The President's Daily Brief - February 26th, 2026: Inside Nicolás Maduro's Last Days as Venezuela's Leader & CIA Launches Iran Operation

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

In this episode of The President’s Daily Brief: First up — new reporting reveals how a five-minute phone call between President Trump and Nicolás Maduro may have sealed the Venezuelan strongman’s fate, as misread intentions helped turn diplomacy into military action and, ultimately, a prison cell. Later in the show — amid mounting pressure on Tehran, the CIA launches a rare recruitment push aimed directly at Iranians. Plus — the United Kingdom slaps sanctions on nearly 300 Russian-linked entities after an email blunder exposed a network of illicit oil traders tied to Moscow’s energy and military sectors. And in today’s Back of the Brief — Russia accuses Ukraine of seeking to acquire a nuclear weapon with help from the UK and France, a claim Kyiv and Western officials dismiss as baseless disinformation.  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 American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.org APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB  Ultra Pouches: Don’t sleep on @ultrapouches. New customers get 15% Off with code PDB at https://takeultra.com! #UltraPouches #ad Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's Thursday, the 26th of February. Welcome to the President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, new reporting reveals how a five-minute phone call between President Trump and Nicholas Maduro may have sealed the Venezuelan strongman's fate. We'll break down the miscalculation that led Maduro from his life as Venezuela's dictator to a jail cell in Brooklyn.

Later in the show, amid mounting pressure on Tehran, the CIA launches a rare recruitment push aimed directly at Iranians. Plus, the United Kingdom slaps sanctions on nearly 300 Russian-linked entities after an email blunder exposed a network of illicit oil traders tied to Moscow's energy and military sectors. And in today's back of the brief, Moscow is accusing Ukraine of trying to acquire a nuclear weapon with help from Britain and France. Oh, they must be outraged. Apparently, Moscow forgot that it invaded Ukraine four years ago and is responsible for this entire sad, costly conflict. But first, today's PDB spotlight.

We're learning new details about the final weeks that led up to the fall of Nicholas Maduro, thanks to reporting from the New York Times. And at the center of this story, it wasn't a missile strike or a special forces raid. It was a five-to-10-minute phone call between Maduro and President Trump, where both leaders walked away with completely different impressions of what had just happened. According to the reporting, the call, which took place in late November of this past year, was cordial, even light at moments. Trump complimented Maduro's strong voice and invited him to Washington. Maduro joked back through a translator.

There were no explicit threats, no clear agreements, no roadmap laid out for Maduro's exit. And that was the problem. Trump reportedly expected Maduro to outline some kind of serious plan to step aside, or at least signal that he understood the gravity of the situation. Maduro believed he was projecting confidence and flexibility, but what Trump heard was a leader who wasn't taking the moment seriously. Ultimately, Maduro ended the call believing that he had the upper hand. He thought he had bought time that the U.S. military buildup offshore was leverage, a pressure tactic designed to extract concessions. Trump, by contrast, concluded that Maduro wasn't leaving voluntarily. Now, the phone call wasn't the only miscalculation. It was part of a pattern.

And in the weeks after that late November phone call, Maduro's public behavior became another point of contention. He made televised appearances where he danced and delivered slogans in English, moments that were widely circulated and reportedly irritated members of the Trump team, who saw them as a kind of mockery rather than genuine outreach. that perception fed into the White House's view that he wasn't taking U.S. pressure seriously. Maduro never actually considered resigning, even as sanctions tightened. Even as U.S. officials, intermediaries, and foreign governments relayed warnings. At one point, he floated the idea of early elections in 2026, not immediate resignation,

which tells you he still believed he could control the timeline. More telling, according to the reporting, Maduro fundamentally misread Trump's motivations. He believed the White House didn't see him personally as the problem. Instead, he thought he simply needed to identify an economic spoil something Trump wanted and structure a deal around it. In other words, he believed this was transactional, and given President Trump's history of dealmaking, that wasn't an irrational assumption. But in this particular circumstance, well, it was wrong. Meanwhile, inside Maduro's government, fault lines were widening. Maduro reportedly considered firing his vice president, Delcy Redri's.

He suspected that she was consolidating power, tightening her grip on the national purse strings, sidelining rivals, simultaneously holding the roles of vice president, oil minister, and finance minister. That concentration of authority would normally be threatening to an autocrat, but Maduro didn't remove her. And you ask yourself, well, why not? Well, because he needed her. Rodriguez had become the managerial core of what remained of Venezuela's economy. Oil revenues were under pressure, storage tanks were filling, wells were shutting down, the blockade was biting. And Rodriguez was the only figure with the expertise in operational control

to keep the system functioning. And that decision to keep her, because he couldn't afford not to, goes a long way toward explaining why she's now in the position that she's in. She wasn't just politically connected. She was economically indispensable. Then there's the tactical layer to this story. As pressure mounted, Maduro began shrinking his personal footprint, fewer public appearances, pre-recorded speeches, a tighter security circle, reduced entourage. The intent was clear. Limit exposure, avoid infiltration, prevent targeting. But by consolidating his protective detail and narrowing his circle, he reduced the layers between himself and an external strike. He isolated himself, and in trying to obscure his movements, well, he made himself more predictable. When U.S. aircraft struck

multiple bases and moved to capture him, that smaller protective bubble proved, obviously, insufficient. Ironically, the steps he took to protect himself were shaped by the same strategic misjudgment that defined the crisis, the belief that escalation would stop short of decisive action. There's a broader lesson here. The regime collapses rarely hinge on one dramatic moment. They unfold through accumulated misreads of adversaries, of allies, of internal dynamics. Maduro misjudged the White House's resolve. He misjudged the leverage sanctions represented. He misjudged how little patience remained.

And perhaps most critically, he misjudged how personally he had become the obstacle. All right, coming up next, the CIA steps out of the shadows with a direct recruitment push aimed at Iranians. And a simple IT mistake triggers sweeping UK sanctions targeting Russia's energy and military sectors. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here. Let me take just a moment to talk about personal finances and reaching your financial goals, very important topics. So let's be honest, for many folks right now, it can seem like the math just isn't adding up. You know what I'm talking about? Grocery store bills, utility bills, gas bills, skyrocketing insurance premiums. It can be tough to make ends meet. Even with a steady job, more and more families are being forced to rely on high-interest credit cards to cover expenses. So if you're a homeowner caught in that cycle, carrying balances with industry rates in the 20s or even 30s, well, it's time to get some relief. American financing is helping homeowners pay off that high-interest debt at rates in the low fives. Their salary-based mortgage consultants build exit strategies to get out from under that debt.

On average, they're saving their customers $800 a month. Plus, if you start today, you may even delay the next two mortgage payments, and there's no upfront fees to find out just how much you can save. America's Home for Home Loans is American Financing. number is 866-885-1881. Again, that number 866-885-1881, or just visit Americanfinancing.net slash PDB. Welcome back to the PDB. In an unusually direct move, the CIA has gone straight to the Iranian people. Through a Farsi-language appeal posted across social media, the agency is inviting citizens inside the Islamic Republic with access to classified material to step forward as informants,

as sources. Basically, it's an online recruitment drive. The message, which was published on X and Instagram and YouTube, opens with a direct appeal, quote, the CIA, here's your voice and wants to help you, inviting those with, quote, sensitive information or unique skills to make secure contact with the agency in an effort to expand intelligence at a moment of rising tension inside the regime. The message opening tells you everything about how unusual this is. It's not a quiet back channel or classified whisper. This is the CIA speaking plainly and publicly to people living inside one of the world's most opaque and surveilled countries. Now, what elevates us beyond a routine message is what the agency did next. It released a detailed video walking potential informants step by step through how to make

contact without being detected by Iranian security services. Now, the regime has obviously long relied on surveillance and censorship and intimidation to maintain its authoritarian grip. The agent's agency is advising potential sources how to communicate covertly. The message which guarded millions of views instructs prospective sources not to use office computers or personal phones. If possible, the CIA advised relying on a disposable burner device. The message told viewers to ensure that no one could see their screen or monitor their activity. Then the instructions became even more specific. Use updated browsers, switch to private or incognito mode, and clear browsing histories after making contact.

The message strongly conveys the need to consider anonymity tools, like utilizing a Tor browser or a virtual private network. Without those protections, the CIA warns. Even visiting the agency's website could be visible to Iranian security services. Now, let's step back for a moment. The CIA has posted recruitment messages before, in Russian, Korean, and Mandarin. But a direct Farsi language appeal aimed squarely at people inside Iran is rare. with the last one being several years ago.

And the agency has been explicit in past campaigns about why it does this. Authoritarian governments restrict information, limit-free movement, and make speaking out dangerous, of course. Now, as we've been tracking here on the PDB, ideological protests inside the regime have been unfolding on university and school campuses for several days. Demonstrations that appear this time less about economic grievances and more about directly challenging the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic. and its leadership. While so far, these latest protests do appear confined to universities and schools, that kind of unrest carries weight in the Islamic Republic, where student movements have historically signaled deeper political strain.

The outreach from the CIA also comes as Washington and Tehran sit down in Geneva today for renewed nuclear negotiations. And this latest effort of diplomacy is, of course, unfolding alongside the visible U.S. military buildup in the Gulf. As I've previously discussed, U.S. forces have surged into the Middle East in recent weeks, as President Trump emphasizes that while negotiations are ongoing, military options remain available should Iran refuse to abandon its nuclear ambitions. In recent interviews, officials within the Islamic Republic say a deal is, quote,

within reach, portraying momentum and goodwill from Tehran. Yes, Tehran is known for its goodwill. Now, whether the Mullahs believe that or are simply trying to control the narrative in order to buy time, Well, that's anyone's guess. But the CIA's public recruitment drive makes it clear that when it comes to the regime negotiating a good faith, Washington is skeptical. I mean, after all, this is the regime that just finished murdering thousands of its own citizens and detaining tens of thousands more. Why would anyone start from the premise that they would either negotiate in good faith or abide by any agreements? All right, now I want to turn to a sanctions crackdown out of the United Kingdom,

where an IT blunder exposed a shadow network of oil traders quietly bankrolling Russia's war in Ukraine. London is responding with nearly 300 new sanctions targets. The crackdown follows excellent investigative reporting by the Financial Times, which uncovered a shared IT server used by dozens of companies involved in Russian crude transactions. The digital overlap, which is an apparent operative. mistake of epic proportions, allowed reporters to identify sanctions-busting entities that had been presenting themselves as independent firms. In other words, companies that were supposed to look

separate and distinct were effectively operating out of the same digital back office. By cross-referencing those companies' names with Russian and Indian customs data, the news outlet identified roughly $90 billion in oil shipments tied to 48 companies. What emerged from that reporting is what UK officials now refer to as the Two Rivers Network, described by London's foreign office as a, quote, dark web of illicit oil traders and one of the largest shadow fleet operators globally. More than half the nearly 300 new sanctions listings announced by London are tied to entities linked to that network. Now the question is, well, who's behind it? The Financial Times reports the network has been linked to a Zeri businessman Tahrir Garayev, who has long-standing

ties to Russian oil giant Rosnev. Now, Goryev has denied involvement. The two-wivers group, formerly Coral Energy, and now under new ownership, told the outlet it has no connection to the companies referenced in the sanctions or to any alleged network. We have no idea what's going on. But regardless of those denials, British officials say the structure itself tells the story. Here's how it worked. One cluster of companies would purchase oil inside Russia. A separate cluster would then sell that oil abroad. By splitting transactions across multiple corporate entities, traders made it difficult for regulators to match cargo origins with final sale prices. That layering allowed participants to disguise involvement

and potentially conceal sales that breached the international price cap, that's a G7 policy, designed to limit how much Russia can legally earn per barrel of oil. Breaking that down, it means that This wasn't some rogue trader or a one-off scheme. It was a sophisticated architecture designed to keep Russian oil revenues flowing for the war effort, even as Western governments try to choke off those revenues. UK Foreign Secretary of Eck Cooper called this, quote, our largest raft of measures since the early months of Russia's invasion, saying the objective is to disrupt, quote,

the critical financing, military equipment, and revenue streams that sustain Russia's aggression, end quote. But oil traders are only, part of this picture. The sanctions package expands restrictions on Transneft, Russia's state pipeline operator, along with nine liquefied natural gas entities and 48 tankers. Those vessels are linked to what Western officials describe as Russia's shadow fleet, which, as regular PDB listeners know, are tankers operating under opaque ownership structures and flags of convenience to move sanctioned crude. The UK also added nine Russian banks accused of processing cross-border payments, targeting the financial plumbing that allows energy transactions to clear.

Western governments have increasingly focused on correspondent banking access, forcing Moscow to build alternative payment systems, often involving Chinese financial channels, to keep trade moving. London also sanctioned 49 entities and individuals accused of supporting Russia's military industrial base, including Chinese suppliers, alleged to have provided goods or technology benefiting the war effort. All right. Coming up in today's back of the brief, the Kremlin alleges Ukraine is pursuing a nuclear capability with Western backing. We'll have the details when we come back.

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There's just one problem. They offered absolutely no evidence. Well, there's a surprise. Not a document, not a satellite image, not even vague or uncorroborated intel. Just a statement timed neatly to coincide with the war's anniversary and ongoing U.S. brokered talks. For background, Ukraine gave up the world's third largest nuclear arsenal in the 1990. under what was then known as a Budapest memorandum. It's a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. So for Britain or France, both nuclear powers, to secretly transfer warheads to Kiev,

well, that would fracture NATO, it would detonate the global non-proliferation regime, and it would trigger an immediate international crisis. The diplomatic fallout would be instant and severe. Instead, we have denials from London, Paris, and Kiev, and a claim from Moscow without any receipts. The SVR also floated the term dirty bomb. Now, that's worth clarifying. A dirty bomb is not an atomic weapon. It's a conventional explosive laced with radioactive material designed to contaminate a confined area. It creates panic and disruption for sure, not a nuclear mushroom cloud. And Russia has pushed this same accusation in the past, again without any evidence. Which brings us to the broader pattern. When battlefield momentum shifts, when Western support increases, when negotiations stole, when Ukraine experiences some success in regaining territory, Moscow reaches for nuclear rhetoric.

It's meant to intimidate, it's meant to sow doubt inside Europe, to test Washington's resolve. And then there is Dmitri Medvedev, former president, now deputy chairman of Russia's security counsel and, of course, Putin's chief saber-rattler. He wasted no time, threatening the use of non-strategic nuclear weapons if the West arms Ukraine with atomic warheads. Medvedev is essentially Putin's online attack dog. His specialty is apocalyptic messaging. He barks loudly, he promises escalation, and regularly predicts catastrophe. It never materializes, but it sounds ominous in his posts on X. He is the boy who cries wolf. Essentially, though, this is all Moscow's standard use of information warfare, a narrative designed to frame Ukraine as reckless, Europe as irresponsible,

and Russia, as he aggrieved nuclear power forced to respond. All right, that, my friends, is the President's Daily Brief for Thursday, the 26th of February. Now, if you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at PDB at thefirsttv.com. And should you be so inclined, and hopefully you are, take a moment of your time to check out our YouTube channel. Oddly enough, it's on YouTube. Just search up at President's Daily Brief. If you like what you see, and hopefully you will, please hit that subscribe button. I'm Mike Baker, and I'll be back later today with the PDB afternoon bulletin.

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