The President's Daily Brief - PDB Situation Report | August 17, 2024: Iran Hacks the Trump Campaign & Tehran's Internal Struggles

Episode Date: August 17, 2024

In this episode of The PDB Situation Report: We start with a closer look at the recent hack on Donald Trump's Presidential campaign, with Iran as the prime suspect. Author Brandon Weichert joins us to shed more light on the hacking scheme and Iran's efforts to attack the US in cyberspace. Then, as tensions continue to rise between Israel and Iran, we’ll explore what’s happening inside Iran. We’ll be joined by Dr. Majid Sadeghpour, the political director for the Organization of Iranian-American Communities and an Iranian expat, to gain deeper insights. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief.  Email: [e-mail] ☕ Blackout Coffee: https://www.blackoutcoffee.com/PDB 🏅  Patriot Gold: Patriot Gold: Call 1-888-870-5457 for a free investor guide. 💵 Tax Network: Tax Network USA: Tax Network USA: To schedule a complimentary consultation, call 1(800)245-6000 or visit https://TNUSA.com/MIKE  🕶️ Anonyome Labs: Go to https://MySudo.com/MIKEBAKER & use code 'MIKEBAKER' to get 30 days free on a SudoPro yearly subscription. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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turn your big business idea into... Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. Coming up on today's show, we'll take a closer look at the recent hack on Donald Trump's presidential campaign. With Iran as the prime suspect, I'll bet you didn't see that coming. Author Brandon Weicker will join us to shed more light on the hacking scheme and Iran's efforts to attack the U.S. in cyberspace.

A little later, as tensions continue to rise between Israel, Israel and Iran, we'll take a look at what's going on inside Iran. We'll be joined by the political director for the organization of Iranian American communities and Iranian expat, Dr. Majid Sadigpur. But first, our situation report's spotlight. Now, earlier this week, we learned that the Trump presidential campaign was hit by a hack and leak operation. A bunch of internal documents, and bunch is a technical term for a lot, were exposed,

including a 271-page dossier detailing J.D. Vance's vulnerabilities. Really? 271 pages? How many vulnerabilities has he got? Although maybe the firm that was doing the vetting was getting paid by the word. Now, the FBI and other investigators are digging into this cyber attack, and the prime suspect is a group of Iranian hackers known as Mint Sandstorm. There's a catchy name. These hackers have ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Gulf. Cardcore, the IRGC, so obviously this is not just your average cybercrime.

Reports say the hackers managed to get into the personal email account of Roger Stone, remember him, longtime Republican operative and Trump ally. From there, well, they tried to break into the account of a senior Trump campaign official aiming to infiltrate the entire campaign network. The attack happened in June and sparked a major response from the Trump campaign, the FBI, and Microsoft, which jumped in to stop the breach and assess if there was a larger threat coming from Iran. And hint, of course there is. Stone was later informed by Microsoft and the FBI that his email had been compromised by a foreign state actor. The hackers intended to use his account to trick campaign officials into clicking on a malicious link,

potentially giving them access to sensitive information. Interestingly, the FBI also briefed the Biden-Harris' Congress. campaign around the same time, warning them about similar attempts by Iranian hackers to target their campaign, their equal opportunity hackers, obviously. Now, to dive deeper into this, we've got Brandon Weicker. He's the author of the Shadow War, Iran's quest for supremacy, an extremely interesting book. He's going to break down on the hack and what it means for the broader cyber threat landscape. Brandon, thank you very much for being here. Thank you for having me. It's great to be back. Ah, well, listen, let's start from the very top. Tell us what you know about this hack

when, how bad it was, and how we know within reasonable detail that it was the Iranians. Well, the hack was, obviously it was bad enough to get through and all the firewalls, and they were able to find some damaging information. The Iranian goal here was obviously. obviously to so discontent and, you know, confusion among the campaign. It's important to note, though, that while they did certainly attempt to hack the Democrats as well to further that goal of creating chaos, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps is very unanimously opposed to Donald Trump's return to the White House. Obviously, he was the man who orchestrated the hit on the IRGC's commanding officer,

General Kasim Soleimani in 2020. He was sort of the general patent of terrorism for Iran, and removing him is still creating problems for Iran on the battlefield today. So they do not want to see Donald Trump return, and one of the methods that they could easily be doing to try to complicate his political campaign is to leak damaging documents that they procured illicitly from him. But another thing I would worry about, and I've spoken to people who, former Secret Service agents who used to do presidential protective details, the one thing that I would also be worried about is the threat of escalation. Are there Iranian hitters in the United States who very much want to knock the former president out if he does look like he's going to win? And I do believe that there are Iranian hit teams in the United States already.

Okay, well, yeah, I mean, there was concern, obviously, not to get down a rabbit hole, but there was concern initially that that attempted assassination attempt could have had foreign connections, but from what the Secret Services said, from what the FBI has said, they don't see any connections between foreign actors and Thomas Crooksley now dead. Right, right. Potential assassin, yeah. But I'm saying, you know, this could be a build-up to something more, and so that's always the concern with any cyber attack.

Of course. Now, from what you understand of this particular hack, they were targeting, it sounds like, initially, Roger Stone. Was this the sort of fishing exercise that I think a lot of people have become used to, you know, whether they work from a corporation, the corporation has policies that says, whatever you do they don't click on a link or just people at home understand that, hopefully understand that they shouldn't just be clicking on any link that crosses their path? But was it as simple as that or was it a little bit more sophisticated as far as an attack goes? Well, they're targeting Roger Stone. He's not directly involved with the campaign.

He's sort of a non-combatten in a way in terms of the politics of the situation. And they used his lack of proper security to backdoor into the campaign. And so the severity of it, it probably was really just a fishing attack. there probably wasn't too much sophistication involved there. It was probably probing to see how far they could get, and they were probably very happy with how far they got. And so if I were dealing with Trump securing the Trump campaign cybernetically, I would say that we need to worry about a lot of these other parties

that have access to the former president and his inner circle, because while the campaign is usually well defended, the people who are sort of outside contractors or consultants, if you will, are usually not that well secured unless they do cybersecurity for a living and Roger Stone did not. Yeah, so in a sense, they were choosing an easier pathway

in the idea being perhaps that they'll not go straight at the campaign, which you would suspect, you would hope, would have more robust IT security. So you go after somebody that, you know, is more on the civilian side, as it were, didn't have, you know, the full extent of firewalls. And with the idea,

that if that person then reaches out to somebody inside the campaign, which he's likely to do, just in the day-to-day conversations, that it will be considered a benign email from someone we already know, and the next thing you know, they've clicked on that, and then they're infected, and now you're off to the races. Exactly. And I would also be concerned with the fact that Roger Stone has a direct link to Donald Trump, which means that if Stone's email was compromised,

it could very well be likely that President Donald Trump has been compromised, by a cyber attack from Iran. And I would hope that Secret Service would basically do a check on that because his communications as the former president might be tapped as well. Yeah. I mean, given again what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, when you make a statement like, well, hopefully the Secret Service is on that one as well. And this is not denigrating the Secret Service.

It's just they're stretched thin as it is, right? They've got some upwards of 36 protectees. Their resources are stretched thin. There's already talk about perhaps splitting off some of their duties so they can focus on their protection work. And, you know, I suspect that's probably going to gain some steam up on Congress. But that's neither here nor there. When it comes to this sort of security breach, who is what government agency is primarily responsible? I mean, is it the Secret Service?

Are they the ones who are going to be front and center in trying to understand the extent of this particular attack? Well, we are already seeing the FBI has taken the lead. Usually on a situation like this, the FBI's, their cyber people will sort of be the kind of point group for this. And remember in 2016, the famous DNC hacks, the FBI was technically the lead agency responding, even though the DNC didn't share that server with the FBI. They were still the point of contact.

Also, you're probably going to have SISA involved. you're probably going to have Department of Homeland Security, not just through Secret Service, but also through groups like SISA and these other affiliated networks involved. The National Security Agency, I would assume, would also have a role to play, considering it's a foreign threat actor committing this attack. But usually for something like this, FBI tends to be sort of the main agency that's tasked with resolving the issue with Secret Service forming a kind of a support role. Okay, where do the Iranians, the Iranian regime, the RGC and their proxies, where do they stand

on this, where are they on the ladder of top perpetrators of cyber shenanigans? I mean, are, you know, in terms of capabilities, effort, resources, where are they compared to other foreign state actors? I would say that they are not nearly as complex as, say, China or Russia, but I would say they are definitely in the top five of. most prolific cyber threats that the United States and its citizenry face. I detail this quite thoroughly in a chapter on cybersecurity and cyber threats from Iran. We underestimate Iran's cyber capabilities consistently, I think because we associate Iran

with being somewhat backward when it comes to technology, but they are very comprehensively capable of conducting cyber warfare, conducting drone warfare. we've seen in the last decade a real expansion of their sort of non-kinetic, non-terrorism-related threats to the West. And cyber attacks and cyber issues, this domain they've really become quite proficient at, and they've also received assistance from China and Russia. Now, I take your earlier point that in a sense, the Mint Sandstorm, this group that's, you know, identified as being responsible for this particular hack,

to the Trump campaign, that they're, in a sense, playing favorites because they would prefer not to see Trump come back in because of his position on Iran and because of the current administration's sort of soft-touch approach to Iran over the past three and a half years. They did reportedly, the Secret Service and FBI, did reportedly talk to the Harris campaign to talk to them about the threats. Do you think that was more of just, look, we're doing one, we've got to do the other, or have Have you heard of any specific attacks against or targeting the Harris campaign? I would say they're just covering their bases here.

I can't imagine any significant attack directed against the Harris campaign by Iran. They have really benefited quite a bit from the Biden-Harris administration's Iran policies, and before that the Obama-Biden policies, which is what Iran wants to continue. we know Harris will continue those policies. Trump, however, will not. And so that's, I think, the real motivating factor behind this cyber attack is they're really trying to damage Trump. Okay. Brandon, Brandon, why could stay right there and we have to take a quick break because we have some terrific sponsors, but we'll be right back. We've got more to cover. Hey, bad news is, well, as they say, bad news, folks. Bank of American clients just sold $7 billion in stocks. Now that's the largest sell

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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 Situation Report. Let me bring back our guest. The author of the Shadow War, Iran's quest for supremacy, Brandon Weikert. Brandon, we've been talking about the hack against the Trump campaign. We've been talking about Iran and somewhat the other perpetrators, Russia, China in particular. But let me turn it around just a little bit for our listeners, everybody out there.

What can the average person do to protect themselves from attacks such as this, such as what Roger Stone faced by the Iranian regime? Not to say the IRGC is not going to be targeting the average person, right? But just in general terms, this happens a lot for other reasons, criminal reasons. So talk to us a little bit about just in general terms, what can people do? Well, the first thing, and this is an inconvenient thing for many people, is you've got to have various passwords for every different account. You've got to make it very hard. Now, you know, people, I have family members who do this where they use the same password for everything that they do because it's just easy.

And I actually, I knew a congressman. I worked in Congress for a while who did that all the time. And this individual had a secret clearance that they should not have been doing that. So something as simple is just changing up your passwords every probably four to six months, having very complicated passwords and not using the same passwords for more than one thing. It's probably going to help you in the long run. It's going to complicate the hacker's ability to kind of penetrate. Another thing, simple hygiene when you're dealing with emails, you mentioned earlier, you would be surprised.

how many people in a corporate or government setting click links that they should not be clicking. And, you know, avoid going to questionable websites when you're doing your search. You know, Google gets a lot of flack, but they do try to filter some of the bad stuff. But even then, it's not foolproof. And so, I mean, this can happen to anybody, as you rightly point out. In fact, it's actually a longer-term threat that this is happening to ordinary Americans. I think it's like a trillion dollar market is the black market for hacked information from Americans on the black market. So this is a huge problem, and it actually hurts the economy.

So something like what I've just said is probably those simple steps can probably help you avoid what Roger Stone just put the Trump administrator campaign through. Yeah, so it sounds like, you know, top protection ideas would be, A, be really cynical of anything that lands on your laptop or your desktop. even if it is from what appears to be a known sender. Yeah, and then, of course, don't click on links. And I think, you know, most corporate policies, you know, have that pretty clearly spelled out. But you're right. People tend to think, okay, they look.

They don't take the time to actually understand who the sender is. They don't look at that address because it looks similar. And then they end up clicking on a link. And the password thing, yeah, I get that. I was in an office a couple days ago, and I needed to access the local network that they had. And the fellow says, well, let me write down our password for you. And he wrote down, and I looked at the sheet of paper, and here's what he wrote, the word password with a capital P.

Yeah. Yeah. And I thought, well, that'll do it. I mean, you'd be surprised. Something that's simple, and it could actually probably save you a lot of heartache in the long. No, absolutely, particularly in a corporate setting, right? I mean, there's intellectual property, there's, you know, proprietary information, research and development.

I mean, that's obviously a big part of what hackers are going for oftentimes, certainly in corporate espionage. Now in looking down the road, right, we've got a handful of months left before the U.S. presidential election. Obviously a lot of interest from foreign actors that are hostile to our interests in the U.S. again, particularly Russia, China, Iran, to interfere in the election. When it comes to the issue of disinformation and misinformation, what's your advice to people? Again, the average voter, the person who's out there, obviously it's mostly the moderates,

the undecided, the folks who haven't made a decision one way or the other. But what do you tell people in this day and age? when there's such an aggressive effort to so discontent and disinformation. Well, that's a great question. I would just say, as always, check the source of what you're, I mean, think about this deep fake with AI that they did trying to, or rather, people thought that Kamala Harris was walking out of a plane that was an image that was doctored because of all the people in front of it. of it and of course it's since been revealed that actually it is a real image. And so, you know,

my argument would be is you've got to be very careful, especially on social media when all these people are saying, oh, this is not real or this is real. You need to really check the source because usually there's an agenda. Again, it's a simple thing. It's not really technically that complex. Just check the source and check the account that's posting it. If it's an account that doesn't really posts that much or that posts things that are of a certain, you know, bias, you need to always question whether or not this is an accurate thing that you're sharing. And that's really it. I mean, we're living in a really, really twisted time where something as simple as a photograph is going to be manipulated with AI. And ordinary people aren't going to be able to know. In fact,

I mean, I'll admit that I get tricked sometimes by these AI images, you know, of, you know, for campaign events and whatnot because it looks so real these days. So it's going to be a very complicated time period we're living in when it comes to things like this. How good is the technology, how quickly is it developing to proactively fight against this issue of deep fakes and what AI is capable of doing and how that can influence people's opinions and thoughts? You know, it's one of those things where the development is actually going faster than what we have. So what I mean by that is, you know, a year or two ago, deepfakes really were kind of a novelty. Now we're entering a period where just a couple years later, it's getting complex.

You can still detect when something's fake, but the new iterations of AI and deep fakes are becoming so complex that the ordinary person is not going to be able to detect with the naked eye. would say given the level of investment and interest among companies to develop this technology, that in the next five years, we're going to be living in a very different world where deep fakes are very believable and you could have real political fallout and scandal from these deep fakes. And so I would say that we are on a very positive, you know, trend of having technology that is very, very dangerous for the ordinary person. It's happening at a far faster clip, I think, think than even what most experts thought would happen. Yeah, I think part of the problem, too, is, you know, I don't think it's any way around this.

It's just people are busy. People are focused elsewhere. Everyone's trying to put food on the table. Do people really have time to dig in and evaluate the source of the information that they're seeing? A lot of people just want to be siloed and read what they agree with. And, you know, we just get further and further hardened, particularly on the edges. of the political spectrum. And yeah, so I'm not sure that there's a way out of this,

but I am wondering about the technology, the ability to, I don't even know how you would refer it to it, to Watermark, original video or original photos so that you can identify if it's been, I know there's some companies out there working on this, but so that you can identify if anything, even a pixel's been changed.

Yeah, no, they are. There is technology being developed. I want to say Google, I think, is behind one of these. Of course, you have to be careful, though, as well, because these companies also have an interest in constantly saying something's misinformation. That might not be misinformation. But yes, the technology is there, and they're working on it to be able to basically say, this is an original video.

And if you match it against this other video, you will be able to tell, algorithmically, that it's been manipulated. And I believe NSA has a program that's working on something, I mean, the Intel community, particularly the NSA and sort of those agencies, they do have probably a little bit more of a lead over the general public on specifically the issue of deep fake, both creating them and being able to detect them. I think then probably what most private companies even have. Okay. Now, I know this question is fairly broad, and it gets us a ways away from the original topic, which was the hack on the Trump campaign and, and, and, and, Ron's involvement in that. But looking forward, what worries you most in the world of cyberspace, the world of cybersecurity, cyber shenanigans, whatever you want to call it, what worries you the most?

A cyber 9-11. You know, after 9-11, we talked a lot about this. I remember, you know, this was like a constant refrain. When I worked in government, there was always this concern of, oh, Cyber 9-11, Cyber 9-11. No one really defined it. I'm sure at the CIA, and they did define it. But in terms of like the general public and sort of the civilian facing, like the Congress and whatever, nobody really could understand really what they meant.

A total comprehensive attack on our critical infrastructure that shuts down water, sewage reclamation, electricity, that could happen anywhere at any time. Our grid, our basic infrastructure, There are defenses, but those defenses can ultimately be destroyed. Those defenses can be worked around. And already we're seeing evidence of China with what's known as vault typhoon laying the groundwork, living off the land, as they say, preparing the battle space for a massive shutdown of our key infrastructure in the event that China decides to invade Taiwan, which I think is coming soon.

Similarly, there are terrorists out there with state backing that have the capacity to do significant amounts of damage to critical infrastructure. Banking system. Remember, I think it was in 2009, the Iranians tried to hack a bank, I think, in Chicago. I have these, and it's in my book. I can't remember off the top of my head, though, the exact incident. They also tried to flood upstate New York by shutting down the controls on a dam. Iran did this about 10 years ago. And so even back then, you saw Iran working with their proxies to try to go after our infrastructure.

Imagine doing that for the whole country. And that's the world we're now living in. And so when I say cyber 9-11, that's what I mean, debilitating the U.S. So we're not effective elsewhere in the world trying to clean up the mess here rather than the mess over in Iran's part of the world. That's coming. And I worry that it might be timed for the election. So in the next four months. Well, yeah, on that jury note, Brandon, thank you.

Yeah, everybody right now is going, oh, God, I need a drink. I'm a hit of the state of war. Iran's quest for supremacy. I recommend you get this book, read it. It's very much worth your time. Listen, Brandon, thank you very much for joining us today. sharing your expertise. I definitely would love to see you come back. We've got lots more to talk about. I'm always available. Excellent. Thank you, Ben. All right. Coming up next, we'll be joined by

human rights activist and the political director for the organization of Iranian-American communities, Dr. Majid's Sadigpur. Now, we'll be examining what's going on inside Iran as tensions continue to mount with Israel. We'll be looking at what's happening inside Iran with the population. We always talk about the IRGC, we talk about the Iranian leadership. Let's focus a little bit more on what the people in Iran are thinking. I'll be right back. Are you overwhelmed with back taxes or unfiled returns? I hope not. But if you are, listen up. With 88,000 newly hired agents, the IRS, I can't believe that, they've hired 88,000 new agents. The IRS has increased enforcement issuing millions of pay-up notices in 2024. Doesn't that sound pleasant? A pay-up

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after the recent killing of Hamas political leader, Ishmael-Hanje in Tehran last month. Despite Western calls for restraint, Tehran appears to be standing firm, saying that they don't need anyone's permission to respond to what they see as an attack on their security. Now, the Iranian foreign ministry slammed Europe, leaders for urging them not to strike Israel, stating that Iran is, quote, resolute in defending

its interests. Reports also suggest that Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khomeini has decided to hold off on an immediate response, and that's partly due, reportedly, to the urging of the country's newly elected president, Mossoud Peshqin, a man who's been labeled a moderate. But, well, you know, moderate, it's all relative. That report was later contradicted, but, by U.S. and Israeli intelligence assessments that the regime could launch its attack as early as Thursday of this week. So the question is, what's really going on inside Iran? How are these tensions affecting Iranian society and politics?

And in a general sense, what's the mood of the Iranian people? Look, we talk a lot about the Iranian leadership and the IRGC, but not much about the population in general. For that, I want to turn to Dr. Majid Saddikpur. political director for the organization of Iranian American communities. Doctor, thank you very much for taking the time to join us here on the Situation Report. Thank you for having me. Now let's start with that very, very general question.

And I want you to go with it wherever you want to on the playing field. From your perspective, what is the mood? What's the feeling of the Iranian people currently? Well, the Iranian people are in prison. have been imprisoned without a border, essentially, for more than four decades. Iran today has the highest per capita execution rate in the world, and the regime is holding the entirety of the population in Iran in excess of 85 million hostage. And in order to perpetuate its killing and executions of the people of Iran, which, by

the way, it needs for its survival. It also is perpetuating conflict outside of Iran, and unfortunately we see the ramifications of it in the region right now. This all, in addition to its nuclear weapons program and international terrorism beyond the Middle East, but the core vulnerability of this regime is really inside Iran. And to your point, the regime in Iran never has recovered. from the 2022 uprisings that began in the latter part of summer of 2022. The Iranian people have been struggling against regime, this regime tooth and nail for more

than four decades. And the most recent one that began in 2022 never really end. And the regime is in the middle of trying to eradicate those it arrested. So we eradicate or is there, is there any effort to, I'm, I apologize for interrupting, doctor, but I'm interested in that idea of dealing with the Iranian population from the leadership's perspective. Do you get the sense that there was an effort to placate them by putting in the new president who, you know, everyone kind of immediately said, oh, he's a moderate.

Isn't that interesting? Right. And really, this is, Pazakhian is no moderate. He's a crony of Dayatollah. It's really actually a marker of a dead-end regime that has no political future. With the death of Raeisi, Supreme Leader Ali Khanenei lost his protege and potential heir apparent. Zashkian is a revolutionary guards person. I remind your listeners and viewers that since Azishkian took office on the very day that everybody

is worried about right now on July 31st. 42 people, at least 42 people have been executed in Iran, and that today we are on the 13th day of August. And so this is an indication of a brutal individual and part and parcel of a regime that has been killing Iranians at a rate that had not been seen in year. Another indicator, for example, the struggle between the people and the regime is really the reported executions in 2023. The actual numbers since October 7, 2023 are really staggering.

But the entirety of 2023, the regime is reported to have executed over 860 people. If that number is correct, which Amnesty International says is correct, that accounts for 7, 4% of all global executions. Yeah, the country of Iran only has the 1% of the global population. And that should be mind-boggling for all of mankind, particularly for liberal democracies of the West. Because we have essentially ignored those executions and that astronomical number because we are preoccupied with Iran's proxies in the region.

And so the regime is reaping the benefit of those proxies. It distracting the West is blackmailing the international community into silence. But those executions in Iran are really indicator of a vibrant resistance movement inside Iran that is threatening the survival of this regime. And that is the part that former Secretary of State Mark Pompeo calls the missing factor in American policy towards Europe. Iran. In other words, we have placed maximum pressure on Iran. We have removed the maximum pressure and engaged the regime in Iran. But all along, we have ignored the people of Iran and their organized resistance, which aims to overthrow this regime. That is what the people of Iran are dying at that rate for. They want to overthrow this regime. And the Ayatollahs

of essentially handcuffed the West and occupied it with significant bloodshed in the region. That scenario has to change. Do you think, I mean, from your perspective, does the regime imagine that they can execute their way out of this problem? Or have you seen any indications at all in just a short time that the new president has been there, that they may try a slightly more moderate approach? in terms of placating the population? Right. No, unfortunately, there is no moderation in this regime. This regime is rotten to

his core, is medieval in nature, is misogynist in nature. It will never reform. That is what the Iranian people are dying to tell us that. If they were going to reconcile with anyone, they would be reconciling with Muslim Iranians, much less infidel foreigners. And that said, the regime is really in weak standing. It is several rattleing and terrorism in the region and the executions in Iran are simultaneously gone up. It's a measure of the regime's weakness. It's falling apart from within. The free world, as I must say, the United States Congress has said, must instead support the Iranian people's desire to overthrow this regime. That is what the people of Iran are dying for and are telling

us, they are able to accomplish. And in order for them to accomplish this, I can't tell you when it will be accomplished, but I can't tell you it is not too far in the future. In order to accomplish this, a few things must occur. Within Iran, the conditions are already there. It is a highly oppressive regime that has curtailed people's rights, and people want those rights. And those people have an organized resistance capable of continuing their struggle, and that's why you're seeing the number of executions perpetually going up or remaining high. What is missing is the free world giving credence to that struggle. What is missing is the free world is engaging diatollahs as if they are reformable. What is missing is the lack of accountability

for these people's behavior within and outside of the Iranian border. If the international environment actually matches what the people of our own want, which is to pressures the regime and engages the opposition, the regime will fall like a brick. The IRGC is incapable of containing 90 million population. Talk to me if you could about the IRGC in terms of its alignment with the current regime. It's importance to the regime in terms of maintaining power. And to what degree is the IRGC got their hands in the economy? Economies in turn essentially run by the IRGC. They have their own ports. They have their own way of feeding their own mechanism financially. They draw from multiple foundations

that regime has set up. These foundations are fed up, fed also by the regime directly through budget and also through plundering and really stealing the Iranian people's resources. You hear banks falling, all those assets are drawn into those foundations and into the IRGC. Most of the IRGC budget is not even visible or its income, visible to the Parliament of Iran to begin with. And so they report nearly directly to the Supreme Leader. So you can't do anything inside Iran at all without the IRGC's blessing. And so the regime is fully dependent on the IRG.

That's why we welcome the community designation of the IRGC, both in the U.S. and more recently in Canada. Do you make any, is there any credibility? There were some reports personally, I think they were just optimistic and, you know, not particularly grounded in reality. But there were some reports when the new president, Mosul-Bushchev came in, that the IRGC was unhappy, perhaps, with his placement, that they did, again, this concept of being a moderate, and that there is some daylight between he and his government

that he's trying to establish and the IRGC. Do you see any credibility in any of that? I think the regime has played the good guy, bad guy scenario, good cop, bad cop, within its apparatus as times demand in its relationship with the West. And we have kind of bought into that. The regime is a fully militarized regime, and whoever they bring in as a president is predetermined, not selected by the people of Iran at all. And so, yes, that there are differences within factions of the regime, and that's what

I was referring to. This regime is weak and vulnerable. It is reported that these vulnerabilities enabled some of the activities that we have enabled some of the activities that we have seen in recent days, particularly on July 31st. And so we got to remember that this regime is fighting the people of Iran day in and day out. Its end gain is survival, and if it is possible, expansion. But the primary goal of this regime at this point is survival. So it's willing to do anything.

It's willing to kill at enormous rates. He's willing to sacrifice the Palestinian people. It is willing to sacrifice and cause bloodshed across the region. By God, they are even willing to welcome a World War III as long as they remain in power. And their behavior suggests that they will engage the enemies of the West to their benefit. They will kill the Iranian people in perpetuity as long as they remain in power. The free world must flip the switch. It should engage the people of Iran and their organized resistance.

And I say, keep saying organized resistance, and he's led by the national people of resistance of Iran. Its leader is a multiple moment, Maria Rajavi. Those are, that is a resistance movement that has been in existence for more than four decades, fighting this regime and the people of Iran today are really echoing the chance that these people began making in the early 1980s, down with dictator, be it the Shah or the current leader. meaning that the people of Iran do not want single-party rule of dictatorship of the monarchy, nor the dictatorship of these Ayatollahs.

They want a Jeffersonian Republic, and that's what they're fighting for, and that's what they're dying for. And our job in here in the United States is to engage members of Congress to make sure American policy at least acknowledges their right to overthrow this regime. That is all less needed. There is no need for American funds or soldiers to be deployed. to the region to bring democracy to Iran. Those boots are already on the ground. All we need to do is recognize their plight,

recognize the legitimacy of that the struggle to overthrow this regime. Let's just say it. Let us recognize their right to regime change, but not from afar, not the Iraqi-style regime change, the kind that they would do themselves. They're the ones who are going to have to fight the IRGC. They are fighting them now. Yeah.

But they don't enjoy the legitimacy they reserve. Yeah, I apologize for interrupting. But I mean, I would say that we've gone through several generations now and a number of U.S. administrations where, you know, this concept of, you know, at some point there will be an uprising. At some point, you know, the population will rise up and discussed with the oppressiveness of the regime. And yet we just keep going through, you know, another decade and it doesn't happen. I want to pick up the conversation in just a minute.

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This is a sort of topic that we could spend the best part of the day discussing. But we've only have a few minutes left. We've been talking about the potential, I suppose, if you want to put it that way, for the Iranian population to assert themselves to rise up. that to happen, obviously there needs to be international support. And without getting too political, I was hoping to get your perspective, your assessment of the current U.S. administration, the Biden administration's Iran policy over the past few years. Of course. Well, let's run. Before I run it back, I should answer your question directly.

Well, the current policy United States is what it has been since the early 1980s. And that one that is actually in direct conflict with the wish and aspirations of the people of Iran. Let me explain. The U.S. policy towards Iran during the Bush administration, the Bush one, Bush two, Reagan administration, Clinton administration, and the current administration, even the administration before the current administration, was all through different methods to compel regime in Iran to change its behavior. Whereas during the same period, more than four decades, all of what Iranian people have

been dying for over 120,000 people over this period that have died, are struggling for something entirely different. They're struggling for regime change, not changing regime behavior, because they were convinced after the first couple of years that this regime is incapable of change. And they have been dying at this enormous rate to tell them. us exactly that. And that is the message of the Iranian resistance. That is the message of the NCRI. That is the message of our community. That this regime must be changed, but not from afar, from within. And in order to that, for that to occur, international, to your point,

international community must hold the regime accountable, yes, but it also must engage the alien people through engaging this or their organized opposition politically and morally. That is the missing factor in America's policy towards Iran. And until that changes, you will continue to see this pendulum of pressure and engagement, of dialogue of civilizations and such. But the regime never changes. They are who they are. Predatory vipers that will never lay an egg from which a dove will fly.

that is essential translation of what Madame Rajavi has told us years ago, decades ago. This regime is irreformable in regards to who they put as president or even a supreme leader. Doctor, it's clear that there are those, right, inside Iran, committed to seeing a change, right? Yes. But how would you – this is a tough question, I know, but in terms of – of the general population, how would you describe their attitude? Right? I mean, I suspect with the economic conditions being the way they are, there are a lot of people,

just like there are in a variety of countries around the world, that are basically just focused on trying to get by, right? And they're existing within a system that, yeah. And so the system may not be what they want, but honestly, they're just trying to make it from one day to the next. Do you get the sense that a lot of the folks in Iran, and again, I know this is kind of that soft science question, but would you consider them resigned to the situation? Would you consider them pessimistic about the opportunity for change?

No. Opportunity, of course, if they were resigned, why would there be so high on executions in Iran? Why would be enormous, enormous-sized prisons across Iran? They killed 29 people over the past four days. If they were resigned, they would have just stayed silent, but they're fighting. The problem is not the willingness of the Iranian people to sacrifice for that change. The problem is the lack of engagement from the international community. Keep in mind, Europeans are still whining, dining across Tehran and hold embassies.

It is the U.S. that doesn't have an embassy, right? It's not just America's enemies that are holding the regime afloat. It is America's allies that is still to this day refused to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization in Europe, right? So if that is the environment, what is the expectation of the people of Iran? They are rising up. Let me run it back a little bit to 2017 when the administration in the U.S. changed, right? The uprisings began in the latter part of 2017 before there was being mentioned. designation of the RDC or the maximum pressure policy. Uprising is continued 20.

What do you make of the, if I'm sorry for interrupting, I'm mindful of our time. I did want to ask you about your perception of the recent election, the voter turnout in particular. You know, what was your assessment of that, the general numbers? What do you read into that? Right, they've had two operations,

I'm sorry, elections over the in this past year. One was the parliamentary elections where Washington Post reported no more than 11% participated. That's astonishing. That's really telling you where people are. And this one was really not any better, right? And so what we are talking about is roughly 90% of the population not participating in an election, where your participation is required for participation in society. you have to, your national ID must be marked with participation.

Not yea or nay, but participation to legitimize the veneer of republic for the regime. In order for you to get a job, in order to enter university, you need that participation marker. But people still are willing to part ways with their way of life, their income, their promotion, their potential contract, is still saying no to the regime in ways me and you might not know this. So the regime is totally illegitimate in all aspects. Even the United States governments acknowledged it. But yes, we still want to engage it to change its behavior, which is astonished. That is what needs to change.

The next people in the White House, whoever they are, must not only pressure the regime, but also include, as House Resolution 1148 says in this session of Congress with more than 220 original co-sponsors, is that we must support the Iranian people's, politically and morally, support the Iranian people's desire to overthrow this regime. If we were to do that, change in Iran will occur in near term. And we will all, to your point, live to see it. Now, it's one thing to be, and we only have a short period of time left, it's one thing to be hopeful. It's another thing to be optimistic. And so I guess if we look at some of the indicators,

Khomeini, the Supreme Leader, I believe, is 85 years old. Do you feel as if a change there, once that happens, once Khomeini either dies or steps down, whatever, that presents an opportunity for a move for possible change? Well, I can draw from the history. History tells us the medieval theocracies are weaker every generation, right? every time they change leadership at the top. Khamenei is not nearly as more as powerful as his predecessor in Khomeini.

Khomeini ordered the execution of more than 30,000 political prisoners in 1988 and got away with it. And this guy is crawling around killing Iranians at a much different rate. But it is much more weak. And his who comes after him will more likely be a lot of way. weaker than he is. But hopefully we will never get to that point. Hopefully this regime, I am very much optimistic to your point that this regime will fall very shortly should the United States and the free world lend their political and moral support to the people of Iran and their organized resistance.

I, doctor, I do hope you're right. My feeling has been for a long time that there will be no short, mid, long-term peace in the Middle East, despite all the various negotiations and discussions that take place and potential ceasefires, as long as the current Iranian regime is in charge, along with the IRGC. So I appreciate you. Dr. Majid Sadakpur, thank you very much, political director for the organization of Iranian-American communities. We really appreciate your time for your insight, your expertise, and I do hope you'll come

back when we call you again. We'll do. Thank you very much. Well, that's all the time we have for on the PDB situation report. If you have any questions or comments, look, please reach out to me at PDB at thefirsttv.com. Everybody here at the PDB compound, which is essentially a secret layer underneath a dormant volcano, but you probably knew that. We all love getting your comments, your questions, your mail, your faxes. So keep them coming in. And to listen to the podcast of the show ad free, well, you probably already.

know this as well, become a premium member of the President's Daily Brief by visiting PDB Premium.com. And remember, of course, as if you could forget, new episodes of the PDB Situation Report. They air every Friday at 10 p.m. on the first TV. And of course, on all podcast platforms and our YouTube channel, which is turning into a juggernaut at President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker. And until next time, you know the drill. Stay informed. Stay safe. Stay cool. How many discounts does USAA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount, safe driver discount,

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