied to Congress about that. It'll all be in internal documents and emails and various files, and for panicked Twitter employees, a word of caution, destroying that information is a felony if it's trying to cover up a crime. So will compromising material be found during this process? And if so, what will Elon Musk do with it all? Perhaps we should be thinking about a congressional investigation. If Republicans win next November, they will have subpoena power, after all. The point is that this story of Twitter and the stories that they have buried these past years,

the voices that they have silenced, it's just all beginning. And this has the potential to be incredibly explosive. Because ultimately this story is about big tech and their supporters deciding truth, deciding who wins and loses political races, to include burying a story that very well likely helped put Joe Biden in the White House. And that's the ultimate reason for why this story is so, important to you and your family. This is about who controls not just facts and opinions, but the fate of the country. Much more to come on this one. I'll be watching.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes your morning brief. One note of celebration. I'd like to pass on to you. The PDB is growing in listeners virtually every day, and it is so incredible to watch. It's about you. You all are getting value from these briefs, and you're coming back, and you're telling friends and family. It's hard for me to put into work. words, how grateful I am that you're doing this. This podcast is so very important to me, and I'm so humbled that it's becoming an important part of your life as well. So please keep downloading the President's Daily Brief, wherever you get your podcasts, like Apple and Spotify, and keep the feedback coming, by the way, by email or follow me on Twitter. My handle is at Brian Dean Wright. That's

B-R-Y-A-N-D-E-A-N-W-R-I-G-H-T. And is our always friends, I remind you of why we are here, talking about our country and our world. It's the creed of every good spy and every smart American. It's from John chapter 8, verse 32, and you shall know the truth. The truth shall make you free. The unravels to North America with special guests. Get tickets Thursday, May 7th at Olivia Rodrigo.com.