The President's Daily Brief - November 24th, 2025: U.S. Plans ‘New Phase’ in Push Against Maduro & Ukraine Considers Trump’s Peace Plan

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

In this episode of The President’s Daily Brief: Washington prepares a new phase of its Venezuela campaign, and Nicolás Maduro responds with heightened paranoia and tightened security. We’ll explain what U.S. officials are planning and why Caracas is bracing for what comes next. U.S., Ukrainian, and European officials meet in Geneva to assess Washington’s new peace proposal for Ukraine—but Kyiv says the plan concedes far too much to Moscow. Plus, Israel launches a strike in Beirut targeting Hezbollah’s top military commander. And in today’s Back of the Brief: tragic news from central Nigeria, where more than 300 students and staff have been abducted in one of the country’s worst mass kidnappings. 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 TriTails Premium Beef: Feed your family and your legacy. Grab your Black Friday gift before it’s gone! Visit https://trybeef.com/pdb Lean: Visit https://BrickhouseSale.com for 30% off 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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They're the precious metal specialists. Text PDB to the number 989-89-898, and you'll receive a free, no-obligation information kit, and you'll learn how to convert an existing IRA or a 401k into a gold IRA. Again, text PDB to 989-898. It's Monday, the 24th of November. Welcome to the President's Daily Brief. Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed.

First up, Washington is set to launch a new phase of its Venezuela campaign, and the country's dictator, that would be Nicholas Maduro, is responding with heightened paranoia and tighter security. We'll explain what Washington may be planning. Later in the show, U.S., Ukrainian, and European officials meet in Geneva to discuss Washington's new peace proposal for Ukraine. But Keeve says the plan gives up far too much. Well, they're not wrong. The current peace proposal would be like, okay, now this is not a perfect analogy, but it would be like if, hypothetically, Mexico invaded the U.S.

And after a period of time, the international community told the White House, just give them Texas and Arizona and reduce the size of your military. At least you'll have peace. I told you it wasn't a perfect analogy, but maybe you get the idea. Plus, Israel launches a strike in Beirut, aimed at Chazbalah's top military commander, marking a major escalation in its ongoing efforts against the terror group. And in today's back of the brief, disturbing news, to say the least, out of central Nigeria, where more than 300 students and staff were abducted in one of the country's worst mass kidnappings.

But first, today's PDB spotlight. We're starting things off today with new reporting that the U.S. campaign against Nicholas Maduro's government in Venezuela is about to shift gears. According to a Reuters exclusive, four U.S. officials say Washington is preparing to launch what they describe as a, quote, new phase of Venezuela-related operations in the coming days. And while officials aren't publicly outlining what that phase involves, the signs suggest a growing pressure campaign on a regime already showing clear signs of stress. The Reuters reporting describes internal conversations across several U.S. agencies, pointing toward more direct efforts aimed at Maduro's political and security apparatus.

Now, this isn't just about narcotics trafficking or disrupting drug routes. Those are areas where the Pentagon and DHS have already been active in the Caribbean. This new phase appears tied specifically to the Maduro government itself. One official told Reuters, it reflects Washington's assessment that the current posture hasn't shifted the regime and that next steps may be needed to apply pressure more directly. At the same time, the U.S. continues expanding the tools that legally justify more assertive action. As we reported last week, organizations connected to the Venezuelan security state were labeled terrorist entities, opening new avenues for financial targeting and military options. So, what might this, quote, new phase look like?

Well, we don't know for sure. But another report out this weekend gives us a clue about at least one option on the table. CBS News says officials in the Trump administration discussed dropping leaflets, that's right, leaflets on Caracas, an old school psychological operation aimed at undermining Maduro's public narrative. The discussions reportedly focused on using the leaflets to highlight corruption inside the Venezuelan government and to encourage military defections. Sources also described a debate over timing and messaging, suggesting this is more than a theoretical conversation. While no final decision has been made, the fact that it's being seriously considered hence at how Washington views the role of psychological pressure within this next phase, creating instability inside the regime without immediately escalating to military action.

And that brings us to a third piece of reporting from this weekend. Nicholas Maduro appears to be feeling the pressure. According to the Financial Times, Maduro has quietly tightened his personal security in recent days, His public appearances, which are normally a central part of his political persona, have been shortened, coagrapped, and in some cases relocated at the last minute. The report cites people familiar with his movements who say his protective detail has grown substantially with increased involvement from Cuban security personnel. Maduro has been limiting his routes, avoiding night appearances, and reducing contact with large crowds. The tone of the FT report is notable. It describes a leader who appears concerned about both external threats and internal stability.

This shift coincides with the U.S., planning a new operational phase, and it follows several incidents inside Venezuela, including unexplained arrests and movements within the military that point to a regime increasingly worried about infiltration and coup plotting. So, you ask yourself, where does all this leave us? Well, on one hand, Washington is signaling that the status quo isn't producing. results, and officials are preparing for tactics that apply more direct pressure, potentially psychological, potentially covert, potentially military. On the other hand, Maduro's behavior suggests that the pressure is having an effect. Leaders who feel secure don't typically redesign their security perimeter or cut down their public exposure. But the escalation,

of course, isn't without risk. Any increased U.S. activity, whether leaflets or something more aggressive, raises the chances of miscalculation. Venezuela's neighbors, including Colombia and Brazil, are, of course, watching closely. Russia and China, both of whom have vested strategic interests in Maduro's survival, are likely weighing how to respond as well. And ordinary Venezuelans may find themselves caught between a cornered regime and a more forceful U.S. strategy. All right.

Coming up next, high-stakes talks in Geneva over Washington's Ukraine peace plan. and Israel carries out an airstrike targeting Chesbalah's top military commander in Beirut. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here with a message from my friends at Tritails Beef. All right, here's the deal. Tritails Premium Beef, a terrific fifth-generation Texas ranching family, is running their biggest Black Friday event of the year. Now, you've got to check out Tritails.

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Welcome back to the PDB. I want to return to the ongoing White House push to bring the war in Ukraine to a close as representatives from the U.S., Ukraine, and several European governments met in Geneva to go over Washington's proposal. Officials spent Sunday dissecting the Trump administration's peace framework, a plan that many EU capitals are obviously uneasy with. Even so, the effort to press Kiev in Moscow toward his settlement is only intensifying, Although, to be fair at this stage, from what we've being told, the pressure is on Kyiv rather than on Moscow.

As we've been tracking, President Trump sharpened his message this weekend, telling reporters that Ukrainian President Zelensky can either accept his 28-point plan by Thursday, which in the U.S. is Thanksgiving, or, in his words, quote, continue to fight his little heart out, end quote. It was one of the clear signs of how the White House is framing the choice for Kiev, except a piece that, that Ukrainians see as deeply unfair or risk losing the weapons and intelligence that have kept the country in the fight with Russia for nearly four years. At the same time, Trump signaled he hasn't completely locked the door on Ukraine. When asked by reporters whether this was his final offer, the president answered, quote, no, adding that he wants to get the peace and that the war, quote, should have ended a long time ago. Well, maybe talk to Putin about that.

The Thanksgiving date, he said, as we covered last week, remains a target, to keep talks alive, not a hard cutoff, apparently. But what's changed since then is where the diplomacy is happening, and who's trying to rewrite the script. In Geneva, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. Special Envoy Steve Whitkoff were face-to-face with Ukrainian officials and key European partners, trying to hammer the Trump-drafted plan into something that Keeve could live with. An anonymous U.S. official, close to the talks, said the goal is to, quote, iron out the final details. Hmm, aren't they far down the road and produce a deal that is, quote, advantageous to Ukraine, stressing that nothing will be agreed on until Trump and Zelensky get together.

Zelensky, for his part, welcomed the diplomatic push and said he hoped the discussion would lead to a meaningful result this week. His message stayed careful, supportive of the process, but without signaling acceptance of the terms. But if Washington is trying to reassure Keeve that nothing has been finalized, Europe is making it clear that it's not going to rubber-stamp Trump's blueprint. As we previously discussed, European leaders were blindsided by the original framework and were furious that they weren't consulted. That frustration spilled into the open over the weekend. Prior to meeting in Geneva on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, more than a dozen European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor

Friedrich Mertz, huddled to draft a supposed counter-proposal. They called the U.S. document, quote, a basis for which will require additional work. Essentially, diplomatic language for this is nowhere near acceptable in their eyes yet. In a joint statement, European leaders warned that the proposed limits on Ukraine's armed forces would leave the country exposed to future Russian attacks, and by extension, threaten European security as well. EU capitals also reminded Washington that any clauses touching on the European Union or NATO can't simply be written in from the White House. They require the consent of member states. Even European Commissioner and President Ursula von der Leyen laid down her red lines. She said any credible peace plan cannot allow

borders to be changed by force, cannot impose military limits that leave Ukraine vulnerable, and must reflect the EU's central role in securing peace. She also emphasized that Ukraine has chosen quote, European destiny, a clear signal that Brussels expects Keeves' long-term alignment with Europe to be baked into any final settlement, not treated as a bargaining chip. These responses from EU leaders come as the core of the U.S. framework hasn't changed much since our last update. The 28-point plan still demands major concessions from Kiev, such as seeding territory that Russia doesn't even have, accepting strict limits on the size of its army and renouncing NATO membership, while offering only vague U.S. assurances of, quote, security guarantees.

That's why yesterday's Geneva talks carried weight. Mertz said the goal was to shape a peace plan, quote, acceptable to Ukraine that can eventually be put in front of Russia and warrant he's not yet convinced. Washington will get the outcome at once in the next few days. So, where does this leave things? In simple terms, well, the U.S. is racing to keep its Thanksgiving target alive. Europe is racing to blunt the sharpest edges of Trump's proposal, and Zelensky is racing to protect to both Ukraine dignity and its lifeline in Washington.

And Putin, well, he appears to be supportive of the terms of the White House proposal. After all, it essentially mirrors long-standing Russian demands. Now, perhaps this is apropos of nothing, and I guess it's in the category of what it's worth. But Neville Chamberlain's Peace for Our Time approach didn't do much for his legacy. Turning to Lebanon, in what was the most consequential hit on Hezbollah's senior ranks since last year's ceasefire, the Israeli Air Force struck deep inside Beirut Sunday, targeting the terror group's military chief, Haitham Ali Tabatabai. It was the first Israeli strike on the Lebanese capital in five months, killing at least five.

Israel later said that the operation hit its mark, eliminating Tabatabai, who essentially kept Hezbollah's military operations stitched together. But I'd like to point out that Hezbollah still hasn't confirmed whether he was injured or killed. A silence officials in Jerusalem says speaks volumes. Typically, the Iran-backed group rushes to deny Israeli claims when a senior commander survives, but this time it has not. And in the region, that kind of hesitation is widely read as a sign that Chazbalah is scrambling internally, likely working to contain the fallout from a successful Israeli hit deep inside Lebanon.

According to Axios, Israeli missiles struck the fourth and fifth floors of a ten-story building in Beirut's southern suburbs. It's an area long regarded as the heart of Hezbollah's command infrastructure. Now, the strike didn't happen in a vacuum. As longtime PDB listeners know, Hezbollah has been chipping away at the year-old ceasefire, building its forces in the Lebanon's south and moving weapons back into the territory that they had agreed to pull out of. As the Lebanese government has made almost no progress under the ceasefire's framework and disarming the group, Israel argues it's acting now to keep Hezbollah. Hezbollah from rebuilding, re-arming, and restoring its old front-line posture.

Israeli officials said Tabatabai had been a central figure pushing Hezbollah to reject the Lebanese governments called to disarm and had agitated inside the terror organization to end the ceasefire and resume hostilities with Israel. Now, as for Tabat-Tabai, he's been pursued by the U.S. for years. The State Department designated him a specially designated global terrorist back in 2016, and offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said he approved yesterday's operation on the recommendation of Defense Minister Israel Katz and the IDF's chief of staff.

Netanyahu described Tabitabai as the man who, quote, led the terror organizations build up and armament efforts, adding that, quote, Israel's determined to pursue its objectives anywhere and at any time. And the Jewish state's pursuit of anytime, anywhere, proved true, as a senior U.S. official said Washington was unaware of the operation. According to Axios, Israel did not give the White House advanced warning. The U.S. official told the outlet, quote, We were informed immediately after the strike was carried out.

Another U.S. official backed up that claim, saying that Trump administration knew Israel planned at some time to escalate operations in Lebanon, but did not know the timing, location, or target. According to Israeli officials, Tabatabai was the number two figure inside Hezbollah, after political leader Nassim Qasem. He assumed military leadership

after Israel assassinated several of his predecessors, underscoring how central he had become to the terror group's military apparatus. Okay, coming up in the back of the brief, a grim report from Nigeria where armed gunmen kidnapped more than 300 students and teachers in one of the largest abductions the country has ever seen. I'll have those details when we come back.

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In today's back of the brief, what began as a routine morning at a Catholic school in central Nigeria spiraled into one of the country's worst mass abductions with more than 300 children and staff taken by gunmen. The Christian Association of Nigeria reported the abduction. 315 students and 12 teachers vanished from St. Mary's School in Papiri. But as grim as those numbers were, authorities now say there's a small breakthrough. Fifty of the children. have reportedly managed to escape their captors, and that's according to the Christian Association. A large-scale search-and-rescue operation remains underway for the remaining 265 children and 12 teachers who were taken deep into the surrounding forests. Government officials say troops are pushing

farther into the terrain and that more recoveries could follow, though there's still no firm word on condition or whereabouts of the hostages. Nijer State Police say the attack unfolded Friday, when armed men slipped onto the campus and moved through dormitories, where students were preparing for their school day. By the time staff realized what was happening, the gunmen were already gone. State authorities damningly revealed the school ignored a directive to shutter its facilities for several days following an intelligence warning about an elevated security threat. That's a lapse that parents say exposed students and staff to a, quote, avoidable risk. And Friday's attack wasn't an anomaly. It was the third major kidnapping in Nigeria last week.

More than 20 schoolgirls were seized from a boarding school on a neighboring state Monday, and a church attack in the country's west left two dead and 38 others abducted, though those 38 were freed on Sunday. Still, the abductions are feeding a sense that the country's security situation is rapidly breaking down faster than the authorities can contain it. So you ask who's to blame? Well, government officials point fingers at ransom-seekers. armed gangs who've turned kidnapping into a lucrative business model.

Nigeria outlawed ransom payments to starve them of cash, but so far the ban hasn't changed much. At the same time, the violence reopened wounds over claims of religious persecution. President Trump earlier this month argued that Christians in Nigeria are being targeted, saying he could send U.S. forces in, quote, guns ablazing if Abuja continues to allow the killing of Christians. Nigerious government, though, insists that Washington's rhetoric is a, quote, gross misrepresentation of reality. Despite government claims, reports do indicate that some of the worst ongoing bloodshed in central Nigeria stems from Muslim herders targeting largely Christian farming communities. And that, my friends, is the President's Daily Brief for Monday, the 24th of November. Now, if you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at PDB at the First TV.

com. And I hope you had a chance to catch this weekend's episode of our PDB situation report. If not, just head on over to YouTube and search at President's Daily Brief or check out whichever platform you use to get your podcast fix. 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. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities, so do like I did and have one of your assistance assistants assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do at mintmobile.com

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