The President's Daily Brief - PDB Afternoon Bulletin | October 21st, 2025: REVEALED: CIA Directing Narco-Boat Strikes Off Venezuela & Europe Endorses Trump’s Ceasefire Plan

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin:   First up—America’s secret war at sea. New reporting says it’s the CIA—not the Pentagon—calling the shots in the Caribbean drug-boat campaign. We’ll break down how Langley became the hidden hand behind America’s strikes.   Later in the show—Europe signals support for President Trump’s renewed ceasefire push in Ukraine, insisting that current battle lines must serve as the starting point for any peace talks.   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/@presidentsdailybriefRidge Wallet: Upgrade your wallet today! Get 10% Off @Ridge with code PDB at https://www.Ridge.com/PDB #Ridgepod   American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, 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.   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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Welcome to the PDB afternoon bulletin. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world's day. age. All right. Let's get briefed. First up, America's secret war at sea. Sources say it's the CIA, not the Pentagon, calling the shots in the Caribbean drug boat campaign. I'll have those details. Later in the show, Europe signals support for President Trump's renewed ceasefire push in Ukraine, saying that the current battle lines must be the starting point for any peace talks. But first, today's afternoon spotlight. This week, we learned that the U.S.

Navy has destroyed yet another suspected drug trafficking boat in the Caribbean. That's the seventh such strike since early September. According to the War Department, formerly known as the Department of Defense, the Navy carried out what it called a, quote, lethal kinetic strike against a vessel allegedly affiliated with Colombia's leftist guerrilla group, the Eccorito Delibration Nacional, or the ELN. Now, the strike occurred in international waters under the jurisdiction of U.S. Southern Command. of where Pete Hegseth said in a post on X that the operation was part of what he described as America's expanding counter-narco-terrorism campaign. For some context, the ELN has been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department since 1997. It's known for smuggling narcotics,

weapons, and gold across Latin America, and for decades, it's received protection from Venezuela's security forces. At this point in the campaign, at least 32 people have been killed. and strikes off the coast of Venezuela. Now, so far, the only things that the public knows about the strikes is what they see from grainy clips of boats exploding at sea, videos posted online by the Pentagon or by President Trump himself. The administration has said all seven strikes have been, quote, decisive hits against narco-terrorist networks, though no independent confirmation has been released. What hasn't been known about these strikes until now is how the targets are being found and selected. According to an exclusive investigation from The Guardian, the U.S. military may be the one

pulling the trigger, but it's a CIA that's choosing who to fire on. Sources familiar with the operations say the agency is providing the real-time intelligence behind these strikes, including satellite surveillance and signal intercepts, used to identify which boats are likely carrying drugs from Venezuela or Colombia. Those streams of data are then used to track their routes and make recommendations on which vessels to target. One of the sources put it plainly saying, quote, they are the most important part of it. In other words, these attacks are being run on CIA intelligence, not DEA or Coast Guard intel, which in the past handled maritime interdiction operations, and that marks a major shift.

The old system was built for arrests, seizures, and evidence. The new system is built for speed and secrecy. The Guardian reports that the CIA's intelligence isn't collected or stored in a in a way that would hold up in court. It's not about legal proof, it's about rapid targeting, and that means much more of the information used to justify these strikes will likely remain classified. Now, the CIA's involvement helps explain something that we reported last week, that the Trump administration has secretly authorized the agency to conduct covert action inside Venezuela. The exact scope of that directive, of course, remains classified,

but intelligence sources have told multiple outlets that it allows the CIA to operate, operate more aggressively against the Maduro regime and its allied cartels. Taken together, these developments point to something larger, the quiet militarization of America's war on drugs, one that's now being run through the lens of covert intelligence and military operations rather than law enforcement. All right, coming up next, European capitals throw cautious support behind President Trump's latest Ukraine peace push. More on that when we come back. Hey, Mike Baker here.

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The show of European backing today comes as the White House, presses pause on plans for a second Trump and Putin summit. Senior Trump officials confirm that preparations for the meeting have been shelved, at least for now, acknowledging that what many already suspected, the gap between Moscow and Kiev, of course, is still far too wide to bridge. European diplomats aren't reading the latest development as a setback, no. After weeks of tension and mixed messages from Moscow, they see the pause as a moment to regroup, keeping Trump's ceasefire push alive while sidestepping another potential clash with the Kremlin. Still, Europe's biggest powers, London, Paris, Berlin are closing ranks behind Trump's call for a ceasefire along current front lines. They say it's the only way to stop the bloodshed, even if no one can

quite agree on where those lines actually fall. A joint statement released Monday read, quote, we strongly support President Trump's position that the fighting should stop immediately and that the current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations. It's a moment of unity and an acknowledgement that Trump's plan may be the last viable off-ramp left to achieve some sort of peace. Still, the mood in European capitals is cautious. EU officials worry that Trump could meet with Putin again without securing meaningful concessions, much like their last summit in August, when the Russian leader, of course, brushed off a similar ceasefire plea. And behind the scenes, the diplomacy has been anything but smooth. As we discussed yesterday, Trump's White House talks

with Ukrainian President Zelensky last week were described by those close to the meeting as, quote, tense and tough. Now, according to reports from Reuters, and other sources, we have more details. Trump allegedly pressed Zelensky to accept Russian demands, chief among them, Moscow's insistence, that Ukraine withdraw from the Donbass. The Financial Times added that Trump, dismissing battlefield maps, told Zelensky, quote, if Putin wants it, he will destroy you, end quote. But it was Zelensky who painted last week's meeting with Trump as a success, because it ended with Trump publicly backing a ceasefire at the present lines. Trump denies that report, calling it fiction. He told reporters, quote, we never discussed a surrendering territory.

The Ukrainian leader later seemed to support that version of events. Anybody else confused over all this? Saying it was instead Trump's envoy, Steve Whitkoff, who merely conveyed Moscow's position. Zelensky told reporters, quote, we understand that Mr. Whitkoff is conveying what Russia means. I made it clear to him that there are some misleading impressions. Now, those misleading impressions are fueling the confusion. The Donbass, that's the long-contested regions of Donetsk and Wilhansk, apparently has once again become the fault line. Moscow insists Ukraine must withdraw completely from both areas, which Russia formally claimed in its constitution, after an illegal 2022 referendum. We'll just take some of that land, please. Zelenzky pushed back on that demand,

saying, quote, if tomorrow Putin added something else to their constitution, will we need to withdraw again, end quote. And he makes a very good point. It's the central paradox of Trump's peace plan. The battlefield isn't just frozen, it's blurred. And Trump's challenge now is to turn that gray zone into a deal both sides could live with. Trump told reporters, quote, we think that what they should do is just stop the lines where they are, the battle lines. Go home, stop killing, and be done, end quote. Now, to be fair, it's relatively easy for any third party, whether the U.S. or any other country, to just say Ukraine should simply give up, at least a fifth of its territory.

Yeah, you go ahead and do that. When pressed about the Donbass, he added, quote, let it be cut the way it is. It's cut up right now. They can negotiate something later on down the line, urging first an end to the gunfire. The Kremlin, unsurprisingly, rejected that clarity. Putin's mouthpiece, Dmitri Peskov, said, quote, Russia's stance doesn't change, signaling that Moscow still wants more than a frozen front. Of course they do.

They want the entire Donbass. Zelensky, meanwhile, admitted Keeve remains uncertain about the Kremlin's plans for its other occupied territories, which remain in limbo. So, as Trump's ceasefire plan does appear to have Europe's backing, but doesn't appear to be going anywhere in the moment, Putin continues to push back on Western demands, and the fighting continues. And that, my friends, is the PDB afternoon bulletin for Tuesday, the 21st of October. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at at thefirsttv.com. And to listen to the show ad-free, you can do that, and you can do it very simply. become a premium member of the President's Daily Brief by visiting PDB Premium.com.

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