The President's Daily Brief - PDB Situation Report | August 22nd, 2026: Trump’s Iran Crackdown Could Trigger a Collision With China

Episode Date: August 22, 2026

In this episode of The PDB Situation Report: President Trump’s plan to crush Iran’s economy may put Washington on a collision course with China, Tehran’s largest remaining oil customer. Joshua Philipp joins us to discuss whether Beijing will cooperate with the economic campaign—or keep the Iranian regime alive. Russia pounds Kyiv with 168 drones and dozens of missiles, killing at least 16 people as Ukraine’s air defenses run dangerously short. John Hardie, deputy director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Russia Program, joins us with his analysis. 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 QUO: Make this the season where no opportunity slips away. Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to https://Quo.com/PDB Thanks to today’s sponsor, Spring Sleep: eXciteOSA is an FDA-cleared, prescription-only device for primary snoring and mild obstructive sleep apnea. Go to springsleep.com/PDB and unlock 20% off with the code PDB. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm Megan Kelly. Every day on the Megan Kelly show, we bring you the news, and this summer we're bringing you something extra. Before I was a journalist, I was a lawyer. I've spent 20 plus years now covering crime and the law. So I built a true crime series that I always wanted to listen to. We're calling it M.K. Confidential. And there we cover cases that you've heard about, like John Bonae Ramsey, Chandra Levy, the D.C. Snipers, Scott Peterson, and some that you haven't. One case per week, five episodes Monday through Friday. New episodes every weeknight, search for the Megan Kelly show, wherever you listen to podcasts and you will find MK Confidential. I break down the new wars and weapons systems that are totally reshaping our world

in my show, Cappy Army. But we go beyond simply just telling you what happened in a war. We actually investigate deeper into the why and how. At Cappy Army, everything is informed by my experience as an average U.S. Army infantrymen in Iraq and a war. war correspondent covering the front lines of the war in Ukraine. Just search Kappi Army on Apple podcast or Spotify to get weekly open source intelligence reports. And remember to follow today. Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage.

All right. Let's get briefed. President Trump's plan to crush Iran's economy may put Washington on a collision course with China, Tehran's largest remaining oil customer, of course. Joshua Philip joins us to explain whether Beijing will cooperate or whether they'll continue keeping the Iranian regime alive. Later in the show, Russia pounds Kiev with 168 drones and dozens of missiles, killing at least 16 as Ukraine's air defense has run short. John Hardy, deputy director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracy's Russia program, he stops by to give us his insight.

But first, today's PDB spot. President Trump is promising the most crushing economic campaign ever launched against Iran, but its success may well depend on China. Beijing purchases more than 80% of Iran's shipped oil, making it to France's largest remaining economic lifeline. If China refuses to cooperate, Trump must then decide whether to sanction Chinese banks and refiners and shipping companies, obviously risking a far larger confrontation with America's most powerful adversary. For more on this, I want to turn to Joshua Phillip.

He's a senior investigative reporter at the EBOC Times and the host of the Josh Phillips Show. You can check him out on YouTube at the Josh Phillips Show. Josh, it's great to see you again, man. Thank you for taking the time to be with us here on the sit-rep. Yeah, it's always a pleasure. Thank you. Well, thank you. Even if you don't meet it. You know what?

I appreciate that. I appreciate the effort. So let me ask you this. Economic D-Day. he's got up the president is is talking about punishing severe consequences huge consequences if countries don't cooperate if they continue to do business of any sort or banks and whatever it starts to do any business with with Tehran they're going to suffer severe consequences do you think China cares they do care they care a lot I think the question is whether

Trump is willing to deal with the possible repercussions of it. You know, so basically what's happening right now, you know, for a long time, Trump keeps saying, you know, Iran, this is your final warning, you know, tomorrow your whole country will cease to exist and, you know, so on and so on. And then, you know, the next day comes around, he's like, hey, I changed my mind. You know, we had conversations and everything's fine now and we're going to make a deal and then it doesn't happen, right? He's been going back and forth like this, like, pretty often. The latest is something. very different, though. What he's saying is he's announcing, you know, Scott Bess and Treasury Department,

right? They're announcing the largest ever sanctions. And basically, this is not just sanctions on like, effectively the entire Iranian economy, probably every Iranian leader, because some updates on this, they actually have managed to trace even all their hidden wealth, which they couldn't do before. But what they're doing beyond it is they're even going after countries that are economically supporting Iran. And so one of the big ones would be China. China buys about 80% of Iran's oil. And China needs that.

They mostly get their oil from Russia, Iran, and formerly Venezuela. Russian oil doesn't flows like it used to. Venezuelan oil is American oil now, I guess. and the Iranian oil is heavily sanctioned. So if Trump moves forward with this, he's going to cripple the Chinese economy, and the Chinese economy is going to have to decide what they want to do. But am I wrong in saying that China, they don't have to do that. They got a little intoxicated on discounted oil from Russia and from Iran,

but they can buy from the same global markets that everybody else does, right? They can technically. So there's going to be two different issues, that. One issue is, they're going to be pulling from the same squeezed pool as everybody else. You know, for the United States, we don't get a lot of oil through the straight of four moves. This should not technically affect us. But it's affecting oil prices here because, hey, guess what, you know, global oil prices are effectively set. If China starts buying from the same pool as everybody else, you're going to watch oil prices go probably higher than, at least in my lifetime we've

ever seen them. This is going to be utterly insane. That's for everybody. Josh, I don't, I'm sorry for keep interrupting, but I'm fascinated by this. That's for everybody. That's the U.S., right? NRLs, too. Because the global markets are the global markets. So if China has to dip into the same well, then yes, I think you're 100% right. Price is going to skyrocket, but they're going to skyrocket for everybody, including the U.S. Yeah. No, they probably will. I mean, the other possibility with this is that Trump could maybe pressure Iran to move quickly enough on it. I don't know if that's going to happen.

The other possibility is, you know, Trump maybe thinks we can get Venezuelan oil flowing fast enough to replace that. I know one of his long-term goals, I mean, since before he was even thinking about running up for president, he was still talking like Oprah Winfrey, right? Which he said, you know, why don't you run for president? He was saying, look, America could become one of the largest oil powers in the world. you know, we could become the Saudis, we could become rich, why aren't we doing it? Maybe that's a long-term plan, but I don't think you could start that within even the next

a year. Like, that's not something I think you could do overnight. Well, here's what I'm wondering. I guess the reason why I keep asking this question is because, you know, the calculation, I think, is that the White House believes, with this economic deed, with this increased sanctions and pressure, that they can get the regime to fold because, obviously they're, you know, very focused on concerns over civil unrest, you know, getting people back out in the street. Not that they're worried because I think they've got enough ammunition to kill thousands more. But I think that's the calculation from the White House. The calculation from the regime in Iran appears to be, we can ride this pain out,

and we don't think you can, meaning you being the White House and Americans. It is a game of chicken, basically. because, you know, for the United States, it is something we could write out. We could write it out a lot more effectively than they could. We could even tap technically to strategic oil reserves. The problem is Biden drained most of them and they didn't replace them. So, you know, we're kind of in a tough spot. The real timeline for the U.S., though, is the midterm elections.

And I think for, you know, Iran, what they're seeing is there's this new rising, you know, far left in the United States of Democratic socialists. and, you know, they want to defund the Department of Defense. Yeah. Their whole narrative is economics. They want to have the president appointed by the House of Representatives, and they want to abolish the Senate. Like, you know, if they can get political victories, that's long-term victory for, you know,

the enemies of the United States. And so I think on one side, China and Iran, they would love that, frankly. They would really like that. And especially these new candidates are running on the platform. of, you know, economy and affordability. Yeah. I don't think the Iranian regime is unsophisticated. I certainly don't think the CCP, Xi Jinping and that crew are unsophisticated.

They've spent a long time watching politics. I don't, in the U.S., I don't believe they honestly think the DSA is going to somehow ride in and take over the political landscape in the U.S. So, but I take your point. They probably look at that and think, okay, I think they probably feel like that is, the indicator that overall in the landscape of politics, generally speaking, the Republicans and Democrats won't have the patience, right? And there could be, they're probably guessing there's going to be a change in control of the Congress after the midterms. So I don't think they're worried

about the DSA taking over. I think, but they do look at that as an indicator that they believe they're right by thinking the White House is not going to have the patience to keep this going, meaning the economic pressure, and that's what they're probably banking on because they're seeing this adjustment in the landscape. Well, I think what they're banking on is not like, you know, Trump being replaced by, you know, AOC or something like that, or, you know, Bernie Sanders. I think what they're banking on is the DSA could win enough house seats that they could overturn a lot of Trump's policies or, and of course, you know, Democrats tend to march in

lockstep. So if they just get enough DSA members in, they can influence the rest of the Democratic Party. and the DSA platform is not to like take over the Senate and everything else. They want to control the House and then use the control of the House to basically negate the other forms of, you know, the other branches of government effectively. Yeah. But I think that front, I think you're right. But I think from, I mean, I guess from front, yeah. From my perspective, I think that I could be completely wrong here.

But look, I'm all in favor of this increased economic sanctions. I think it's the one thing that really hurts the regime, really makes them concerned, right? They know they can withstand more munitions, right? And they believe to some degree they can push the economic pain down to the people, right? It's not like that, you know, senior IRGC commanders aren't going to get paid, right? But I think that they feel as if the White House, right, maybe not even because I think leading up to the midterm. I think they probably feel that there's enough self-interest on the part of the Republican Party that they're going to get nervous enough, that they're going to pressure the White House as well

to say, we've got to come up with a solution here, and it's not riding out this economic pain of the sanctions for the next six to 12 months. I mean, this all process could take longer than we imagine. So I guess, but let's let's, if we could go back to China because it is a fascinating aspect of this, If China doesn't play ball, if they look at this and go, look, you know, maybe we do care in one level, but the reality is this is in our best interest to continue dealing with Iran, not to somehow concede the White House's points. What impact does that have on this overall pressure effort?

Is that sufficient? Is China's support to Iran? and also to some degree Russia's, I suppose, sufficient to negate to a significant degree this economic pressure. That's a long question. I'm sorry about that. Absolutely. So there's a few moving parts with this.

So first of all, Iran needs to sell oil. Russia also makes its business mostly by selling oil. Russia's not going to bail out Iran by buying their oil, you know, just plain and simple. China, China can. India to an extent, but mostly China, right? And so the Chinese Communist Party is like, is the factor propping up their economy right now? Without China, there is no Iranian economy, right? And part of that is because of sanctions.

Part of that is because Iran can't sell in the broader market, and China's buying, you know, sanctioned oil, basically. On the other side, China is facing a lot of really bad internal issues also. they're terrified of social unrest right now. Like, they're terrified of it. Their economy is imploding. The sanctions have hit them a lot harder than people are acknowledging. You know, about a third of their economy was real estate. They overproduced it.

They have ghost cities. Real estate's going for nothing there. I know the CCP's trying to use this in propaganda saying, everybody can afford a house in China. It's because the real estate industry imploded. You know what I mean? They overproduced on manufacturing, which is why they're trying to, dump it onto foreign markets and why even Europe and Canada trying to block that from happening. You know, companies are pulling out of China to the extent that the CCB has banned them from

leaving China. You know, and then the U.S., Trump called them out now for interfering in the 2020 elections. Trump's going after a lot of the spies. And I think Trump's kind of pulling out all stops with them. And in other words, the economic pillars of China are gone. Like, they're gone right now. And their only hope now is internal kind of politics and internal, you know, stuff. And then, of course, you know, infrastructure projects in Africa and Latin America.

But even there, a lot of these countries have been getting ripped off for so long that it's not working. On the U.S. side, China could disappear tomorrow and we would be financially better off. The problem we have is they have monopolies in a few key areas. For example, certain pharmaceuticals, they have a monopoly. rare earth minerals reading our rare earth elements damper monopoly and so unless we can break dependence on those we kind of need them but but the long-term track run right now is actually kind of like economic disengagement so this could actually speed that up that that leads us to a whole series of other questions but it also Josh leads us to a break so if you'll stay right

where you see how he did that that was very smooth wasn't it if you'll stay right where you are we'll be back with more from Joshua Phillip right here on the Situation Report. Stick around. Hey, Mike Baker here. Let me take just a minute to talk to you about an incredibly important subject. It's absolutely the key to your health. And I'm talking about sleep, how to get good sleep. So let me ask you a question. Do you snore? I know it's a kind of a personal question. But as a result of your snoring, did somebody, maybe your partner, hand you a CPAP machine? And then did you just at some point stop using it, right? Seap users know. mask never quite seals, the hose is tugging at you every time you roll over, and eventually,

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Again, that's ExciteOSA at SpringSleep.com slash PDB. And of course, thank you, the SpringSleep for sponsoring this episode. Disclaimer, ExciteOSA is an FDA cleared, prescription-only device for primary snoring and mild obstructive sleep apnea. It's not for everyone. Individual results may vary. Check out the risks and benefits at springsleep.com. I break down the new wars and weapons systems that are totally reshaping our world in my show, Cappy Army. But we go beyond simply just telling you what happened. In a war, we actually investigate

deeper into the why and how. At Cappy Army, everything is informed by my experience as an average U.S. Army infantrymen in Iraq and a war correspondent covering the front lines of the war in Ukraine. Just search Cappy Army on Apple Podcast or Spotify to get weekly open source intelligence reports. remember to follow today. Welcome back to the PDB situation report. Joining me once again is senior investigative reporter at the EBOC Times, Joshua Philip. Josh, thanks very much for sticking around with.

Very much appreciated because if we had come back to this shot and you weren't there, that would be really awkward. That would be bloodier, yeah. It would be weird, wouldn't it? It'd be, it'd be, people would be talking about it and we go viral for all the wrong reasons. You brought up a lot of important issues here in the previous segment related to China. Again, kind of focusing on the White House announcement that they're going to engage in this economic D-Day. They're going to put sanctions and consequences on countries that continue to do business with Iran

that don't work with the White House in this economic D-Day against the regime. And so we've been talking about China. You brought up this, the idea of social unrest in China, which I always find fascinating. Talk to me about that. What are you seeing? And, you know, how is the CCP as a communist party working to prevent that sort of social, civil unrest? The CCP, okay, a couple points on this. So when Trump was president of the first turn, or is his first term in office, the Chinese

Communist Party was also on the brink of economic collapse. You know, the trade wars he had with them, this is before they had the ability to fully produce, you know, semiconductors by themselves. And when Trump cut those off and was hitting them as sanctions, the Chinese economy almost collapsed. Like, they came really close to it. And then what happened? You had the uprisings in Hong Kong, right? You had mass civil unrest in Hong Kong, and that started spreading into China. The CCP was terrified thinking, basically, this was, you know, the end of the end of the road. And so they crushed those, they crushed that unrest. They crushed it in China. And then what did they do? Well, COVID, you know, whether miraculously for their safe versus salvation, or, you know,

is a tool came out. And then they used that to lock down everybody. If you went and protested, they turned your health code red and threw you in the gulag. And that's how they did it. And then what they did is the export of the economic crisis. So China was facing mass economic crisis. And They then advised the World Health Organization. You know, we have the solution to COVID-19, lock down your economies, lock down all the businesses, lock everybody in their homes, and, you know, the whole nine yards. And then the rest of the world did it, you know, thanks to Fauci and the WHO, because that we were following World Health Organization recommendations.

We shut down the global economy, and then China said, hey, we fixed it. We solved COVID. We're open for business. and people poured money back into China. China was bailed out by foreign investment during that time, and they used COVID-19 to do it. Now, we're basically back at that point, right? The CECP is facing very similar issues, and there ain't no COVID-19 to bail them out, at least hopefully not. Well, not that the general.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, I don't want to put some fear down this rabbit hole, but, of course, the Chinese Communist Party never provided any transparent. or any support, any efforts to work with the international community to understand the origins of COVID-19, which, of course, leaves us in danger for the next pandemic because we failed to learn what we could have learned had they been transparent. But they, and of course, they haven't paid really necessarily a price for it. Anytime anybody complained about it, it was like, well, you're just xenophobic, right?

So that was it. That's exactly what they did. Yeah. They even sanctioned government officials in other countries like Australia when they called for investigations. And now we're finding out that Dr. Fauci and his private notes and, you know, 10 of the 12 people in the proximal origins paper saying natural origin actually did believe it came from a lab in China. So that raised a lot of questions here as well. It's wild stuff. Yeah. Yeah. It is. And again, I go back to the crime here. is that we haven't learned what we could have learned, right? And because there will be another pandemic.

And regardless of its origin or where it comes from, there will be another. And, you know, it would have been nice if the Chinese Communist Party would have stepped up to the plate and worked with the rest of the international community. But that just wasn't going to happen. With, you also touched on, you briefly mentioned, Trump kind of shining a light on Chinese espionage efforts. You know where I'm going to go with this. Talk to me about Fang Fang.

She just sounds like everyone at the panthers of the Washington Zoo. Yeah, yeah, good old Christine Fang, Fang, Fang, Fang, Fang, Bang, Bang, Fang the caller, right? Yeah, so today, of course, or, you know, recently, I guess I should say, Eric Swalwell was raided by the FBI. So Eric Swalwell, of course, former representative. ran for governor of California, dropped out because of, you know, allegations of rape. You know, innocent till proven guilty, but hey, it looks pretty bad. He has now been raided by the FBI. They took different devices from him.

And alongside this, the FBI released 150 pages on good old Fangfang. It turns out that Fang Fang Fang was not just sleeping with him. Fang Fang was also planting interns within his campaign. And it turns out Fang Fang was also getting illegal. illegal campaign donations, at least according to the FBI, you know, innocent till proven guilty, so we can't say for sure. But she's accused of getting illegal campaign donations. What she was doing, allegedly, is she was offering positions in exchange for campaign donations.

And that raises questions over, well, who were these interns then? Not only that, but she was doing this to other politicians. Rokana, actually, is one of them. There's the two former mayors in California, several local representatives in California, all were tied in with Fang Fang. And what had happened effectively was Fang Fang was known. She was monitored by the FBI. They tried converting her into a double agent.

She left to China and she never came back in 2015. That would have been the Obama administration. So, no, we may never know the whole story on Fang Fang, but that's what happened. Well, I think we can probably fill in the gaps. Look, I mean, it's classic methodology for an intel asset. You know, she was more than a cooperative contact of the PLA Intel apparatus. She was, you know. Her family is Chinese Communist Party, and she's suspected by the FBI being tied to the Chinese Ministry of State Security.

So there are some smoke. Oh, no, I can't tell you. She was writing up all of these contact reports. She had a handler. You know, there was a desk back in China's Intel offices, you know, reading her contact reports and sending her back tasking. This is not rocket science, right? And so it is remarkable. I think Swalwell, did he, he started in Congress in 2013, maybe, I think something like that.

I don't remember the year, but then would have been within that time frame because I think Fing Fain was actually. between, I believe, 2013 and 2015. Yeah, yeah, I think that was, I think that was right. I think he, so she knows, I mean, again, and then look, this is, you know, having, having worked in, you know, the intelligence organizations, you know, you have an access like that, you've got a contact who has access to potentially valuable information. That's a big deal. So she did quite well.

I suspect she got promoted out of that. But, you know, it just shows the. naivete, the ignorance, the stupidity, however you want to refer to it, of somebody like Swalwell, they're in Congress and they're not bright enough to spot this potential problem. And so it is fascinating, but I guarantee you it goes on constantly. The Chinese intel apparatus is incredibly aggressive. They're persistent. They've got a long view.

So if anybody thinks this was somehow, Fang Fang was some sort of an outline. says, oh, I can't believe they did this one case. That's nonsense. This is going on even as we speak. Oh, absolutely. I'd point to a couple cases. You know, Rose Pack, I think, needs to... I think the entire legacy of Rose Pack needs to be investigated.

So, in San Francisco, there was a woman named Rose Pack. She was a known Chinese Communist Party agent. Like, it was known. She was called the Kingmaker of San Francisco. I mean, she's dead now. She got a bad organ transplant in China died from it. But she was called the kingmaker of San Francisco. You could not get into politics in San Francisco unless you had the blessings of Rose Pack.

Personally, I think that every single politician who got into power with any contact with her whatsoever needs to be investigated. Like, absolutely. And I point to it also that, you know, the former heir of Arcadia admitted to being a Chinese spy. Blood guilty to it. California has a spy problem. And I'd imagine this is the whole country, you know. This, it's not just, not, yeah, no, it's not, it's not just that. It's also an academia.

It's in academia. It's in private sector. You know, it's everything. They just, and they have a million ruses in terms of how they go and approach individuals for information. You know, some researcher reaches out to some researcher in a U.S. company and just says, I'd love to open up a channel of communication where I'm working on. a project and I read your paper and it's fascinating and so people they know what they're doing

they also obviously feed on first and second generation Chinese Americans that's been a favorite of theirs for a long time but you know do you do you get the sense that the current administration will engage in further sanctions against China should they decide not to play ball with this economic D-Day announcement of President Trump's. I believe that even outside of this, the United States needs to. Based on what Trump is alleged of China interfering on our elections, based on what he said about them paying journalists to write hit pieces and mess with, you know, political discourse, based on what he said about the Chinese Communist Party

feeding and funding, you know, far left unrest all across the United States to affect our elections, if you let that go unpunished, if you say we don't sanction you for this, like, what kind of message are we even sending? So I think even aside from Iran, yeah, Trump needs to do something based on what he's exposing on China, or it's just making a mockery of how we respond to these kinds of things. One last question, Josh, I've got to be aware of time here, but how do you assess Xi Jinping's current grip on power? Very delicate, but also very to He's basically, he has basically walked in the footsteps of Mao Zedong. He's effectively the chairman of the CCP.

There are typically different pillars of power within China, and Xi Jinping conquered all of those. He also destroyed most of his main rival faction, which was formerly under Jiangzeman, and he's dead, of course, now, but, you know, Zhangsman's whole faction that he was battling with internally. But on that note, Xi Jinping is also not respected. He's not looked well upon in China. You know, you're talking about like a high school dropout. He's not the sharpest tool in the shed, so to speak.

And so he's ruling right now with an iron fist is the way he's going about it. Purging people saying that even if you're suspected of like questioning the economy, you can get purged, that he's very aggressive with it. So he's ruling by fear right now. Does he have a, does he have a loyal? cadre within senior military leadership? So he took over the military. He has been purging military leaders.

In fact, actually, there was a whole big thing that happened on that right after Trump rolled in and basically took up most of the Iranian military. When Trump captured Maduro took out the Iranian military, China, Xi Jinping, they just absolutely cleaned house within the military. He had the guy who built the J20, according to reports, had the guy executed on the spot, like had him shot because, you know, the J20 crash and he said basically they're ripping them off. They found out that none of their weapons worked the way they were supposed to, and Xi Jinping was like livid. He has purged so much of the military leadership. It's questionable if they could even fight a war right now.

And so, yeah, she could say that he gained control over it, but he did it in a way that like it kind of, crippled their military and also crippled a lot of their military development. Yeah, and it seems like he was doing what he's done in the past, which is he's hiding behind this idea of anti-corruption campaigns. Yeah. And so, but it also sounds like, so part of it is, part of it is true within the Chinese military that there was a great deal of corruption. And to your point about, though, some of the weapon systems just not functioning the way they're supposed to. So this. So this. is the big picture of what's coming out. The U.S. Intel community is planning to release,

at least as what they're saying, information on all of the hidden wealth of Xi Jinping and the key leaders around him. And that will blow the, below his whole narrative on the, you know, quote-to-quote anti-corruption campaign out of the water because he was using that narrative to purge his enemies. If it turns out that he's also just as guilty as all the people he purged, that's going to send some shockwaves. And the U.S. intel community has public reports saying they're going to do this. So, you know, we'll see if they actually do, you know, whether or not they do it. I would be shocked with Xi Jinping, much like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, the leaders of Hezbollah or Hamas.

Are you just shocking that they would be amassing wealth, personal wealth? And by that, I mean, no, it's not shocking at all. Yeah, when is a guseless leader ever done that? I know. Who would imagine? They're all about the people. Listen, thank you very much, man. It's always delightful.

Look at me looking, using the word delightful. But, you know, I mean, I always appreciate your insight, your experience. And I hope when we give you a call, you'll pick up the phone and come on back. And be a pleasure. Thank you. Outstanding, thank you. All right. Well, later in the show, Vladimir Putin, you've probably heard about him.

He exploits a growing weakness in Ukraine's defenses, those are the air defenses, launching a massive assault as Keith runs dangerously low on Patriot Interceptors. We'd have more on that with the Foundation for Defense of Democracy's John Hardy when we come back. So stick around. Hey, Mike Baker here. Now, I have been a business owner for years. And as a business owner, I know the importance of staying in touch with clients and potential clients, right? of always being available because you missed calls, well, they can mean missed potential clients and that could mean lost revenue.

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I break down the new wars and weapons systems that are totally reshaping our world in my show, Cappy Army. But we go beyond simply just telling you what happened. In a war, we actually investigate deeper into the why and how. At Cappy Army, everything is informed by my experience as an average U.S. Army infantrymen in Iraq and a war correspondent covering the front lines of the war in Ukraine. Just search Cappy Army on Apple Podcast or Spotify to get weekly open source intelligence reports. and remember to follow today.

Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Russia launched one of its largest attacks on Kiev in weeks, firing 168 drones along with cruise ballistic and hypersonic missiles. Now, at least 16 people were killed and more than 40 injured. President Zelensky says Ukraine intercepted most of the drones and cruise missiles, but its Patriot systems are running short of the interceptors needed to stop the ballistic weapons. That shortage is leaving Ukrainian cities increasingly exposed. For more on this, let me bring in John Hardin.

He's the deputy director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracy's Russia program. John, thanks very much. Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. Thanks for having me on. Absolutely. Well, let's start maybe from the 30,000 foot level. How serious is the munitions shortage for Kiv? It's quite serious.

Right now, the air defense situation, especially with ballistic missiles, is really Ukraine's biggest challenge. I mean, when it comes to subsonic cruise missiles and the one-way attack drones, the shaheds, and what have you, Ukraine does pretty well shoots down the vast majority. It's really the ballistic missiles that are a challenge driven by this global paucity of Patriot missiles. And so Russia has been trying to exploit that with the help of increased production of, you know, Iskonder, R.M48U missiles as well as help from North Korea. Okay. And it's interesting because, I mean, I guess the follow on question is, how does Kiev resolve this, right? If there's, as you said, a posity, if there's, you know, a problem with, you know, everyone's pantry running bear, whether it's in the U.S.

our EU allies, what's this solution on this? Right. So I think trying to shoot down Russian arrows is just not working because of the lack of that capacity. So really, Ukraine's next best option is to go after the proverbial archer. So, you know, Ukraine has been trying to lobby Elon Musk for access to his Starlink satellite internet service inside. Russia. So since 2022, the Ukrainians have relied on Starlink for the air military communications.

They use Starlink-controlled drones, what they call middle strike drones, basically medium-range drones for strikes on dynamic targets in the occupied territory. So like logistic trucks, air defense systems, what have you. What they want is permission to use that system inside Russia proper, where it's restricted. And that is where the Russians are launching almost all of those ballistic missiles from. So if that restriction were lifted, the Ukrainians could use Star Lake controlled drones to hunt for those Russian launchers and related assets and strike them either with drones or with a follow-on missile. Is it correct to say that so far, though, Musk has said, no, he's not going to do that? Yeah. So this is the reporting and also the actually Federal,

Mahalo Federov, Ukraine's erstwhile defense minister who was just fired by Zelensky a few weeks ago, and it was kind of the Ukrainian go-to Musk whisperer. He's been in contact with Elon Musk, he says, you know, in recent weeks, but it's just not having much luck. I think it would require intervention from the Oval Office to resolve this situation, and so far it does not seem like the White House is biting. Okay. And the reasoning behind it, is it that Musk is worried that if he allowed, How's that system to be used for this purpose, that it could escalate, what essentially is Putin's, you know, four-plus-year invasion of Ukraine?

I think that's his concern, is that, you know, it's an escalation to be having these starly controlled munitions going into Russia. And he wants, you know, decides to focus on trying to find a peaceful solution. I think the counter to that would be that, you know, Putin is, you know, we tried to. diplomacy, President Trump and his team have really put their best efforts at diplomacy. It's not worth because of these kind of maximalist demands that Putin is sticking to. Ukraine is regular ceasefire now. So if you kind of want to tilt the scales a bit, maybe get some more leverage to bring Putin to the negotiation table, when you need to start taking away his cars.

And Ukraine is a good job of that at the tactical level. Right now, one of the last cards Putin has, the last invasion of he has, is into these ballistic missile strikes. So, you know, taking that away, maybe you get a little closer to the piece. Yeah, I think it's not incorrect to argue that Putin needs to feel more pain if you want to get him to come to the table. I mean, I understand, you know, Musk maybe being reluctant to say, look, I don't want to be responsible for an escalation, a further escalation of this grinding, you know, brutal war of Putin's. but if what you want is negotiation, then I think you need to make Putin feel a little bit more vulnerable. And right now, it would seem, maybe I'm wrong about this, it would seem that he feels like he's got the upper hand. He can ride this out.

So I think Ukraine, relative to last year, is an overall a better position this year with the important exception of missile effects. So, you know, Russian gains have become even more. and he make and constellate. Ukraine has kind of stopped leading manpower as much. They improve the command of control with new cores. We've got the middle-range strike hit notice we mentioned. The Russians are still making some gains in certain areas, but overall, their prospects for a breakthrough are pretty much nil.

And actually, Ukraine is even clawing back some territory in some places. They've got a new team in the military led by General Tripati. You think it's going to do a really good job. So overall things are looking up. The problem is, I think, for Putin, whether because, you know, he's 73 and just kind of is stuck in his ways or he's getting fed kind of bogus information from his top brass, probably some of both. You know, that kind of changing prospects on the battlefield are not translating into kind of more flexibility at the negotiating table. But to me, that mismatch is the biggest kind of impediment to piece of it and has been for some time. Well, but if he understands, he probably does because it's been all over the press,

that Keeve is perilously low on interceptors, then, I mean, that can turn the tide of this war. So I think, I guess, I'm in trying to assess whether Putin at this stage, I mean, obviously, yes, he's seen increased attacks in his own territory by the Ukrainians. They've had more and more success going after energy infrastructure or whether you're talking about wild berries, depots or whatever it is. But, you know, on the other hand, if he feels as if his intel is solid and he feels like Keev is running, you know, low on interceptors, I don't see how he wouldn't view that as a real you know, plus in the old wind column.

I don't see how unless Keev gets what they need in terms of interceptors, it would seem, unless we just don't know, I mean, what's the intel, I guess, I'm sorry for rambling, but what's the intel that we have or the assessment that we have on the Kremlin's stockpile of ballistic missiles? Yeah, so I think you're absolutely right. The Russians are well aware of Ukraine's circles. And they've really, the investments they've made over the past few years have put them in a place to be able to exploit it. So they've increased production of Iskonder M, the 9-M-723 ballistic missile series for Iskondor M system,

500 kilometer range or so, pretty big warhead, fairly accurate. At the beginning of the war is maybe six per month. Now it's like 60 plus, so order of magnitude. They've got over 100 ballistic missiles from North Korea earlier. They looked to be getting about that same number this year, according to report. courts. And they've also had this missile I mentioned earlier, RM48U. It's a ballistic missile launched by an air defense system, but it's surface to surface purpose. So it kind of supplements those, those will purpose-belt ballistic missiles. And then you add in a bunch of others. So I don't

think it's going to have the strategic effect. Putin hopes in the past, we've seen some tough winners for Ukraine. This will probably be hardest. The Ukraine has approved resilient, and I expect and to continue to do so. But certainly Putin is trying to cling to every piece of leverage you can get, not only the air situation, but also pounding Ukraine's effective blockade on the Ukrainian grain and metals exports to the greater Odessa area. That's another way Putin is trying to get leverage of Turkey. Yeah, I mean, I take your point about Ukraine's resiliency. It's been remarkable. But that was when they had sufficient supplies of interceptors to also protect key cities and infrastructure against Russia's ballistic missiles.

So I guess that's kind of where I'm going. What is what's your assessment? Where is Keev in their negotiations to replenish their stockpiles, whether with the U.S. or with NATO allies? Yeah, so I think this is the number one ask that Ukrainian officials make to their Western counterparts. I think that they will probably still get some level of support in this area from the United States, mostly the United States, and maybe also a few missiles from the Europeans. But the coverage are pretty bare in most capitals. And I think especially the Iran war,

that kind of strain on stockpiles, it's made Washington, I think, more reluctant to part with that many more missiles. You know, production is increasing. It's supposed to grow from near roughly 600, 650 or so for now to maybe 2,000 a year in the coming years. But I think that'll be too late to kind of save Ukraine for this winter. So I think the enforcer reality is for this winter, there's really a nine answer where it comes to intercepting the areas. You really have to hit the archer to at least reduce the threat. But it's going to be tough than whether or what. Yeah.

Yeah, I tend to be a fairly cynical person. And, you know, I don't see, I don't see any sort of diplomatic off-ramp that Putin's been looking for. So I would look at this and think, okay, he's been engaged in this for years now. Now it's not the time when he's going to say, when he knows there's this imbalance, right, between their interceptors and his ballistic missile stockpile. I don't see how we would imagine that somehow he's going to say, ah, okay, I'm good with us sitting down and coming. coming up with a peace plan, unless he gets exactly what he's wanted all this time. But that does make me sound very churlish and very cynical. I tell you, John, if you can stay right where you are, we've got to take a quick break,

and then we'll be back with more from John Hardy and the defense of democracies. Stay with us right here on the Situation Report. I break down the new wars and weapons systems that are totally reshaping our world in my show, Cappy Army. But we go beyond simply just telling you what happened in a war. We actually investigate deeper into the why and how. At Kappi Army, everything is informed by my experience as an average U.S. Army infantrymen in Iraq and a war correspondent covering the front lines of the war in Ukraine.

Just search Kapi Army on Apple Podcast or Spotify to get weekly open source intelligence reports. And remember to follow today. Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. joining me once again is John Hardy. He's a deputy director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Russia program. John, thanks very much for sticking around. Very much appreciated. What do you make of the increasingly public feud in Ukraine between Zelensky and federal? If we think back a few weeks ago to Zolanski's decision to fire the defense minister, I think it was an unfortunate decision. I think a lot of things, we talked to the air defense challenges, but other than that, you know, things were kind of looking up for Ukraine, and I think that decision kind of stalled that momentum a little bit,

at least in kind of the narrative war. That being said, it did produce a good outcome in the sense that it led Zelensky under popular pressure to install a new top general, Mahalojupati, who, unlike his predecessor, is widely respected. and really liked among the rank and file. He is, and it kind of represents a new generation of Ukrainian military officers who are molded by war with Russia since 2014, rather than kind of being a product of the Soviet system. Like, he's trying to address some of these kind of dysfunctional dynamics and long building challenges within the Ukrainian military, whether it's, you know, force management, allocation

of resources between units, kind of Michigan. Western-style mission command-type version of leadership where you delegate more responsibility, but concentrating it in the general staff. So I think some of those problems, some of those especially cultural issues will be tough to solve. The mobilization piece is especially problematic and is not just his, it's not just in his hands. But I think, you know, he got to a good answer, if maybe not for all the right reasons. Do you think Federov has his, on Zelensky's job? Well, at this point, you know, Federov, your list was maybe familiar with, you know,

Federov's kind of explosive statement this week, basically calling for elections. You know, his hope was to get reinstated as defense minister. That was one of the demands of the protests that, you know, in Kiev in recent weeks, votefully, of course, did not do that. So I think Federov maybe got a little desperate, and I think, frankly, didn't make the best decision when he, you know, released that state. at this point, he's kind of thrust himself into direct confrontation with Zelensky rather than kind of being maybe a victim in the public's eyes of a bad decision by

Zelensky. If I were advising him, I would not advise him to do that, you know, for another reason, in fact, that right now there isn't really a good way for Ukraine to practically hold safe and secure elections with the involvement of both people on the front line and, you know, the millions of refugees living abroad. So I think what you call for me is not the most constructive idea. Yeah, and it kind of feeds into, not that Fedorov would be a, you know, a favored candidate of Putin, but certainly feeds into Putin's desire to see Zelensky gone.

And let me switch gears just a little bit slyly. I want to go back to this idea of the weapon stockpiles. President Trump in the U.S. has pushed back. hard, as has the Pentagon on the idea that the U.S. pantry is running somewhat bare. What do you make of all that? Well, it depends on what you're talking about. So if you're talking about, do we have enough munitions just to Praski-Uri and Saran? I think, you know, absolutely, we do.

If we're talking about readiness vis-a-vis China or other kind of global contingencies with a major power, you know, I think versus China, especially, we were already years behind where we need to be on the munitions front. And so now we've assumed more risk with the Sauron operation. So the good news is I think that the panic induced by, you know, getting to where we are now, has maybe spurred us to go into overdrive in a way we should have already been. So I think that's the silver lining. That's interesting what you say about the fact that we were already years behind in one respect in terms of China. Are you getting the impression, though, that, say, over the –

the course of the past, whatever, four to six months, that there have been meaningful, significant changes in the way that the government is contracting with, you know, whether we're talking right beyond or, you know, North Grumman or anyone else, to try to ramp this up, increase the scope and scale of production. I do. I think there has been an inflection point where if you look at some of the announcements about, you know, agreements for increased production of, whether it's Patriot, Thad, Tomahawk, what have you,

as well as some of these newer, lower cost, kind of more basic long-range missions, that we are changing, we are moving towards both more quantities of the legacy stuff and also these kind of more cost-efficient munitions. It's important to note the caveat that some of these recent agreements are sort of, you know, on paper, there are kind of pledges to have agreements, still not necessarily, you know, contracts that

were moving out in line where there's been appropriated money. So the Pentagon and Congress still has work to do on that front. Where does the U.S. stand, from your perspective, on drone warfare, right, production of drones, technology, use of drones. Where are we in the list of us and our adversaries? Sure. I think so if we're talking about not the kind of legacy, you know, Reaper, Predator, things like in the kind of global war and terror era unmanned combat systems,

we are, you know, behind the Ukrainians and the Russians. Right now, they have the most experience with what we think of and we think of the Ukraine War, you know, tactical unmanned aerial systems, UGVs, U.S. v, some cases in the Ukrainians. So I think we have, you know, ways to go to kind of catch up. there, there's a point caveat that, you know, we are not going to fight the same way as the Ukrainians necessarily. I think even if you look at, you know, the way the Russians are fighting now with their employment of UAS at a tactical level, they might not want to fight the same way in the

initial period of the war with NATO as they do in the fourth year of a war of attrition with Ukraine, right? But, you know, the bottom line is we do need to be learning lessons from this conflict. I think we're starting to do that. But I don't think we've gone far enough. And if you look at some of the ways that at the maybe highest levels of government, we haven't maybe fully embraced the Ukrainians who, you know, after all, have the most to teach us in this area, maybe as we should have.

So, perfect example. Iran War, we add, you know, Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO's company, bringing autonomy, had been producing this system called bearups for Ukraine, It's very well performed in Ukraine. It's an interceptor drone system, a drone that crashes into another drone. And, you know, the Pentagon, it started to dabble with the two. But we didn't really have that ready to go for Iran, which, by the way, is using the same drones that Russia is using its Ukraine, where we, you know, had this pernial autonomy system working.

So, you know, maybe in some of those areas, we could have maybe lowered from other's mistakes or than repeating the same mistakes ourselves. But I think we all were starting to recognize that now. What do you make of the White House kind of going back and forth on the idea of Ukraine being licensed to build their own interceptors, their own patriot interceptors? Yeah, so I was encouraged to see President Trump's initial announcement. it. I suspect maybe, you know, out of his desire to help, he might have maybe gotten ahead of the policy process a little bit because I think now we've kind of seen him walk it back, walk into the city and back and kind of allude to the fact that this is very simple technology.

You want to, you know, make sure it's done right. I think there's a question of, you know, which variant the Patriot missile, Pact 2 or the more advanced Pact 3, Ukraine's going to build, you know, how do you control that technology? You know, we have some of these, you know, kind of licensed production agreements with Germany and Japan. It takes a long time, very complex process on logistical and kind of export control side. So if it does go forward, which I hope it does in some form, I don't think it's going to be a years-long process. So it's not going to be ready for time for this winter or probably perhaps not even this for war. So depending on how long.

It's not a short-term solution. I think you're right. It's not a short-term solution. All right. Well, finally, last question, John, I want to be mindful of our time, but this is a very speculative question. What do you think? Six months from now, where are we with the Ukraine conflict? Well, my crystal ball broke a long time ago, but I will say that every time I take something up, John. Right, right. Every time I think, you know what, you know, Putin's got to realize, you know, this war isn't going to do anything for him.

It's going to nowhere. It's time to cut and cut bait and just, you know, live and find another day, you know, maybe recharge and attack Ukraine again. Hopefully that doesn't happen. It may well happen. You know, every time I think that, you know, the war drags on. So I think, you know, on the current trend, Russian recruitment is down, you know, from where they want to be.

It's maybe just a meeting or it just below their quota relative to losses. but it's still a place where it can allow Russia to keep fighting. I think if long as that's the case, Putin's going to keep doing this, because I think he still labors under the delusion that he's going to eventually break Ukrainian forces through enough kind of continual pressure. So, you know, eventually, hopefully they'll come a point where you realize if it's not going to happen.

And then, you know, then we've seen what he's going to do once he realizes that. Is he going to try to escalate in some way? Is he going to realize, all right, it's time to just get what I can get at the table and live to find another day. I don't know. Knowing him, I think it'll probably try to escalate in some ways, but hopefully we can deter him for making a really bad decision, like, you know, attacking NATO or something. But it sounds like, well, and that's a topic for another day, John, if you'll agree to come on back, I do want to talk to you about sort of this concept of the hybrid war that Russia's

engaged in against NATO, against EU, allies with the U.S. But it sounds like what you're saying is Ukraine is going to have a brutal winter. A very tough winter, especially if it's as cold as last year, it was exceptionally cold. This year, given the air defense situation, I think it'll be really tough. Well, on that cheery note, John, listen, I want to say thank you very much, man. Really appreciate you spending your time with us here at the Situation Report. And like I said, we look forward to the next time as well. All right.

Thank you. Take care. It's John Hardy, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Very interesting stuff. Great experience, too, behind all that. Well, that is all the time we have for this week's PDB situation report. I know. Sad trombone somewhere in the background.

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