The President's Daily Brief - May 26th, 2022. Cuba’s Sugar Crops Suffer, How Does This Impact the US? Putin Acts to Secure Russian Support

Episode Date: May 26, 2022

It’s May 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 up, There’s a new immigration crisis to report. Not from Mexico though, but Cuba. We’ll talk about what’s happening. Your second brief, If you didn’t get sick during the COVID crisis — and I mean sick from any virus or bacteria — then that might be a very bad thing. I’ll share why doctors are concerned. And as always, I’m keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. If you thought the Russian people might overthrow Vladimir Putin, I have some bad news for you. I’ll explain what he just did that will help keep him in power. Plus, a final message on the horrible shooting in Texas.  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 May 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. 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, there's a new immigration crisis to report, not for Mexico, though, but Cuba. We're going to talk about what's happening.

Your second brief, if you didn't get sick during the COVID crisis, and I mean sick from any virus or bacteria, then that might be a very bad thing. I'll share why doctors are concerned. And as always, I'm keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. If you thought that the Russian people might overthrow Vladimir Putin, I have some. some bad news for you. I'll explain what he just did that will likely keep him in power. Plus, a final message on the horrible shooting in Texas. All up next on the President's Daily Brief. First up this morning, an immigration crisis is upon us and not from Mexico. This time, it's Cuba.

That is the worry this morning following terrible news out of Havana, that their sugar crop is in the worst shape it's been in over 100 years. And since their economy is already a mess, we are probably going to see an even greater increase in Cubans trying to get to Florida. So let's unpack this story and talk about why you should care. And let's start first on the fact that Cuba's economy runs on sugar and tourism, but more on that in a second. So Cuba needs its sugar because it needs the foreign currency that it earns when it sells the crop abroad, mostly to China. Some to Spain and a few other European countries. So when there's a dip in sugar prices where there's a bad harvest,

then it means that there's less hard cash to buy other things that Cuba really can't make or grow themselves. And that's a whole bunch of stuff. Oil, medicines, cars, fertilizer, you name it. Cuba needs anything and everything you could imagine because it just doesn't have the production capacity at home. Well, unfortunately for the communists in Havana and the poor people in Cuba, this year's sugar crop is really bad.

Normally they harvest well over a million tons of sugar each year, but this year, only 474,000 tons. That's the worst crop in over a century. So let's do some math here to really drive home the point. Cuba hands out over 500,000 tons of sugar just to its own people. And then they have a contract with China for another 400,000, so that's 900,000, right? but with a crop of 474,000, they're not even halfway there, give or take.

And while that's bad for a lot of people in Cuba, that's especially bad for the very poorest of those who live outside of Havana and work in the fields. And so while all of that is bad enough, it gets worse. Because the other big source of foreign cash, their biggest source, in fact, comes from tourism. And those numbers are down big time. This past January, there should have been at least $4.5. 400,000 tourists in Cuba, mostly from Canada and Europe, but only 80,000 showed up, mostly because of COVID restrictions. Regardless, hotels are all but empty, and that means that the rural poor

that sell all their spare fruits and vegetables to the tourists, well, there's nobody there to buy them. So truthfully, there are a number of different reasons for why Cuba's economy is in the dumps, and it's not just a bad sugar harvest, no tourists. Obviously, communism, is the biggest one. That system just doesn't work. And the U.S. embargo hurts too. But the key takeaway here is that Cuba is out of sugar. They are out of tourists, and they are running short on cash. And for a country that imports 70% of its food, that is a recipe for a migration crisis. Cuba is about 300 miles from Florida. And because of favorable U.S. immigration laws for Cubans, these horrible, horrible economic conditions are already starting to be.

to push, especially younger Cubans, to try to make that very dangerous journey from Cuba to America by raft. To the point, U.S. border agents have logged more than 114,000 apprehensions of Cubans since just October. That's the biggest number in decades, and it's growing. And that takes us to why you should care and what we should do about it. All right, so we all know that the southern border is being overrun. We've got at least one million illegal immigrants since Joe Biden assumed the presidency. And based on the brief that I just gave you, the odds of a big new wave of Cubans on rafts or otherwise trying to get to Florida, well, that's going up. And that in turn will create a whole bunch of political and economic challenges in southern Florida, particularly,

from housing to jobs to food, and all at a time when we're facing our own economic troubles, too. So, all right, what should we do about this? Well, we have been wrestling with that question for a while, haven't we? Since 1959, actually, when Fidel Castro took over the country and then we slapped an embargo on them. So there are two camps of thoughts on what we ought to do. One side says that we should embargo the heck out of Havana and cripple the economy until the government collapses. And we've done that for decades, and obviously it hasn't worked, but mostly because the Soviet Union and Venezuela propped up the Cuban economy with free goods or discounted things like oil. But in the past few years, the embargo squeeze, well, it's starting to work a bit better because the Soviet Union is gone. Venezuela has collapsed. And other partners like China, well, they've stepped in a little bit, but not quite enough.

But here's something that's, I think, more interesting. Because of a lack of outside partners and help, it's actually forced Cuba to adopt a few pro-capitalist reforms. Well, to keep the people from revolting, it's true. But it's also helped a bit to develop the economy. Now, more on that later in what those reforms might be. But regardless, there's your argument that we should continue to keep up the embargo. On the other side, they say that we should lift the embargo because it hasn't worked and it's only hurting the Cuban people. And that's true.

But lifting the embargo would almost certainly mean that the communist government would enrich itself. That's because the government would still own the engines of production, all the businesses and the farms, the shipping, companies. And that means the communists would likely strengthen their hold on the country. So what do you think? If you were in the White House this morning facing the growing prospect of a migration crisis from not only the country of Mexico, but from the Gulf of Mexico, would you keep the embargo? Would you make it stronger? Or would you work to lift it? Or maybe you just throw your hands in the air and drink a margarita. But regardless, whatever your solutions are, email me. All right. As always, it's...

PDB at thefirsttv.com. Your second brief this morning, all that social distancing during the COVID pandemic, well, it may have gone too far. And it may be that it's causing us to get a lot sicker than we otherwise would have. That is the growing concern this morning from public health officials around the world, trying to make sense of why we are seeing a bunch of different diseases behave in ways that are just really weird. So let me explain.

During the COVID pandemic, Americans were told, by our medical professionals from Fauci and all the rest that we should really socially distance from each other. You remember this, three feet, six feet, who knows? But still, you were told to socially isolate and distance. Do you recall we were also told to form pods of only our closest family members, no playdates for kids? Again, that was the advice from Fauci and his colleagues, all for our health. Well, it turns out that that might have been really bad advice. Public health officials this morning are concerned that all that isolation actually prevented us from getting colds and flus that in turn pumped up our immune systems and built up antibody levels for an assortment

of other kinds of bugs. And because of that, we've got lazy immune systems and we are more prone to get sick. That's the message from doctors at the Imperial College in London, a medical center in the Netherlands and the Children's Hospital in Denver, Colorado. So let me give you some examples that those doctors at those particular facilities are highlighting. In the past two weeks, flu hospitalizations in this country have actually picked up. And that's not supposed to happen. It's May. We are well past when this sort of thing usually occurs. Now, another bug, it's called the adenovirus type 41. It's only supposed to cause fairly innocuous bouts of like GI issues, right? Gastrointestinal concerns. But that actually might be what's behind the severe hepatitis outbreak that I've

briefed you on previously and otherwise healthy kids. They just weren't exposed to that modest little bug. Now, there's also another virus called RSV. It's a virus that normally causes cold-like symptoms, mostly in the lungs. It's supposed to be a winter disease. But there's been outbreaks now in the summers and the early falls, both in the United States and Europe. Now, this RSV bug is a really big problem for kids. Normally, babies get antibodies from their moms in the womb after they get the virus. But if moms don't get a little bit sick from RSV, which is totally benign in moms and all adults, actually, then the babies don't get protected either. And then this virus ends up being very deadly for kids. And finally, there's another bug that's actually

the worst of all of them called acute flaccid myelitis or AFM. We don't quite understand this virus even in the best of times, but it pops up every few years, the cycle, and it causes polio-like conditions in kids. And then it just disappears. But after a couple of years, it cycles back. So doctors are now really worried that the next cycle, which is due this fall, will be even worse because kids don't have good immune systems because they were locked down and masked up due to COVID protocols.

Protocols demanded, ironically enough, by public health officials. So the bottom line here, folks, is that if you were in the White House this morning, you should be on the lookout for outbreaks of viruses that normally don't cause problems, but are suddenly popping up in doctors' offices and hospitals, especially children's hospitals. You may even want to have a White House meeting with pediatricians and start spreading the word to be on the lookout to avoid panic and hysteria. There's no reason for either, but we do need to be watchful.

Plus, we got to get ahead of the conspiracy theories and explain what's happening, explain the science. Explain that bad public health and unintended consequences from COVID got us here. So if we start to see these upticks and additional sicknesses from normal bugs, here's the calming message to the country that I would recommend. These viruses haven't changed, but we have. In our desire to seal ourselves up from COVID, we actually open. opened ourselves up to a host of other diseases.

That's because we let our immune systems get lazy, and now we just got to get through it. No shortcuts, unfortunately. We're all going to get probably a little bit sicker than we might otherwise have from things like the cold and the flu, but we're going to recharge our immune systems and get things back to normal. So that's not a fun message for me to share with you or anyone else,

but that is what we ought to be doing. Still, you're far ahead now of almost everybody else in the country with this brief. because you understand what's happening, you understand what could happen this fall, and why. 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. The biggest prize in Yamaba's history.

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Put this one on your radar. If you're hoping that the Russian people will rise up and overthrow Vladimir Putin, I have some bad news for you. Yesterday, Russia's leader ordered a 10% rise in pension payments and a 10% rise in the minimum wage, all to cushion the Russian people from inflation and to address some very small seeds of discontinue. intent with all the economic struggles because of the war in Ukraine.

Russia's minimum wage, by the way, is about $250 a month, while the average retirement pension is more or less the same. Those both go up 10% starting in June. Now, it's true that with annual inflation near 18% in Russia, a 10% increase isn't going to totally satisfy the Russian people, but it definitely takes the bite out. And as Putin correctly told his people, unfortunately, that it's not just Russia suffering from runaway inflation, it's everybody else in the world, too. Final fact to consider Putin's approval rating has actually increased more than 10 points since the start of the Ukraine war. It's up to 82% according to an independent poll that was done in April. And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes your morning brief.

Before I let you go, let's talk about Texas. Most of you have been watching the news very closely about the school shooting, and I am too. When I can bring you an insight or a solution that nobody else is talking about, I will absolutely do it. And for what it's worth, and just personally, I'd like to wait until the kids are buried before I discuss the shooting with you and any possible things that we might do to prevent such from ever happening again. So until then, just know that my heart is broken into a thousand pieces, just like yours. I cannot imagine being a parent this morning to the kids who have died or having to support a surviving child through all the trauma. My heart is broken. And with that very heavy news, which is really important to express during this time of sorrow,

we close out the show reminding each other of why we are here, talking about our country. 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. And the truth shall make you free. Good day.