The President's Daily Brief - June 2nd, 2022. What Do We Do About School Shootings?

Episode Date: June 2, 2022

It’s June 2nd. 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 up, How can we prevent school shootings? There’s a new study out this morning that offers a possible solution, and it’s one that we can all take part in. I’ll discuss the latest. As always, I’m keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put these two on your radar. First, hold on to your wallet, you might have to pay more for batteries and products that use tin, all because of a war brewing in the Congo. I’ll fill you in on the details. Second, the Biden Administration is sending some bigger guns to Ukraine this morning. We’ll talk about the risk that they pose to escalating the war. 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 June 2nd. 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. 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 in the past 24 hours, all delivered to the president each day 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. First up, how can we prevent school shootings? There's a new study out this morning that offers a possible solution, and it's one that we can all take part in. I'll discuss the latest. As always, I'm keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put these two on your radar. First, hold onto your wallet. You might have to be paying more for batteries and products that use tin, all because of a war brewing in the Congo. I'll fill you in on the details. Second, the Biden administration is sending some bigger guns to Ukraine this morning.

We're going to talk about the risk that they pose to escalating that war. up next on the President's Daily Brief. Own it all. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package.

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Your style can make you cash. Start selling on Deepop where taste recognizes taste. First up this morning, school shootings are clearly on our hearts after what happened in Texas last week, and we are all wrestling with what to do. Some people are focusing exclusively on gun control, and I appreciate why. But before we talk about guns, and we will, I want to first talk about the shooters, the children who pull the triggers. We have a new study out this morning that talks about that, and there's a possible solution.

and better yet, it's a solution that all of us can participate in. But before we get there, a quick background on how I view this issue. As a CIA officer, a good chunk of my career was spent stopping terrorism, and that meant that my colleagues and I had to understand who the terrorists were, to get into their minds. Now, we might call that profiling, which has developed a dirty reputation, but it's used all the time in the fuels of intelligence and law enforcement, and for good reason.

because to stop terror, we had to understand the people using it. With radical Islamic terror, our criminal was pretty consistent in their profile. They were young, male, and either very impressionable, they were bored, or very, very angry. Now, we were definitely interested in their weapon of choice, a chemical attack, let's say, or a gun or an airplane. And yes, we thought about how to limit certain weapons or to strengthen America against a certain kind of attack. For instance, with planes, we encouraged airlines to harden their doors to the cockpit, or we worked with schools to give an eye on young males from certain countries with an interest in flight lessons. But the point is that we knew that our terrorists, those young males, they would find a weapon

to kill no matter what obstacles we put in their way. So that meant that we had to encourage either preventative efforts or de-radicalization programs, often in places like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. And unfortunately, it's true for those individuals, those young men that we couldn't save, we had to put them in jail, or six feet under. But if we could get countries to intervene with these young men before they ever committed an act of terror, then we knew that we would lessen the number of future terrorists and terror attacks. I offer all of that because that's how I view this issue of stopping American school killers. I want to profile them to understand who they are, what makes them tick, all in hopes that, we can stop someone from ever becoming a killer in the first place. And we actually have a really

good idea of who these school killers are. First, upwards of 98% of school shooters are male. The Violence Project has some good data on that. The second thing that we know, at least 70% of all school shootings over the past 20 years have been carried out by kids, people under the age of 18. In other words, America's school shooters are young and male. just like the profile of terrorists I worked against abroad. Now, there are a couple of other important pieces of intel to consider here, too. For instance, most of these young men get their guns from unlocked cabinets back home from a parent or a guardian. So that should be an important issue to focus on, too, for what it's worth.

But still, it's that overwhelming profile of young men that should cause us to ask what in the world is going on with this small subset of America's young men. Now, that's a big question with lots of competing and complicated research, but there's one thing that always stands out to me. About half of young male shooters report that they feel rejected by their parents and by their peers. They describe themselves as being unwanted and untethered. And people who feel disconnected and rejected, well, they start to lose incentive to follow the rules, to be decent, to think of consequences. To say this to, differently, when you are an angry young man who loses connection to those around you, well, you can lose your purpose and your mind. And then a small number of those lost young men find

purpose in the infamy that comes with being a killer. To say this differently, when an angry young man loses connection to those around him, he can lose purpose and his mind. And then a small number of those lost young men find new purpose in the infamy that comes with being a killer, and it doesn't matter that the weapon was a gun or otherwise. Now, this seems like a pretty impossible thing to fix, doesn't it? Because how do you reach these young men and then connect them back to family and friends when they're not even your own kids? Well, a study came out yesterday that was really timely, and I think it helps answer one part of that question. And the good news here is that you and I are part of the solution.

Researchers at California State University published a study that was looking at the mental health and well-being of, get this, 11,235 kids all aged 9 to 13. They wanted to understand whether playing sports had any influence on a child's mental health, and if so, was it good or bad? They also wondered whether it mattered if the sport was individual, like a track or tennis, as compared to a team sport like baseball or basketball. And what they found is really fascinating. For girls, it didn't particularly matter if they joined a team or played on their own.

Sports in general helped improve their mental health and well-being regardless. But for boys, it was different. When boys played individual sports, it actually increased signs of anxiety and depression, attention problems, withdrawal. The guess here is that the solo nature of those sports, Well, it could have added a degree of personal pressure in order to be successful. That just got to be a bit much for some of them. But for boys who joined a team sport, the opposite was true.

It lowered anxiety, lowered depression and withdrawal. It lowered social problems. And when you think about it, the data here matches what we'd imagine to be true from our own lives. Team sports, especially for boys, they're about brotherhood, friendship, community. It's about leaving behind the troubles at home or school, and you find a group of buddies that gave you support, camaraderie, connectedness that all of us need, but especially young men. And it's all of those things, that brotherhood, that connectedness.

Well, those are the very same things that school killers say they lacked. Now, this study doesn't explore other team-like activities that you might have participated when you were a kid, for instance, like band or mock trial. Nor does it consider the other things. like church youth groups, something that I always enjoyed. But perhaps there's data out there that support whether those things are good or not. Send me that information if you've got it. But in the meantime, I highlight this very timely study about team sports, because not only does it give us

hope for a solution, but it actually gives you and I a way forward to be part of it. And that way forward is to be a volunteer, to coach. It doesn't matter what the team sport is or even if we're any good at it. It just doesn't matter. What only matters is our presence in the lives of these kids, even if they're not ours. And that in turn gives those disconnected and hurting young men a stabilizing force, the structure for them to have buddies, to have connectedness, to have purpose. So if you were the president this morning, I'd encourage you to highlight this latest data out of California State University to share the good news that with all of the debate and Ranker in Washington, D.C. and the country right now, there's one thing that people can all do

starting today right now that may very well prevent the next school shooting. So tell you what, let's get our kids into team sports. And if you don't have kids, volunteer to coach some. You might just be saving some lives if you do. Exema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with ebb glist, a once-monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema. After an initial four-month or longer dosing phase, about four and seven people taking ebbglis, achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing. Ebglis, Librikizumab, LBKZ. A 250 milligram per two milliliter injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older

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Before starting, Epgless, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about ebbglis and visit ebglis.com or call 1-800-lilyrx or 1-800-545-9-9-9. As always, I'm watching a few other stories this morning. Put these two on your radar. If you buy batteries or products that use 10, well, hold onto your wallet because you might be paying more for all of it. That's because there's a war brewing in a Congo. So let's unpack this story. And to do it well, you might want to grab a map, either one in your mind or on your computer screen. The Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC for short, it's a country that's in Central Africa. And it's one of the most

incredible countries in the world, actually. It's got jungles and savannas. It's absolutely gorgeous. It's also a powerhouse, literally. DRC has more hydropower than virtually. anywhere else in the world. The Congo River could produce enough electricity to light up most of the entire African continent. Unfortunately, corruption is what's keeping it back. Regardless, I want you to look at the southern part of DRC, down towards the country of Zambia. That is the area called Katanga Province, and it has large deposits of copper and cobalt, both of which are really, really important for things like batteries and electric cars. All right, so now I want you to move your eyes north and east, to an area that's called North or South Kivu province. They're right next to the countries of

Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda. Now, in this area, there is a lot of tin and some diamonds. And that area, by the way, is sometimes called the Great Lakes region. But nevertheless, it's in an area that's unfortunately some of the most violent around. And depending on how things go in the next number of weeks, that could really impact at least the tin market. And if it spreads, other mining areas too, where that copper is in particular. If you have your maps, I want you to look for the city of Goma in eastern Congo. You'll see a beautiful lake to your south, it's Lake Kivu, and then an incredible set of volcanoes to your north. And then, unfortunately, all around you is an assortment of fighters from different tribal and national groups who really hate each other.

You may remember back in the 1990s there was a horrific genocide in Rwanda involving the Hutu and the Tutsi people. There was a half of a million citizens who were killed. The ghosts of that era and the desire for vengeance are both really still strong. Militias on all sides of that conflict still float around in the region to this day. And every once in a while, violence will explode. In the past couple of weeks, that's exactly what has happened. Over 70,000 people have fled their homes, all near that Goma area. For many, it's not the first time that they've had to pack up and leave.

It's absolutely heartbreaking. Now, there are attempts at peace this morning to calm things down, but so far no dice. The fighting is picking up, I'm sorry to say. And the fear, as always, is that this will spiral out of control, and we could see an awful loss of life. And then, of course, as the fighting gets worse, mining operations would be affected too. And that could mean less cobalt, less copper, and less tin. In other words, less supply in the global marketplace. And depending on market conditions, we could be talking about higher prices globally

for all the things that you buy that have those minerals inside. So this is an important story, and even though we don't pay a lot of attention to Sub-Saharan Africa these days, I'm going to keep my eye out for updates. Our last brief of the morning, an update on the escalation in Ukraine. We've got two sets of equipment heading to Kia this morning, one in particular that is a pretty big deal, an advanced drone. But first, let's do a quick recap. As I briefed you on over the past couple of months, Joe Biden and his European partners have week by week sent weaponry that's increasingly advanced with a longer reach, a bigger boom. Well, yesterday, President Biden announced a new package of weapons, and, well, we're seeing that exact same pattern of bigger and better.

The first weapon wasn't actually announced officially, but I've got it on good authority that we're about to send what's called an MQ1C Grey Eagle drone. Now, some of you who served in the military might know its cousin, the predator, from our military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. These drones are Cadillacs compared to the Toyotas we've been sending them so far. The Grey Eagles can fly up to 30 hours or more. They can conduct pretty incredible intelligence work with their cameras, and here's the big part. They can carry eight or so missiles. They're also reusable. They're like a plane.

As compared to the suicide drones that we've been sending so far, where the drone will identify a target and then dive bomb it like a kamikaze pilot. One final bit on this. Normally training on these kinds of drones takes months, but the Pentagon has found a way to do it in a few weeks. The second piece of equipment is the high mobility artillery rocket system, or high Mars. This is a truck-mounted artillery system. and it can carry six rockets.

And in this case, those rockets are what are called medium range or about 45 miles. And that's really important because the longer the range, the further that the Ukrainians can fire into Russia directly if they wanted to. And that range is really important because the longer the range, the further that the Ukrainians could fire those missiles directly into Russia. And that would be a major escalation. So Biden and the Pentagon are wholly not. for now on those longer-range missiles because of that threat or that concern.

Plus, they've asked Ukraine's president not to use those medium-range missiles to attack targets inside Russia, and Zelensky, the president, has promised not to. Well, you can probably guess what Putin thinks of all this. His spokesman yesterday was very upset, warning that the West is pushing us into direct confrontation. It was a similar message that Putin himself delivered to the leaders of Germany and France last weekend. So whether this is the red line for Moscow, these new weapons, well, nobody can say for sure. But this equipment package fits the pattern that I've briefed you on before. America and Europe keep pushing the envelope with bigger and more aggressive weaponry,

waiting then to see Putin's response, and then once they get it, pushing for more and bigger weaponry if Putin doesn't do anything other than maybe throw a little bit of a fit. So I will be absolutely watching this as always, looking for indicators that we found that final red line, and unfortunately, we've crossed it. 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, verse 32. And you shall know the truth.

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