The President's Daily Brief - January 30th, 2023. Biden Intel Scandal Continues to Unfold. Updates on Our Involvement in Ukraine and The Impact on A Potential War on China.

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

It’s January 30th. You’re listening to the President’s Daily Brief. Your morning intel starts now. ------ A good day to you, ladies and gentlemen. I’ve got five briefs for you this morning that are shaping America — and the world. First, an update on the Joe Biden Intel Scandal. We’ve now got notebooks of classified material to talk about. Not just a few pages. Second, the recent rains in California came down a little too hard, leaving farmers in a tough spot. The results will impact your grocery bill. Third, Hollywood is shipping some of its jobs to Mexico. I’ll tell you which ones. Fourth, an update from Ukraine, including how titanium mining might help explain part of the reason for why America and Europe are so keen to win. Fifth, we head to Fiji this morning where the new prime minister is turning towards America and away from China. Later, we close out the podcast with a listener question about my comment last Friday that America’s socialists actually think that communism is great. They call it advanced socialism. I’ll give you more details. ----- Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief. Email: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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officer Brian Dean Wright. Your morning Intel starts now. Hey good day to you, ladies and gentlemen. I've got five briefs for you this morning that are shaping America and the world. First, an update on the Joe Biden Intel scandal. We've now got no books of classified material to talk about, not just a few pages. Second, the recent rains in California came down a little too hard, leaving farmers there in a tough spot. The results of that will impact you and your grocery bill. Third, Hollywood is shipping some of its jobs to Mexico. I'll tell you which ones.

Fourth, an update from Ukraine, including how titanium mining might help explain part of the reason for why America and Europe are so keen to win. Fifth, we head to Fiji this morning, where the new prime minister is turning towards America and away from China. later we close out the podcast with a listener question about my comment last Friday that America's socialists actually think that communism is great. They call it advanced socialism, actually. I'll give you more details. But before we get to that, we got to get started with this. An update this morning on the Joe Biden Intel scandal. We've got notebooks of classified material

to talk about. Now, before I give you the details, a quick refresh on this story. Back on January 20, The FBI searched the garage, library, and other rooms in Mr. Biden's home looking for classified materials. Now, this was on top of the previous materials that were discovered in his personal office in D.C. Now, at the time of the FBI search, Biden's attorneys said that there were six items to be recovered. Some media outlets inferred that that meant six documents. But I warned you all that the items could actually be lots of documents, like binders and boxes and computer thumb drives. In fact, that's exactly what we're learning this morning. According to NBC News, the FBI discovered notebooks that Mr. Biden wrote in during his time

as vice president. The material includes his recollection of meetings and topics discussed. And those notes include classified information. Now, the material wasn't marked classified because, well, Biden failed to do so. In fact, that's something that you might not know. Even when you take notes in these sorts of meetings and settings, you are obligated. to classify that handwritten material, even if that means using your own handwriting as a secret or top secret. And of course, Mr. Biden knew that. He had been a senator dealing with classified

information since 1973. All right, one final note here on this growing scandal for Mr. Biden. These notebooks are just one of the six sets of items that were discovered. So when you add up the remaining five items, we could be talking about thousands of pages. And that's because of the large number of notebooks that Biden apparently kept. In fact, the sources are saying that the number is quite large. So there you have it. Details are sparse this morning, but the drip, drip, drip of this Biden intel scandal continues to grow. And I'm telling you, rest assured, we ain't seen nothing yet on this, folks. I'll keep you posted. Next up, get those seeds ready for your springtime garden because fruit and vegetable prices are likely going to go up over the next six months.

That's the word from the trade group Western growers who's taking stock of California's Central Valley this morning as they clean up from the weeks of massive rains and snowfalls. Now, as I briefed you on this before, that water was an absolute blessing, terrible drought out west. Snow packs are at a record high in many places, but unfortunately it came down pretty hard and pretty fast in various spots, leaving a fair amount of damage in its wake to include in the agricultural communities of Central California. So this trade group, Western growers, is saying that the damage from these very heavy storms will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps even in the billions. Meanwhile, some of the ground is just too muddy to start cleaning out the debris and, most importantly, get seeds into the soil. And that is a bad deal for Central California, which produces north of $50 billion annually

worth of fruits and vegetables that you and I buy at the grocery store. And that delay of planting means that there will be. be a gap in harvest sometime this spring and summer when those crops would have otherwise been coming out of the field. And that will reduce supply and inevitably lead to some higher prices on the shelf. So I'll keep monitoring this for which specific products you might expect to see a shortage in or the resulting price hikes. But for now, you might want to get ahead of that expense. Well, get to those garden seeds and prepare accordingly. All right, let's stay in California for our next brief. And this one has to do with our friends.

in Hollywood. Some of them are not so happy this morning. Their jobs are getting shipped off to Mexico. All right, first, some background on this one. A couple of years ago, Warner Brothers and the Discovery Network announced a $43 billion merger, and they have been cutting jobs ever since. Like, for instance, at their cable news outlet CNN, they cut around 400 jobs there recently. Well, they decided to cut even deeper this time in Hollywood. They sliced about 10% off at their finance staff in Burbank, California. They're sending those jobs around 175 to Mexico, where labor is cheaper. Meanwhile, other teams and Warner Brothers Discovery, like their HR folks and their marketing folks,

well, they're facing cuts of upwards of 30%. One final note here. So these layoffs continue the pattern that we're actually seen across all sorts of industries over the past couple months. In short, American companies are starting to see a slowdown of sales, both domestic and abroad. And that's leading to increasing layoffs. And we're talking industries from high finance in New York to big tech in California. And so for what it's worth, most forecasters that I pay attention to are saying that these kinds of layoffs are probably going

to accelerate over the next six months or so. So you may want to keep that in mind if you're considering some big purchases or big life moves, probably some tough headwinds coming our way. With that, ladies and gentlemen, let's take a quick break. When we come back, I've got two more critical pieces of news for you. So hang tight and we will be right back. Spring is the season everyone refreshes everything except their blinds. People put it off because they think it's complicated. But at blinds.com, we've spent 30 years proving it's not.

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Rules and restrictions apply. Welcome back to the PDB. I've got two more critical pieces of news for you this morning. Get your passports ready, folks, because we are heading first to Ukraine with an update on a possible new motivation for why the West is so deeply involved in that conflict. And it has to do with mining. But before I dive into that, two other quick updates on the escalating war. First, conversations are now shifting from. tanks, which Ukraine just got, to jets and missiles, which Ukraine desperately wants.

So let's start with those planes. According to the media outlet Politico, the U.S. Pentagon is considering the provision of F-16 jets, not really sure how many. Rumors are anywhere from 20 to 40. So background, right now Ukraine operates old Soviet mig fighters, meaning that these F-16s would be a notable step up. plus these American jets have been around for a while. The F-16 was first built in the 1980s.

And the Eos Air Force is actually retiring parts of this fleet for more advanced jets. So there are some spare F-16s to offer. Well, apparently Ukraine has identified a list of 50 pilots who are ready to start training on these jets. Apparently, they are pretty seasoned pilots who speak English and could be trained in as little as three months, but more likely towards six. Now, I should note that this move of providing these kinds of jets would be very escalatory, much like those tanks were that we just provided. And it's why this proposal for jets would have to be signed off on by Mr. Biden, which he has not done. And so if he doesn't, Ukraine is apparently looking for equivalents,

like the Swedish jet Gripen or the German jet, the tornado. Although getting those equivalents doesn't appear exactly likely, at least at this moment. Germany's Chancellor said yesterday that, quote, the fact that we've only just made a decision on sending tanks and already the next debate about fighter jets is firing up, that just seems frivolous and undermines people's trust in government decisions, end quote. All right. So as that debate heats up about those jets,

there's also another one that we should be talking about. It's providing Ukraine a type of U.S. missile. It's called the Army Tactical Missile System, and that actually hits targets around 200,000. miles away. Ukraine says that it wants that range in particular so that it can hit weapons depots that are deep inside Russian territory, either in the Russian homeland or on the Russian-held Crimea. Now, what's interesting about this, I think, is that the Biden administration has declined to provide these missiles now for months. In fact, they said back in July that providing

them would take the world, quote, down the road to World War III. But now, apparently, these missiles are, in on the table of conversation. And that's due in part because, as I've shared with you all previously, the U.S. and Europe are exploring whether Ukraine should undertake a spring offensive to take back territory, perhaps even Crimea. One final note for you on Ukraine this morning, moving away from the missiles and the jets, and actually just taking a step back, all right? Have you all ever wondered why America and Europe are fighting so hard with so many billions of dollars to secure Ukraine's future? Now, most of us will think or say to ourselves, well, it's to punish Russia for their invasion of the country. And that's absolutely true.

But there might be something else for us to consider. Newsweek is reporting there are growing conversations on U.S. Capitol Hill and the White House about how to exploit Ukraine's deposits of titanium and rare earth metals. And to understand why these are so important, you have to understand how we use them with titanium. in particular, and who controls most of the world supply. So when it comes to how we use titanium, well, goodness gracious, pick a military weapon system and it probably has got titanium in it, from ships to advanced jets and weapons of all kinds. That material is absolutely critical to the U.S. military.

But unfortunately, we don't produce much of it. The last domestic producer of titanium, something called titanium sponge, that closed down in the year 2020. That means that we import all this stuff from places that are still mining it and putting it through the refining process. Which of course leads to this. The greatest supplier of what's called, again,

finished titanium sponge? Well, that country is, yeah, you guessed it, China. They've got 57% of global market share of titanium. Japan is second at 17%. Russia is third at 13%. That's according to the U.S. Geological Survey. In other words, 70% of the world's supply of titanium is in the hands of either Russia or China. And that's a problem if you end up in a war with either, as we might.

But Ukraine actually has some substantial deposits of titanium and, before the war, some production and refining capabilities too. So folks at the White House are pitching the idea to Congress, apparently, that Ukraine could become very important for America's future titanium needs and for other rare earth metals. We just have to win the war first. All right, with that, let me pivot from facts and data this morning to my quick analysis and opinion. So as Republicans on Capitol Hill are saying very clearly that they are going to increase their scrutiny of aid to Ukraine, I think what you're going to see is a change by the White House for just to find the tens of billions of dollars that we're sending.

And one justification is that we need to end this war quickly, and the only way to do it is to arm Ukraine with more advanced weaponry like fighter jets and advanced missiles and so forth. So the escalation then is the way that we win, even if that risks an all-out war with Russia. Right now, the other justification that we're likely going to see is that Ukraine has important stuff that we need, both now and in the future. whether that includes establishing U.S. military bases, we get port access on the Black Sea, or, as we all now know, they have critical resources like titanium, especially as we look towards the fight with China. I should note one thing, titanium deposits are actually pretty common. You just have to open up the mines and the refineries, which, as you all know, is not a popular thing to do. Those are, well, they're ugly. So it's better that we put it in. somebody else's backyard, you know, like Ukraine's. And once we do, that will make some people in D.C. and beyond a whole bunch of money, which, by the way, I hear Hunter Biden is really excited about this new opportunity. Okay, that's not true. I just made it up. Getting sassy. Let's move on.

We are going to head next to the Far East with an update on our battle for the Pacific. As PDB listeners know, that's the contest between China and the U.S. on who has supremacy and influence amongst Pacific Island nations should war ever come between Beijing and Washington. By the way, the odds of that happening, well, appears to be growing. On Friday, a four-star general in the Air Force predicted, in a memo actually to his officers, that the U.S. will be at war with China by the year 2025, and he advised that his commanders be prepared. Well, if that does come to pass, God forbid, we have some good news coming out of Fiji this morning. The new prime of that country, a man with the last name of Rabuka, but goes by the nickname Rambo, as you might

remember, he reportedly plans to cancel police training and exchanges with Beijing. Now, the reason for that, according to the local press outlet called the Fiji Times, is that Prime Minister Rambo thinks that it's better to associate his country with Western democracies, not communist China. So here's his quote, our system of democracy and justice are different than China's. So we will go back to those countries that have similar systems with us, end quote. He, of course, is referring there to Australia, New Zealand, and of course the United States. I'll tell you, this is quite something as compared to Rambo's predecessor, the fellow named Prime Minister Biannamarama. That man was very close to Beijing, and with his removal during the last election after 18 years

in office, the pivot towards the West seems pretty clear under the new prime minister. But I'll tell you, this one is worth watching, my friends, because based on my experience, China is not going to watch these developments and just let them happen. They treat these islands as miniature aircraft carriers, allowing Beijing to leapfrog across a Pacific towards the United States in the event of a war. So they will fight to keep them, and they will fight dirty. So let's keep a very close eye on things like sudden deaths and shocking assassinations, or in the case of Fiji, a coup led by the military. In fact, there's a long history there of that happening, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the former prime minister

gathering some loyal troops and enjoying China's blessing as they do so. Regardless, I'll keep you posted. And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we conclude your morning brief. But I got one more thing before I let you go. We'll be right back. Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. Because behind every headline is a bottom line.

whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money side to every story. And when you see the money side, you understand what others miss. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com. Welcome back to the PDB folks. I've got one more thing before I let you go. Last Friday I brought you, I think it was a pretty fun brief. It was called Brian is Wrong.

And during that conversation I shared with you that there's a lot of, that there's a lot of a growing socialist movement in America. And in fact, we see it in the Senate. Bernie Sanders of Vermont represents it there, plus a growing number of representatives in a house like Alexandria Acosio-Cortez. But we've also seen a growth in the number of socialist mayors too, like in Buffalo, New York. So I mentioned that they and their movement, which is called the Democrat Socialists of America, or DSA, they actually view communism quite positively. In fact, they call it advanced social Now, one of you had a question about that. Jack, down in Gadsville, Alabama, he asked, Brian, where did you see that? Because I know it's true, socialists and communists are all Marxist,

but I haven't seen AOC's group admit that it's true. Well, Jack, if you want to dig into this, you can do an internet search for a document entitled, Toward Freedom, Democrat Socialist, theory, and practice. Now, I will warn you that it is a long read and somewhat dense. but it's pretty remarkable for a couple reasons. Because, yes, they admit that socialism is the basis for communism and that communism is just advanced socialism. And again, these are their words, their argument. But this document also says other alarming things.

Let me give you some examples. Workers like you and I, they say, will not be allowed to choose our own professional destinies. That would be left up to the government to decide. whether it's what we can study or, say, being an apprentice. So here's the key sentence from that document on the fact that we're not going to be able to choose anything. Quote, however we organize the division of labor, the structure of careers and life opportunities, it should be decided democratically.

And by democratically, they mean socialist, bureaucrats and politicians deciding for you. By a vote, naturally. Although, to be clear, North Korea has these. kinds of votes too. All right. Doesn't mean that they're actually democratic. All right. One more thing. In this document, they acknowledge that socialism has failed everywhere it's been tried. Seriously, they admit that their own political movement is a dead end and murderous. So just listen to this. Quote, socialism is no longer a pure, innocent ideal. Its appeal has been tarnished by the authoritarian status regimes that have ruled in its name. So they say in this document, we socialists must

rebrand ourselves. They say, hey, we should call ourselves Democrats and promise populist things like free health care, free housing, free child care, and so forth. And they also say, hey, we should demand that companies have policies that prioritize equity and diversity and the environment. So if I could recap and encapsulate this. It's not that they actually truly believe in any of these things. Rather, it's a rebranding exercise. As they say, it's an attempt to reset people's impressions of socialists and socialism. Now, they acknowledge that they actually could run for office as socialists, but until they

rebrand themselves, it's better to run as Democrats. Here's what they say. Our future runs through the Democratic Party, not around it. So politicians like AOC are Democrats, sure, but in name only, only until such time as they either rebrand themselves or take over the Democrat Party. Then they launch into what is what they really want to do, and that is advanced socialism. Yeah, communism. Now, look, all of this sounds kind of crazy, doesn't it?

Like a conspiracy theory? But this document, folks, it's actually on their website. They documented it all them. themselves. And yes, by the way, I took screenshots just in case they ever delete it. So, Jack, and anybody else with an interest, don't just believe me on this. Verify it for yourselves. Their website is dsausa.org. So it's one of their strategy documents that you can search for. And the title, once again, is toward freedom, Democrat, socialist, theory, and practice. So bottom line, folks, we can't say that they didn't warn us.

They're telling us exactly who they are and how they will take over America. In my view, and in my opinion, history tells us that we should stop this communist movement with anything and everything we've got. And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes your morning brief. As always, we close out the show reminding each other 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, 1st 32. And you shall know the truth. And the truth shall make you free.

Good day.