The President's Daily Brief - December 8th, 2025: Military Drones Zero In on Zelenskyy’s Plane Over Europe & Alleged Pipe-Bomb Confesses

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: President Zelenskyy’s visit to Ireland takes a dangerous turn as military-grade drones breach restricted airspace during his arrival, raising new questions about hybrid warfare reaching deep into Europe. Authorities release new details about the man arrested in the long-running D.C. pipe-bomb case — including a confession to planting the devices outside both party headquarters. The U.S. dramatically intensifies its air campaign in Somalia, launching strikes against ISIS and Al Qaeda fighters in one of the most aggressive counterterror operations in years. And in today’s Back of the Brief — the European Union hits Elon Musk’s X with a 120-million-euro fine, escalating a transatlantic showdown over social-media rules and free-speech standards. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief.  YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Nobl Travel: Protect your gear and travel smarter—NOBL’s zipper-free carry-on is up to 58% off at https://NOBLTravel.com TriTails Premium Beef: Get 15% OFF the ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’ steak box. Order by Dec 14 at https://TriTailsBeef.com  Birch Gold: Text PDB to 989898 and get your free info kit on gold Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Just text PDB to the number 989-89-8, and you'll receive a free, no-obligation information kit. Then you'll learn how to convert an existing IRA or a 401k into a gold IRA. Again, text PDB to the number 989-89-898. It's Monday, the 8th of December, December 8th. Welcome to the President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. And congratulations to Ole Miss. They are officially in the college football playoffs,

getting ready to square off against Tulane in the first round, at home, in the great state of Mississippi, on the 20th of December. Oh, and a moment of silence for all my friends who are alumni of Notre Dame. Sorry about that. All right, let's get briefed. First up, President Zelensky's visit to Ireland takes a dangerous turn. Military-grade drones crossed into restricted airspace,

as his plane arrived, raising new questions about the hybrid warfare reaching deep into Europe. Later in this episode, the latest on the man arrested for the D.C. pipe bomb case. Authorities now say he's confessed to planting devices outside both Republican and Democrat Party headquarters. Plus, the U.S. dramatically steps up airstrikes in Somalia, targeting ISIS and al-Qaeda fighters in one of the most aggressive counter-terror campaigns in years. And in today's back of the brief, the U.S. European Union hits Elon Musk's X with a 120 million euro fine. Now, if my math is correct, for those of you in the U.S., that's approximately $140 million, escalating a transatlantic

showdown over social media rules and free speech. But first, today's PDB spotlight. This is a story that we've been following closely here at the President's Daily Brief, the rise of hybrid or some call it shadow warfare across Europe. For months now, unexplained drones, cyber intrusions, and covert pressure campaigns have been creeping westward from the front lines of Ukraine, probing European defenses and testing political resolve. It's been quiet, mostly under the radar, but persistent. And last week, it took a dramatic new turn.

Because for the first time, one of these incidents appears to have intersected with the travel of Ukrainian President Zelensky. According to Irish officials and multiple media outlets, a cluster of unidentified military-grade drones breached Irish airspace during Zelensky's visit to Dublin. These drones were spotted near, and in at least one report, moving toward the flight path of Zelensky's aircraft as it approached the Dublin airport area. A temporary no-fly zone had been established around the president's arrival. That's a standard security measure.

yet four to five drones ignored that perimeter entirely crossing into restricted airspace coming from the direction of the Irish Sea. Now, it might be easy to dismiss this as a group of overly enthusiastic hobbyists playing with their toys, although their military grade toys. Authorities note that these were not the cheap quadcopters that you buy online. Irish investigators are describing them as military-grade systems, larger, longer range, and far more capable. than anything flown by recreational users. These are the types of platforms designed for surveillance, targeting, or disruptive harassment. And they appeared precisely when a foreign president's plane, not just any foreign president, but the Ukrainian president's plane, was entering Irish airspace.

Zeletsky landed safely, but officials did not treat the incident lightly, as you can imagine. Ireland's defense forces and national police have launched a formal investigation. Intelligence services are analyzing flight paths, radar signatures, and communication intercepts to determine who flew the drones and why. Yeah, that would be good to know. As of right now, there's no public attribution, no claim of responsibility, no clear indication of whether this was espionage, intimidation, or were a test of Irish and European air defenses.

However, the timing and location are unlikely to be coincidence. And this was not the only troubling incident in recent days. Officials at Il-Long, the highly secured French naval base that houses the the country's nuclear-armed submarines reported multiple drone incursions of their own. At least five unidentified drones flew near or directly over the facility, one of the most sensitive military facilities in all of Europe. French media described, quote, illegal overflights that continued even after security forces attempted to track and deter the drones.

The defense minister confirmed the incidents, publicly calling them, quote, serious and unacceptable, and France has now opened its own criminal and intelligence investigations. Just like the situation in Ireland, no operators have been identified. The drones simply vanished without a trace. At first glance, these might seem like separate events, but they're lining up with a series of other unexplained drone sightings over the past year in Germany, the Baltic states, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, and now Ireland and France. Some near airports, some near military installations, some near energy infrastructure,

and now near a visiting head of state, specifically. again, the Ukrainian president. None of these incidents have yet been confirmed as Russian operations, but I don't know if it walks like an Utka and quacks like an Utka. Well, it's probably a Russian Utka. The pattern is difficult to ignore. The timing is difficult to ignore.

And the targets, critical and sensitive infrastructure, nuclear-associated sites and airspace around Zelensky, are exactly the places that you would test if your goal were to unsettled Europe while keeping your fingerprints supposedly off the operations. It's a classic hybrid warfare strategy. Make your adversaries feel insecure in their own nations without having to fire a shot. Keep your activity below the threshold of open conflict, exploit ambiguity, force your targets to burn time and resources and political attention in response. Create a perception of vulnerability, even if no attack actually occurs. And across Western Europe,

something is happening that hasn't been felt in generations. People are looking up at the sky again, the way their grandparents once did, wondering what might be coming next and why. For months, drone incursions were reported mostly on Europe's eastern flank, close to Russia, close to the war. But these new incidents occurred on the westernmost edges of the continent, Ireland, which is not even a NATO member, and France, a nuclear-armed nation with some of the strongest military infrastructure in Europe. That geographic spread is precisely what has intelligence services on edge. All right, coming up next. New details on the suspect who was now confessed to planting the D.C. pipe bombs.

And the U.S. ramps up airstrikes in Somalia against ISIS and Al-Qaeda. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here. Now, PDB listeners know that I'm constantly traveling, so I've become a bit of an expert on airports and, of course, on luggage. And I want to tell you about a great company out there that's designing and selling incredible luggage. It's called Noble Travel. That's N-O-B-L. Noble travel. All right, let me give you a scenario. Picture this. You're in the line at airport security.

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Shop Ultima on Amazon or in store at Target and Whole Foods Market. Welcome back to the BDB. I want to bring you a new development in the ongoing DC pipe bomb case. The man arrested on Thursday has reportedly confessed to planting the devices outside the RNC and DNC headquarters in Washington, though investigators still don't have a clear read on his motive. Nearly five years after the bombs were planted on the eve of the January 6th Capitol events, a renewed focus on the case and a labor-intensive effort to sift through data and information that had been in the Bureau's possession for nearly five years, finally identified the perpetrator.

The FBI has stated that there were no new leads, no new tips or newly obtained evidence that led to the breakthrough. It was just a dogged review of existing material. The question, of course, is why wasn't that dogged review done in, I don't know, 2021 or 2022 or 2023, or even 2024? Since the rest of the suspect, 30-year-old Brian Cole Jr., investigators have spent hours interviewing him. And during the lengthy questioning, Cole admitted to placing both bombs, ending years of speculation about who was responsible and opening a new round of questions about what motivated him. Once he confessed, Cole found himself in a D.C. courtroom by Friday afternoon, facing a tougher set of charges, including transporting explosives across straight lines with

intent to kill or injure, and attempted malicious destruction using explosives. materials. Cole did not enter a plea during that appearance. Still, prosecutors made clear that they're treating this not as some symbolic scare tactic on his part, but as an attempted act of violence, pointing again to the kitchen timer firing mechanisms and the fact the devices were fully functioning and deliberately placed to do real harm. As I mentioned last week, for nearly half a decade, the case lived in the background of every January 6th conversation and conspiracy theory, raising the same questions repeatedly, why these targets, why that timing, and how someone managed to pull it off without leaving a clear trail. And those questions remained frozen in place until Attorney General

Pam Bondi and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino ordered a top-to-bottom review of everything that have been sitting inside the Bureau. Bondi said the case had, quote, languished under the previous Biden administration, and Bonino credited President Trump directly for the renewed push. He said, quote, this is what it's like when you work for a president who tells you to go get the bad guys, end quote. FBI director Cash Patel made clear that no new outside tips played a role in the latest details, adding that agents, quote, engineered this investigation from scratch, retracing steps that had gone cold for years under the previous administration. But even with Cole's confession, the why behind all this does remain a mystery.

According to the New York Post and CNN, Cole told investigators he believed Trump not Biden won the 2020 election. But law enforcement officials say that explanation didn't hold up under scrutiny. His statements shifted, contradicted each other, and never formed a clear motive that prosecutors could point to, at least not yet. And then there's the political profile that doesn't match the story. A National Republican Operative told New York Post there was, quote, zero indication that Cole was a Trump voter. Public records show he wasn't registered with either party in his home state of Virginia. Cole also did not participate in primaries and only appears on general election rolls, voting in 2016, 2020, and 2024. So while investigators finally have a suspect and a

confession, the picture is still incomplete. We now know who, clear clues about the how, and a better sense of the timeline. We're just missing the why. But deeper questions, such as why both party headquarters and the eve of January 6th remained part of this ongoing investigation. Okay, shifting gears. The U.S. is hitting Somalia's jihadist network with a pace that few expected, launching more than 10 times as many air strikes under President Trump as it did under Biden in 2024, as counterterrorism operations worked to keep ISIS from building a meaningful presence in East Africa. According to Fox News, U.S. Africa Command or Afriqom, confirmed that it carried out just 10 strikes in Somalia last year.

But with Trump back in the White House, the tempo has exploded, so to speak, already topping 100 missions with around 60 of them aimed squarely at ISIS Somalia. Africom commanders say the ramp-up reflects a clear directive from the Trump White House to take away the breathing room that these networks need to plan and recruit or threaten Americans and U.S. partners across the continent. Now, that stepped-up posture was especially spotlighted in late November when Afri-com forces found themselves in one of their fiercest engagements of the year, an airstrike followed by what local sources described as a four-hour gun battle with ISIS-Somali terrorists in the country's

north. Their mission carried out, quote, in coordination with the federal government of Somalia, reportedly hit high-value ISIS targets, with local reporting, pointing up to 10 terrorists killed, and the possibility that a senior ISIS figure was among them. No American casualties were reported in the operation. Afriqom confirmed the operation unfolded about 40 miles southeast of the port city of Boussaso, noting that U.S. forces, quote, continue to take action to degrade ISIS Somalia and the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab's ability to threaten the U.S. homeland, our forces, and our citizens abroad, end quote.

Local sources say MQ9 Reaper drones struck terrorists in and around a cave complex before roughly 10 helicopters moved in for a second sustained wave of attacks. Some Somalis who witnessed the operation say U.S. troops actually deployed off those aircraft during the gunfight, but American military officials quickly dismissed that, stressing there was no ground component and that such reports are inaccurate. As noted, the late November assault is part of a broader months-long counterterrorism, surge across Somalia, targeting ISIS strongholds in the north and al-Shabaab across central provinces.

Africom commanders repeatedly frame what is the most intensified counterterrorism operation in years as essential, a way to deny ISIS-Somalia the safe haven that it's been trying to build and prevent it from recruiting foreign fighters who are exporting terror beyond that region. But I want to mention that the overall counterterrorism operation is weakened in part due to Somalia's uneasy political landscape. While U.S. strikes have hit ISIS-S. Somalia hard in the country's north, al-Shabaab continues to expand in the south due to conflicts between the federal government in Mogadishu and regional administrations. A spokesman for the United Kingdom's think tank Chatham House said those political fractures have, quote, undermined coordination efforts, raising fears that al-Shabaab could grow

despite the Americans' campaign. In May of this year, then-Africom Commander General Michael Langley, described the pace of the campaign, saying the U.S. is, quote, actively pursuing and eliminating jihadists at a speed the Biden administration never executed, a sign of just how serious the U.S. is now treating the terror threat in Somalia. And in today's back of the brief, Brussels slaps X with a 120 million euro penalty, accusing the platform of violating the block's digital governance laws. Hmm, I'll have those details when we come back. Hey, Mike Baker here with a tip on how to feed your family right this holiday season. Look, this time of year, everything gets busier.

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Extra Strength, Hannity! Eye drops and work all day to prevent the release of histamines that cause itchy allergy eyes. And the winner by knockout is Padaday! At a day, bring it on. In today's back of the brief, Europe just dropped a 140 million U.S. dollar hammer on Elon Musk's X platform, a move that opened a new Transatlantic battle over censorship and tech sovereignty. The fine stems from a formal ruling that X violated three transparency requirements under the EU's Digital Services Act. And does that have an acronym? Well, of course it does. It's referred to as the DSA,

covering its paid blue check system, its advertisement database, and its treatment of researchers trying to access public data. Now, Brussels maintains these findings are purely technical, the kind of residual enforcement that the DSA was built for. But in Washington, well, the decision landed like a targeted shot at an American platform at the center of a global debate over free speech, which instantly turned the regulatory notice into the newest flashpoint in a long-running political fight. The timing didn't help. The ruling arrived just as the White House had been warning Europe against weaponizing the DSA, and the backlash came fast. Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded, calling the fine, quote, an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people. That's a message that Elon Musk amplified. And Vice President J.D. Vance posted before the ruling even became public, he framed the European Commission's case as an effort to punish X, quote, for not engaging in censorship.

An FCC chair, Brendan Carr, said Europe was once again targeting a successful American company simply for being successful, while its own tech sector struggles under layers of its own over-regulation. Of course, Brussels insisted politics had nothing to do with it, nothing to see here. Ah, us political, no. European Commission spokesman Thomas Reigner insisted the process wasn't political and that the EU was, quote, not targeting anyone, not targeting any jurisdictions based on their country, of origin, end quote. But Trump's ambassador to the EU, Andrew Pudster, said the pattern speaks for itself.

Europe's most aggressive digital penalties consistently hit American firms. At some point, he warned U.S. companies are correct to question whether they're being regulated or targeted. Diving in deeper to the commission's case, which centers on those three issues we previously mentioned,

regulators argue Musk's revamped blue check system, which is open to anyone willing to pay $8 a month, violates the DSA's ban on, quote, deceptive design practices because it no longer verifies identity and could expose Europeans to misinformation. The Commission also faults X's ad repository, saying design flaws and processing delays undermine transparency. And for researchers, the block says X imposes, quote,

unnecessary barriers when they try to access data, hampering efforts to track systematic risks. All of this leads to X, now having 60 days to outline how it will fix its verification system, and 90 days to produce an action plan, ooh, an action plan, to overhaul its ad database and researcher access. If Musk is to shrug it off, the EU could bring additional penalties. And that's the deeper tension here. The DSA might be Europe's rulebook, but its biggest impacts fall on American platforms,

putting Brussels on a collision course with a Trump administration determined to protect U.S. tech innovation and free speech. And that, my friends, is the president's daily brief for Monday, the 8th of December. Now, if you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at PDB at thefirsttv.com. And I hope you had a chance to catch this weekend's PDB Situation Report. That's our extended weekend show, of course. Our guests this weekend included Ryan Thorpe, one of the investigative journalists who broke the story on the growing Minnesota fraud scandal that has cost taxpayers at least $1 billion and could grow by many estimates.

to several billion dollars. It's a tale essentially of negligent state politicians, or worse than negligent, ignoring or actively avoiding clear signs and evidence of fraud over a period of years. And, of course, a story of numerous fraudsters, including many within the Somali community of Minnesota, taking advantage of important health care programs designed to support the neediest citizens of Minnesota. You can always catch the latest and past episodes of the Situation Report on our YouTube, channel. You can find that, of course, on YouTube. That's no surprise. Just go to at President's Daily Brief,

as well as on podcast platforms throughout podcast land. I'm Mike Baker, and I'll be back later today with the PDB afternoon bulletin. Until then, stay informed. Stay safe. Stay cool. Ryan Reynolds here for MintMobil,

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