The President's Daily Brief - PDB Situation Report | July 5th, 2025: Can Israel Finish Off Hamas? & Chinese Spy Ring On American Soil

Episode Date: July 5, 2025

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief:   Israel shifts its focus back to Gaza after declaring victory over Iran, intensifying efforts to eliminate remaining Hamas leadership. Nearly two years into the war, questions remain: is Israel actually closer to eradicating Hamas? Author Seth Frantzman joins us to assess.   U.S. authorities uncover a Chinese spy ring on American soil. Two nationals are charged with targeting U.S. Navy personnel on behalf of Beijing’s Ministry of State Security. Gordon Chang joins us to explain how this fits into China’s broader espionage campaign against the United States.   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. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief   TriTails Premium Beef: Celebrate with steak worth standing for. Get a free ribeye with the Freedom Box at https://Trybeef.com/PDB. True Classic: Upgrade your wardrobe and save on @trueclassic at https://trueclassic.com/PDB#trueclassicpod Birch Gold: Text PDB to 989898 and get your free info kit on gold Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's Mushrooms with me, Maddie Matheson. You know what's better than thinking about dinner too hard? Not. Stop that. And just choose mushrooms. Five minutes. Done. Dinner's that easy and you feel like a genius. It's not magic.

It's Mushrooms. Stop stressing at mushroomcouncil.com. Hey there. It's Wayfair here, where delivery and setup are as easy as a few taps on your phone. You're relaxing in an old hammock, scrolling Wayfair's app, when you spot it, a brand new patio set. Next thing you know, Wayfair delivers it right to your patio and sets it up. Oh, you need a new grill, too? All right, Wayfair's got you covered.

With Wayfair's room of choice delivery and fast experts set up on qualifying orders, life gets a little easier. Visit Wayfair.com or the Wayfair app. Wayfair, every style, every home. Welcome to the PDP Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed.

Well, start things off with Israel's renewed focus on Gaza. Now, after declaring victory over Iran, the Israeli military is now targeting what remains of Hamas leadership. But nearly two years into the war, is Israel any closer to eliminating Hamas for good? Author Seth Fransman joins us to break it down. Later in the show, a Chinese spy ring uncovered on American soil. This is me wearing my shop face. Two Chinese nationals are accused of targeting U.S. Navy personnel and recruiting others

to help gather intel for Beijing's Ministry of State Security. author Gordon Chang, good friend of the show, joins us for more on that. But first, our situation reports spotlight. Now that Israel's war with Iran has cooled, at least for now, the focus is once again back on Gaza. Earlier this week, the Israeli defense forces announced the death of Khakam Muhammad Issa, as a co-founder of Hamas and head of its combat support headquarters. Now, it's another blow, obviously, to Hamas's leadership. But despite the loss, the group still controls much of the civilian population and key territory across the Gaza Strip. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu declared, quote, there will be no more Hamas. It's over.

We will free all our hostages and eliminate Hamas down to its very foundations, end quote. But after nearly 21 months of war, is Israel any closer to that goal? And is it even possible? Joining us now is Seth Fransman, author of the October 7 War. Seth, thank you very much for taking the time to join us here on the Situation Report. Let's start sort of at the 30,000 foot view here. I would like your perspective on where we are. There's rumblings of rekindled ceasefire discussions at the same time. Prime Minister Netanyahu is saying, that's it. We are done. Hamas is over. We will take it down to its very foundations. How do we read these apparent mixed signals. Where are we at at the present time from your perspective?

Well, it's 634 days of war since the brutal Hamas attack on October 7th. There are still 50 hostages held in Gaza. Most of the Hamas fighters and terrorists have been defeated and killed and eliminated in the long war. But like any group, it continues to recruit, you know, probably young kids or teens or what have you. So Hamas still exists. And it's still holds about 40%, 30 to 40% of Gaza. That's the area where the hostages are kept. So the IDF is very reticent to go in there. Meanwhile, Israel has defeated all the other Iranian-backed proxies that were linked to Hamas,

basically, defeated most of them. Hezbollah, Iran, the Iraqi militias are a bit weaker. The Houthis are not defeated, but they're kind of far away. So, you know, Israel feels it might be able to risk and accept the ceasefire. obviously people want the hostages back. But Netanyahu will also want to declare victory, right? I mean, he's a politician, so he's going to want to say he won. And I think that is a big question mark.

Is this a win or is Hamas still there? Can he, from a political perspective, right, if you just kind of look at this in a mercenary way of holding on to this position, can he accept a ceasefire that would allow Hamas to remain in power? I think it would be difficult if Hamas is coming out of the tunnel celebrating. I mean, that doesn't look good. I think that if they can create some sort of, you know, there's talk of a transition government in Gaza, some sort of Gulf-backed transition or technocratic government that combines different factions or something.

You know, if something like that can come into fruition, then an argument can be made that Hamas is no longer the main ruling entity. but if the IGF has to withdraw under a ceasefire and the group comes back and is waving its flag, even if it's lost 90%, you know, it can still say yeah, but we survived the war. I mean, that's what the Vietnamese or Viet Cong did. I mean, after the Tet offensive or whatever, a lot of them were killed, but they kept fight.

This is an unusual question, I suppose, and I will get to the question, but I have to frame it first, which is that there have been, now, talk over the past 48 hours or so, that the Qatari mediators are working a ceasefire, a 60-day ceasefire proposal that reportedly Prime Minister Netanyahu has agreed to. They've presented that proposal to Hamas, and Hamas will now get back to the Egyptian and Qatari mediators with their response. Both sides, right? I mean, you know, primarily Israel saying, okay, we can go

with this ceasefire. But when you talk about that, it seems to be completely a conflict within Israel saying, you know, any ceasefire, any peace has to mean the removal of Hamas, their discernment, the exile of any remaining leadership. While at the same time, Hamas is saying, you know, any agreement has to mean the withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza, there's, seems to be no ability to marry up their two sides to then have this talk that's out there in the public about how, well, we're going to, you know, we get another ceasefire proposal. It just, it seems nonsensical in a way. Right. And I think that's why you see the way in which the ceasefire keeps being trotted out, which is, remember, this same idea of this ceasefire deal has been

going on going as his march when the first ceasefire fell apart, which Israel always said he doesn't want to go into the second phase and end the war. It's worth recalling also that the January deal that Trump pushed, along with his invoice, Steve Whitkoff, is kind of the same deal that was offered in 2024. So the parameters don't change much. As you noted, Israel doesn't want to end the war with Hamas still there. And Hamas says, okay, we want the war to end. And what Trump is trying to do, I think, and he's been successful in the past, is doing what he did with the Iran ceasefire, which is kind of announced it first. And then that puts pressure on the Qatari's and Israel to kind of go back and kind of get their heads together because the Qatari's have to convince Hamas.

Israel, Israel's leader, has to convince the more rightly ministers to accept this. Do you think that there's, well, let me put it a different way if I could, Seth. How would you quantify currently the support for Hamas from the citizens? distance of Gaza? I mean, I think that's hard to say. It's very hard to get polling. You know, one would assume that not that many of them support Hamas after having watched, you know, half or more than half of their areas be totally destroyed in this war. And about 80 or 90% of them have been displaced. So they can't possibly wake up in the warian thing. Listen, this has been really good for us. On the other side of the coin, it doesn't make them pro-Israel, right? I mean,

they still support Palestinian nationalism. I think they probably prefer some other entity like the Palestinian Authority or whatever that would give them peace and quiet. Now, if they think Hamas can get that for them, then they might say, oh, okay, you know, you were able to get it out and get it in the end of the day, and then Hamas will declare victory,

and then they will, some of them will support them. Remember, Maas uses absolutely brutal methods to keep its chokehold of power, right? I mean, it kills people, it tortures them. And so it's hard to know the people there are frightened. And I want to touch on that here in just a little bit in terms of their ability to maintain control over the population through the distribution of aid. But before I get to that, I want to branch out a little bit and talk to you about what the Israeli leadership is doing in terms of regional discussions. Have you heard anything about these conversations that reportedly are taking place between Israel and Syria?

Yeah, it's interesting. So, you know, when the Assad regime fell in December 8th, 2004, there was a lot of concern in Israel that the people were placing Assad, you know, also had extremist backgrounds and probably were not going to be pro-Israel themselves. And so there was a lot of worry about Afun Shahra and his background. But I think over the last several months, especially after Trump met, you know, Mr. Shah and other countries in the region have all kind of come together and say, let's work together on Syria. I think it's clear now that Israel begins to understand that Israel and Syria share certain interests. They both don't like Iran, for instance.

I mean, Iran backed the Assad regime and caused the devastation there. So it's kind of natural that they might finally come together. And we've been hearing stories that, yes, Israelis are beginning to talk more openly, leadership about, you know, contacts or even daily contacts. It makes sense that Israel would share intelligence on some lower level or coordinate and talk with them. and then at some point you might see normalization. I would assume that's many years to the future, but there could be some sort of roadmap that's rolled out.

And I should point to the fact that just today, the IDS had they arrested an Iranian-linked cell, terrorist cell near the Golan operating in Syria. So neither the Syrian government or Israel want Iran's tentacles to be creeping back in there. It's got to be, you think about the seismic shift in the past year and a half from the Iranian mullahs and the RGC's perspective

and their place in the region. I mean, it's just, it's got to be stunning to those individuals. Yeah, I mean, Iran is a fascinating story of a massive military blunder and a way in which arrogance can meet a country disaster. The Iranian regime spent the last, you know, obviously 40 years or whatever, saying death to America, death, the Israel, etc.

But just the last 20 years, they really convinced themselves, you know, they have all the weapons that they need to kind of bring Israel to its knees. And they thought a bunch of proxies, basically an arc of like 3,000 miles of proxies from Hezbollah all the way down or Yemen, it was enough. And they also thought these ballistic missiles were enough. Well, if they'd study history, ballistic missiles like Stavanskid missiles, don't win wars. You need armies and you need aircraft and things like that, right? So they just totally slept walked into this Israeli. Israel basically laid a trap for them after having Israel, of course, had suffered terrible losses over a year and a half of fighting,

including this massacre on October 7th, which is the worst killing since the Holocaust of Jews. But Israel successfully totally outwitted the Iranians, and they were totally surprised by this. And then if you take it out by sort of the next step, right, in the concentric circles, because the world's completely interconnected, nothing happens in a bubble. And to that same kind of thought process, you look at Russia, and you think Russia now they've lost Assad, they've lost Syria as a key element of their

positioning in the region. They have seen Iran be diminished in this capacity. Putin's going through that same thought process about his hold or his grip on some level of influence in the region. Seth, look, I've got a list of questions here to throw at you in the next segment, but first I need you to, if you could, stay right where you are. We'll be right back with Seth and more from the Situation Report, stick around. Hey, Mike Baker here. I want to tell you about a great clothing company out there that's producing outstanding gear. It's called True Classic. Now, True Classic goes beyond fit and fabric, right? Their primary mission is to help men show up with confidence and purpose, and that's important. You want to have confidence. You want to have purpose.

That goes without saying. Their clothing is designed to fit well, feel great, and stay affordable. so men can look sharp without overspending. And what really sets true classic apart is the intention behind the brand. Now, from supporting underserved communities to helping men feel more confident in their daily lives and even bringing humor to their messaging, they lead with purpose. Each piece is tailored where it matters and relaxed where it counts, offering a clean, comfortable fit that works for everyday life. There's no stiff fabric. You don't want that. There's no bunching. You definitely don't want bunching, just dependable quality and design. Say goodbye to overpriced designer labels and throw away fast fashion. True Classic is built for comfort, it's built to last, and it's built to give back.

You can find them at Target at Costco or just visit Trueclassic.com slash PDB to learn more and explore their collection. How many discounts does USA Auto Insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount. Safe driver discount? New vehicle discount. Storage discount. How many discounts will you up. Tap the banner or visit usaa.com slash auto discounts. Restrictions apply. Looking for a protein shake that tastes as good as it performs? Meet Rockin' Protein Max. Packed with 50 grams of fuel, it'll help you keep up when your day won't slow down. And because it's always creamy and never chalky, every sip tastes great. Even better, it's lactose-free and has zero added sugar. It's not every day you find a protein shake you

actually want to finish. Catch Rock and Protein and the dairy cooler at a store near you. Rock and Protein and Shamrock Farms are registered trademarks of Shamrock Food. company. Joining me once again here on the Situation Report is Seth Fransman is the author of the October 7 war. Seth, thanks very much for sticking around. We were talking about Hamas and we were talking about their current hold on power, their leverage over the population of Gaza. I want to switch a little bit to talk about aid distribution and specifically the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the GHF. What can you tell me about this organization? What can you tell me about this organization? What can you me about the conflict that kind of surrounds this organization?

Well, GHF came into being over the last six months, basically as an initiative that is U.S. Pact, to find a way to bring aid into Gaza, which is not going to be aid that is ending up in the Hamas. Now, what was happening in the past was you had the UN and a bunch of other organizations they were sending in trucks. The trucks go into Gaza. And then basically, the U. and the organizations were not necessarily always monitoring where the trucks ended up.

and they had armed gunmen jumping on the trucks. Maybe they were being taken to warehouses that they were supposed to, but maybe they were being stolen. There was no way to know. And basically the concept of GHF was create a U.S. Pact organization, have the IDF basically bulldoze a few areas, big distribution sites, that you can bring in the trucks and put them down boxes and tables and let the people come out of, they leave Hamas areas,

they come into the IDF controlled area, and then they get the food. And the area is not policed by the idea if it has private security contractors, basically former U.S. service people mostly. And so that was what the concept was. And they wanted to roll it out in a big way. They started in May and the initiative got off to the ground. It had some challenges, but it has delivered, I think, as of today,

56 million meals, which is not bad for a month and a week, right? I mean, the 56 million meals delivered at three or four sites, they're delivering every day almost two million meals. I mean, so that's huge amounts, right? That is able to feed a decent percentage of Gaza. Now, so that's, it looks like it's pretty successful. The problem, of course, is, you know, someone has to pay for it. And, you know, dropping off boxes of aid off of trucks is probably not something you can do forever. It's a temporary measure, hopefully cuts Hamas out of the loop.

And that's what's happening. Now, I get why Hamas is targeting or upset with or, you know, trying to shut down GHF the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Because, you know, if you deliver that in, if you deliver food, water, supplies, medicine directly to the people, obviously, as you pointed out, you've cut out Hamas and you've stopped one of their primary means of controlling the population and also of a revenue stream, right, if they're selling that aid on secondary market. But why do you think there's been this pushback from the UN and from other humanitarian groups towards the GHF?

Well, I think unfortunately, and it's a very cynical sad story, is when Hamas came to power in 2007, it was basically opened up Gaza for all these NGOs to go. go in there and make Gaza kind of dependent. And remember, the NGOs in a sense profit of this because they get hundreds of millions or billions of dollars and they say, okay, we're helping Gaza. The more that Hamas destroys people's lives in Gaza and makes them poor and drives them into war, the more the NGOs have to come into help, the more money they can raise. And basically what Hamas did is they outsourced all the things that a normal government does, like, like, you know, health care, food, everything except for roads, I guess, outsourced all of

to this empire, empire of NGOs and UN organizations. And look, like any empire or any business structure, you know, whether it's a corporation or whatever, they don't want to be supplanted if they have a monopoly. And they had a monopoly in Gaza. And GHF is ripping that monopoly down. And that's just a typical story you'd see, whether it's a government or a corporation or an NGO,

because NGOs are not as pure as they may appear, especially when they're extremely powerful and large. Yeah, you can cloak yourself in sort of that self-righteous title of a nonprofit or NGO and still be engaged in a wide variety of shenanigans. So have you heard any credible evidence? Because the narrative has been, ever since GHF started their operations there, that, oh, my God, there's been numerous incidents, right? even been described as routine firings on Gaza civilians, they come to collect aid. They're trying to blame it off on the GHF to say it's this group, right? This is why they're doing it.

Look at that. Look at that. My God, they're killing Palestinians. Have you heard any credible evidence that supports that, you know, to be fair, started with the Hamas-controlled health ministry? Well, I think it's hard to say. I mean, credible evidence. There's certainly, as you said, in lots of reports. It's hard. You can't trust the Hamas-controlled health. ministry. You know, can you, can you trust the people that are apparently saying it, the average people there? I don't know. There's also this Israeli report in Hara saying that, you know, Israeli soldiers were firing near the people that are coming now. Remember, the reason for that is because they don't have, they didn't put riot police there.

They have soldiers with, you know, M4 rifles that are chambered with live rounds. The soldiers don't have much else. They don't have a, they don't have another means. And they were told, okay, if there's too many crowds, you know, fire in there or near them or whatever. So that's not ideal. I mean, obviously, you'd prefer to have police or riot control. So, look, I think it's clear that the situation is not perfect and has challenges and perhaps as many mistakes were made. And I think in the end of the day, it would be better probably to have more, you know,

more media down there and more eyes on what's happening because you want to get confirmation. And if there are people are being killed, it's the behooves is really do a better job. I understand the IEF has tried now to reorganize the roots that lead to the GHF sites. They've put in signs. They closed off roads. Well, that's great. Again, you would think, okay, but they probably should have done that weeks ago. So there's a learning curve involved, and it's taking time.

And the criticism probably should be, well, it should have gone faster. And the chaos was predictable. I mean, if you're giving out a million meals a day, and the only way for people to get them is to run and grab the box, you know, you're going to end up with chaos. Right. Now, we've certainly seen another difficult and challenging environments where you've got aid distribution going on. So it's not unique just to Gaza, but obviously it's on a very sort of staggering scale. I want to circle back to a different element of all of this. When Prime Minister Netanyahu talks about destroying Hamas down to its foundations and eliminating Hamas. Is that even doable? Yes, I think so. I covered the war in ISIS, and I'll tell you that ISIS controlled a huge swath of Iraq and Syria. And in October of 2016, ISIS had been beaten back in Iraq and just controlled an area of Mosul, basically,

which is a big city, about two million people. It's probably bigger than Gaza, actually, that area. And the Iraqi army surrounded them, and it took the Iraqi army nine months to get rid of ISIS, street by street. And what the Iraqi army did successfully was they got all the civilians out. Then they just totally destroyed this group. It took a lot of time. You can defeat terrorist groups.

You can defeat terrorist ideologies. You can defeat all these things. It doesn't, of course, mean that it completely disappears. ISIS still exists. So does Al-Qaeda or whatever. But, you know, it's al-Qaeda at least this is not what they work. So the evidence shows you can do it. Sometimes it takes a lot of work or a lot of things get destroyed and people sometimes suffer.

but I think there's no doubt. And Ramaz can be totally erased from a lot of the landscape there and maybe preserved as some sort of other smaller political group or whatever. But when they hold hostages, it's pretty hard to do that. It just seems, I guess I keep coming back around to this same issue. It seems incompatible with talk of a ceasefire when, you know, the stated objective is to the destruction of Khrmaz. and Hamas's state objective is not to be destroyed, pretty simple,

then I guess I'm kind of asking you this speculative question. Where do you think this is going? Is a ceasefire possible, or is just this going to be a continuing conflict that runs for the foreseeable future? No, I think, look, I think Nanyahu feels that he's got a winner with the Iranian thing, which is always something he always wanted to defeat was the Iranian. and it looks like a big win. So he can basically say, look, I did that. And Trump can basically come in and say, I need to get to Gaza's ceasefire. So Trump can get a win as well. And I think

actually it's possible that between the two of them, they might find a way to make this work. Of course, as you noted, it means that the, you know, what were the goals accomplished? I think Israel has always said it wants the hostages back and it wants to defeat, you know, the military and government capabilities of Hamas. Well, that's kind of a general thing. You could say, that Hamas is 95% defeated. And you could say, okay, that's 95% good. And let's wait and see. So I assume it's possible. I think they can get this done. Israelis are tired of war. A lot of people are tired of war. And everyone, I think a lot of people acknowledge there's diminishing returns in Gaza. So what does that look like then if, you know, let's imagine, let's be optimistic.

It's not my usual position in life. But let's do that and say that we get a ceasefire. which you call it 60-day ceasefire, and that gives chance for negotiations. What do you, based on all your experience, what do you imagine that then government in Gaza would look like? Do you think there is a chance that, because of a Hamas is still there, right? They're not going to give up some level of control willingly. So that means you've got what, a coalition of Hamas, possibly the Palestinian, you know, Liberation Authority or the, or sorry, the PA, and you've got perhaps a consortium of regional

actors that are somehow serving as an advisory board. Where does this go? I think that's very, I think you're right. You play down on something that's very tough. It's not, it's Hamas, what's left of Hamas in Gaza is just a bunch of thugs and gangs and murderers. So we're not talking about a lot leadership there. Now, could the Qatari's who host Hamas political leadership parachute in one of the political leaders to say, okay, I'm going to come in here and there will be a technocratic government? I think it would be very difficult that the Gulf countries that have talked about, you know, wanting to get Hamas out, you know, they don't have a lot of experience running a chaotic place. I mean, and the Gulf countries, by the way,

it's not because they haven't been involved. They have been involved in Yemen, Libya, and the Sudan. A, for instance. And generally, it's not been a success story in terms of governance. So they will have a, they will face a big challenge, you know, waving a magic wand and having something work out in Gaza. Well, you know, Seth, I've got a couple more pages of questions for you. But we are basically out of time at this point.

So I'm hoping that when we call you back, you'll pick up the phone and you'll agree to show up again, even though you're in. Jerusalem. It's after midnight. And I understand I can actually now officially wish you a happy birthday as well. Well, thank you very much. Seth Fransman, remember pick up his book of the October 7 war. All right. Coming up next, a Chinese spy ring targeting U.S. Navy bases. That's me looking shocked. Two nationals accused of working for Beijing's Intel Service and trying to recruit American troops. Gordon Chang, he'll join us with the details. Hey, Mike Baker here.

Well, one of America's greatest holidays, and of course I'm talking about the Fourth of July, is right around the corner. And frankly, it's right on our doorstep. Just look at the calendar. I'm telling you the truth. And this Independence Day, look, do your family and your friends a favor. Fire up that grill. Of course, you're going to fire up the grill.

Declare your freedom from average grocery store beef, right? You want the best beef for that grill. You got to go to Triedales beef. Now, Triedails is a real Texas family-run ranch. It's not some corporate meat. factory. They raise pasture-raised, grain-finished, black angus cattle, and they ship it straight from their ranch to your door. It's that simple. There's no middlemen. There's no shrink-wrap nonsense. Just real American beef from folks who still believe in doing things the right way. And right now,

when you order their freedom box, they'll throw in a free rib-eye. Look, it's officially grilling season. You know that. So do it right with Triedales beef. Go to trybeef.com slash PDB. That's Try beef.com slash PDB. Try tales, because you and your family, now you deserve the best. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing, to selling and beyond,

Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz, and all birds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. It's only getting every customer's order right. It's only a point-of-sale system connected by Spectrum fiber-powered business internet

helping you track hundreds of secure transactions. And it's all backed by 24-7 U.S.-based customer support and local technicians. It's only everything. Get business internet advantage free forever when you get four mobile lines from Spectrum. Visit Spectrum.com slash free for life to find out. how. Restrictions apply. Service is not available in all areas. Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Now, a major espionage case here at home in the U.S. Two Chinese nationals have been arrested and charged with acting as illegal agents for Beijing's Ministry of State Security at China's top foreign

intelligence service. The Justice Department says that Juan Cian, a resident of Oregon, and Lirin Lai, who arrived in Houston on a tourist visa this past April, were working to collect intel on U.S. Navy personnel and military bases. Now, the two also allegedly tried to recruit service members and facilitated a cash dead drop, that's a espionage term, by the way, on behalf of Chinese intelligence. It's a reminder that China's spy efforts aren't just abroad. They're happening right here on American soil and have for decades.

Joining us now is Gordon G. Chang. He's the author of Plan Red, China's project, to destroy America. You can follow him on X at Gordon G. Che. Gordon, thank you very much for coming back here on the Situation Report. Well, thank you very much, Mike, and happy fourth. And to you too. And to you too. Well, I guess, first of all, let's talk about this espionage case.

I guess you're shocked to learn that the Chinese intel apparatus may be engaged in shenanigans. Well, certainly, you know, China conducts probably the most extensive. of operations against the United States by far. I mean, if we just listened to what FBI, former FBI director Christopher Ray said when he was still there, it is actually shocking how much the Chinese have been penetrating the United States in the sense that we're also being overwhelmed. The FBI, he mentioned, was being overwhelmed, local law enforcement was being overwhelmed. He was just overwhelmed by all of this. And so that's one thing.

But the other thing that I'm shocked at is that these two agents are being charged with espionage? No. They're being charged with being foreign agents and not notifying the attorney general, which means that they can get 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, which strikes me as being a little bit light considering the grievous arm that they were planning against the United States. So I would like to see that these penalties be upped against those who are committing espionage, whether they're being charged with espionage or something else. Why do you think that is? Why that approach from the administration?

Because it's easy to prove, I think. And so therefore, they don't have to go through and explain how they found out about this stuff. So I think it's from just, I'm an internal law enforcement point of view that is much easier to prove not being, not registering with the Attorney General. Okay. Now, there's logic in that. And I guess if what you're looking for is a quick conclusion, but I don't know that it ultimately is the most effective way to conduct a counterintelligence investigation or

operation. Look, I will say, Gordon, one of the first things I did. it all those years ago back when I was with the agency was to deal with a young fellow who had come over to the U.S. from China and it turned out to be a part of the PLA intel apparatus and was just simply a student here in the States, going to school, a grad school, very good grad school. And that was a long time ago, right, because I wouldn't pass as a grad student. anymore at this point. But my point being is that they didn't care at that point what he did. This was a long-term investment, right? The idea was get very good grades, then get a good job,

but they didn't really care where that job would be, right? The idea was just get a job. And then maybe you get a follow-on job. Maybe that one's at Raytheon. Maybe that one's at IBM. Maybe it's at Lockheed Martin, right? And then just keep going. You're looking at a 30 to 40 plus year in investment that they're willing to do. And that was one individual in their apparatus and their machine. So I guess my point being there is I saw this latest issue with this espionage case, and I thought to myself, nothing changes, right? And we talk about how we can change their behavior, possibly the behavior of the Chinese regime and their attitude towards theft of economic intelligence and research and development. Do you think there's any chance

under the current regime that they would actually disengage from that sort of behavior? Not really. And that means what we have to do is to sever China's links with China. We've got to get the communist party's outposts out of our country. So as a practical matter, that means closing their four consulates. It also means stripping down the embassy staff in Washington, down to next and nothing. It means getting rid of state banks, state enterprises, going after Confucius institutes, what's left of them, especially the Confucius classrooms and the secondary schools. We just have to sever these links because, you know, as Christopher Ray correctly said, they are overwhelming us, and we don't have the resources to effectively stop this.

So in those circumstances, what we need to do is just get the Chinese regime out of America. It's a drastic solution that people might think, but the point is right now, after ignoring this problem for so long, we need drastic solutions because we've got to save our country, Mike. It's really down to that. We got to save our country. Look, I don't disagree that we have to take really aggressive, proactive measures, right? Because I don't think there's any chance we changed their behavior, right? That we talked about that for decades. It's not going to happen. You need to do us. You need to be more aggressive and proactive. in mitigating the risk and the opportunities that they have. But on the pragmatic side, I don't see that happening. I don't see us disengaging from them to that degree. I mean, maybe, okay, shutting down Confucius centers, but that point where you start getting down to skeletal staps

and their embassies, their consulates. So what other options are there, do you think? Well, first of all, I didn't say this is what we were going to do. I was saying this is what we have to do. You know, sometimes the necessary and the practical are not the same. But what happens in these circumstances? And this is how this probably will work out. You know, the Chinese will kill some American servicemen or service women.

And then we're going to say, oh, my God, how'd this happen? And then we're going to do those things that I talked about. So I would like us to do those things before the Chinese kill any more Americans. So it is, that's just the way the world works. You know, democracies, and this goes all the way back to Tocqueville writing about the America. So we're talking almost a couple hundred years. Tocqueville talked about how democracies are very, very slow to mobilize. And that's generally been true. You know, we've seen that, for instance, in the 20th century. We're certainly seeing it now.

That's one of the weaknesses of our form of governance. I'm not saying we should change it, but I'm saying that that's the way democracies operate. And it makes democracy is very vulnerable until they mobilize. Once democracies mobilize, there's no more effective nation on earth than a democracy which is enraged. But until that happens, I'm very concerned about what the Chinese will continue to do to us. Yeah. No, I take your point. Look, they've been very good over the years at using our openness, right, using, using our freedoms against us. I mean, you could argue in a sense, it's not, you know, apples to apples, but you could argue it's what the Islamic extremists have done, what the terrorists have done over the years, right? Right. Understanding that we live in this open society, we value it. And so they've been able to adapt and insert themselves into that environment to their benefit.

it. But with the, let's, if we just focus on, I want to stay on this issue of espionage for just a little bit longer, I've seen over the years just a wide variety of explanations trying to say how much it's cost America over the years. And I'm talking specifically about the Chinese regime's efforts to steal intelligence, economic information, research and development. Have you ever sell on facts, numbers, specifics that talk about the cost of that to the U.S. over the years? When John Radcliffe was finishing up his term as Director of National Intelligence, he wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. This was December 2020, and he talked hundreds of billions of dollars. He said perhaps as much as $500 billion a year.

And that is consistent with estimates that we've heard, for instance, from leaders of the NSA. They talk about that half trillion dollar figure. You know, of course, we don't know, but that is the number that is floating around down Washington. And I think that that probably is not a bad number when you start to think about the real value of what the Chinese are able to steal year in and year out. So that's the working figure that I think people should start out with. Yeah. And I think it's, I mean, I've heard similar numbers and I remember Reckleff writing that piece. And I don't disagree with it.

And people ask and they look at that number. They think it's staggering. But you're talking about a variety of things here. You're talking about the damage done to companies that have had proprietary data stolen. You're talking about opportunity costs because. and, you know, that research and development gets into the Chinese regime's hands. Now that opportunity's not in the U.S. A company doesn't start. Jobs don't get created, whatever it may be. So there's a variety of elements that go into trying to calculate that number for what it has cost. And I think it's

important for people just to understand that so they understand why this is such an important issue when approaching dealings with the Chinese regime. Yes. You know, any number above zero is unacceptable. And we're at a number where it is taking a real toll on our country. It's our future. You know, Lydia and I have driven through a lot of this country, and we've seen some devastated towns where the factory is closed up, moved to China. And so this is a real human cost. Where you take away help, you then have sentinel, where you have sentinel, you have death. And by the way the Chinese are the dealers of fentanyl. So the cost is not just those numbers, it's the cost in human lives. Last year, probably 48, 49,000 Americans died from fentanyl poison. That's China.

The year before that, it was about 72,000. So I'm glad the number is going in that direction, but that toll is just staggering. And so that also adds to what we're talking about. It's been in the spotlight quite a bit. Have you seen any discernible shift or improvement in the way that the Chinese regime has dealt with this fentanyl issue? No. You know, you got to remember that fentanyl is a long-term project of the Communist Party. So you go back to November 2023. Xi Jinping goes to Woodside, California meets President Biden, promises to reduce the flow of fentanyl precursors and pill presses.

across the Pacific. Biden touts that as a great victory. But we got to remember it was the same Xi Jinping who made essentially the same promise to President Trump in 2018, and it's the same Xi Jinping who has made the same promise to President Obama in 2016. So, you know, now we have the Chinese again talking about the same things. This is long-term Communist Party project. So we've got to put it into that category. And we can't assume that we can talk them out of it, which is, I think, wrong. I think President Trump has the right approach, 20% tariffs on fentanyl, on China for fentanyl. But instead of 20%, this should be 2,000% because we cannot trade human lives, lives for money. Yeah, it was the same Xi Jinping also who stood next to President Obama

and promise to stop the cyber shenanigans and cyber attacks. Of course, that didn't work out either. You doubled down. And he also, that was 2015. That's Xi Jinping said, oh, you know, we're not going to militarize these atolls and reefs in the South China Sea. Right, right. I want to turn the conversation to China's leader and also touch on the tariffs issue,

which you brought up. But first, Gordon, if you could stay right where you are, we do need to take a quick break, and then we'll be back with more from Gordon Chang here on the Situation Report. Stick around. Hey, Mike Baker here. Now, you've likely heard me talking about the upcoming Bricks Nation summit that's going to be taking place in Rio de Janeiro, right? We are days away from what's been dubbed the Rio Reset. That's a catchy name. It's potentially the greatest threat to the U.S. dollar's global dominance in over 80 years. Now, on July 6th, Bricks Nations, that includes Russia, China, India, Iran, and many more are expected to unveil their plans to circumvent the U.S. dollar. Essentially, it's an attempt to crater the dollar. Look, they've already been laying the

groundwork. Their central banks have been methodically divesting from the U.S. dollar and U.S. bonds in favor of gold. So, you ask yourself, how can you protect your hard-earned dollar savings and your IRA or your 401K from the fallout from this potential landmark shift. Well, I'm glad you asked that question. One answer could be to diversify with gold from Birch Gold Group. Look, historically, gold has been a safe haven in times of high uncertainty, and I think you could call the current times uncertain. Get a free information kit on tax-sheltered gold IRAs by texting the word PDB to 989-89-898.

July 6th marks a potentially monumental shift among nations that frankly control one-third of the world's GDP. So arm yourself with information on how to diversify your retirement savings. Text PDB to the number 989-89-898 and claim your free information kit from Birch Gold. As the Krispy Chicken Sandwich from 7-Eleven, people always call me loud. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I'm crispy. Did you expect me to whisper? If you want quiet, go eat some soup and reflect. Like, I know I'm a handful. I'm bold, I'm juicy. Throw some pickles and barbecue. You sauce on me and baby I'm a home meal. And with seven rewards, I'm just $4.

Quiet. No. Krispy, saucy, and $4? Very. Only at 711. Valley through 62326 participating stores only well supplies lastly app for full terms.

This is Euphoria Calvin Klein. The new elixir collection featuring three perfume intense scents. Inspired by a unique orchid accord paired with vanilla, each with its own distinct attitude, each with its own universe. Bold elixir. Sensual.

Woody. Addicted. magnetic elixir, sweet and romantic like a lingering touch, solar elixir, a radiant expression of joy, ultra-concentrated for amplified impact and lasting power. Find your euphoria. Discover the euphoria elixir collection by Calvin Klein. Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Joining us once again is a good friend of the show, Gordon Chang. Now, you can follow Gordon on X at Gordon G. Chang, and I recommend strongly that you do it. Gordon, We finished up the last segment by starting to talk about the Shishing Peng, China's leader.

This is an interesting question that I think is just now starting to surface in some areas. There's been some notable absences on the public scene from Shishing Ping recently. And then, of course, there was a talk about, okay, now he's confirmed. He's not going to the Brick Summit on the 6th of July in Rio de Janeiro. And so there's some rumors that are starting to surface about his grip on power. What do you think? I think that Xi Jinping has lost a substantial amount of influence. And this is especially clear in the People's Liberation Army.

His number one loyalist in the military was General Huo Duques, number two uniformed officer, a vice chairman of the Communist Party Central Military Commission. General Huo has not been seen in public since March 11th, and there are rumors that he was suicided at a military hospital in Beijing and May. We don't know about those rumors, but we do know that General Hu has just disappeared, which means did Xi Jinping sack his own guy? And a lot of people think that the seed actually did that. But I don't think that that's really that credible. And the reason is that since July 9th of last year, there were three articles in PLA Daily, which is the main propaganda organ of the Chinese military. Those articles praised

quote-unquote collective leadership. That's a direct slap at Xi Jinping's one-man's style of rule. Those articles could not have been written if Xi Jinping were in control of the military. Simple as that. There is information that the authors of those three articles are generally aligned with General Jong-Yoshao, who is the number one vice chairman of the Central Military Commission and then China's number one uniformed officer, who is known to be adverse to Xi Jinping. There's been a lot of other flag officers who were thought to be aligned with China's leader, who have now been also disappeared. So there's a big cast of characters of Xi Jinping loyalists who are no longer operating. That's a very sort of serious statement that he's lost control of the military. Can

you expand on that? I believe, and this is just trying to see what we know objectively and trying to fit that in with other things that we know about the way the Chinese military operates, that it reached a tipping point. Maybe we need a little context. You know, Xi Jinping was responsible for purging a large number of officers from the Chinese military. ostensibly for corruption, but really because these were officers who didn't support Xi Jinping or who were aligned with other factions. Then we had, of course, the substantial restructuring of the Chinese military, beginning in the middle of, let's say, 2015 or so.

And Xi Jinping was able to use that to also control officers' selection. So there was a lot of people who see his... put in place, but that also means there's a lot of people that Xi Jinping has disadvantaged. And I think that what's happened in my sense is that there was just enough was enough. And General Zhang Jiangxiao just basically said, look, we're done with this. I don't think that you can say that Xi Jinping controls the military when the most powerful person in the military is known to be unfriendly towards China's leader. As I said, we have to sort of extrapolate a little bit, but that is, that's the most consistent

explanation with the facts that we know. So if we take that and then kind of advance it a little bit further, what does that mean in the short term? I mean, what could we expect to see in the top tier there in China's leadership? I think that we, well, let me give you the range of rumors and then we can. can sort of sort through. The range of rumors are, Sieging Fing is going to lose formally his military and other civilian posts in August. In other words, he's no longer to be General Secretary of the Communist Party. He's no longer going to be chairman of the Party's Central Military Commission. He's

no longer going to be state president. That's one end of the spectrum. Other people believe that he will be kept on, but only warmly that he will basically become a figurehead. Other people believe that he will remain more than a figurehead, but he will basically be substantially weakened. And other people say he's as strong as ever. So there's a wide range of opinion. But when we see what's happening among civilians, we see the changes in propaganda. We see, for instance, Siegeng not going to the bricks. We have to say, something is up. We may not know the full extent of what is up, but clearly the regime is unstable. Now, one other thing that is that we should keep in mind, and that is, Sieg Jinping is a strongman, and both Mao Zedong

and Deng Xiaoping, the first two leaders in the People's Republic, were strongmen, and they were exiled or they were sidelined many times in each of their careers, and they came back. So Xi Jinping could come back. But if we're talking about... out this week, I think that Xi Jinping is very weakened and that he is fighting for his political life. Is it more important for him to hold the military or to hold the civilian leadership? It's the guys with the guns that are the most important. As Mao Zedong famously said, it's the guys, well, he said the party controls the guns, but

in this case, the party's not controlling the guns. It's the guns that really matter. So, if Xi Jinping were able to control the military, then he could pretty much determine what to do on civilian stuff. And matter of fact, some of the more interesting rumors, and these are just rumors, I'm not standing behind them, but the more interesting rumors are that General Zhang has actually been interviewing civilians for the next post of General Secretary of the Communist Party. And that one of them, a leading candidate, was actually set to the sidelines because that leading candidate would not agree to allow the Chinese military to control itself and was not willing to agree to specific increases in the Chinese military budget. This is fascinating. If it's true, it means that General Zhang is the most powerful figure in China at this moment.

As I said, I'm not standing behind this rumor. but it shows you what could very well be the case. And it certainly explains my answer to you about why it's more important for Xi Jinping to control the military than it is for him to control an unruly bunch of civilians. What about this failure to appear at the BRICS summit? You know, what do you read into that, the reasoning behind not attending? And how important is that in terms of the BRICS nation? going forward? The regime says that Xi Jinping is not going to Brazil because he's already met President Lula de Silva of Brazil twice this year. Doesn't need to see him again. That to me is not

credible. And the reason is the bricks are more than just Brazil. And so this is something that's important because Xi Jinping has never missed a BRICS summit in the past. And it's really important for the bricks because the most powerful nation in that grouping is China. So this really puts a damper on bricks. And by the way, Xi Jinping not being there makes India so much more important in that gathering. The iron bricks, India. Now, the eye in bricks has made that organization ineffective as at least an anti-Western grouping because Prime Minister Durendra, Bode doesn't want it to be part of an anti-Western effort. So if you're having a Brick summit where you're going to have Bode and no Siegeun-Peg,

it really neuters Bricks. Okay. Yeah. You know, Putin is also, it's kind of been slapped twice now. I mean, the summit has because Vladimir Putin is also not attending. Now, his reasons are not attending. He doesn't want to get arrested. He's got the ICC out for him.

And so there's this issue of, you know, can he? or can he not travel without being arrested. So I find the absence of Xi Jinping from the Brick Summit to be much more fascinating and interesting. If you were a betting man, Gordon, what's the shelf life on Xi Jinping? I think, and this is just a guess, he will be kept on as a figurehead because it would be too disruptive for the regime to formally remove him. So he will remain in his formal posts, but he will not be exercising real power. So I think by the end of this year, we will have an effective leader of China without those formal posts. All right. Well, I've just made a note of that.

And so we won't put any money on it, but that is a fascinating statement, Gordon. Listen, I've got a bunch more questions here for you, but I'm going to have to save those for the next time if you're willing to come back on the situation report. Gordon Chang, you can follow them again on X at Gordon G. Chang. I highly recommend that you do if you want to know what's happening in China and the surrounding region. So listen again, thank you. You're a terrific friend of the show. We appreciate your insight, as always. Well, that's all the time we have for this week's PDB situation report. If you have any questions or comments, and I hope you do, just reach out to me at ThefirstTV.com. You know what we do with them, right? Every week, Carl and the Nailman shows up and he drops

off a big bag of postcards and faxes and notes and memos. And then we take your best questions and your comments and we smush them all together into a monthly episode that we call Ask Me Anything. We're right now getting ready to launch the one for July, because as you might have guessed, we're into July now. Listen, finally, to hear the podcast of the show ad-free, it's relatively simple. All you have to do is become a premium. member of the president's daily brief by visiting PDB Premium.com. I told you it was simple. I'm Mike Baker. And until next time, you know the drill. Stay informed. Stay safe. Stay cool. Tocovus is the go-to for premium handcrafted Western boots. Stop by any store location for a

warm welcome, a cold drink in hand, and a truly one-of-a-kind shopping experience. Let our friendly staff help you find your new go-to boots. Whether you're first, spare or your 50th. Finish things off with a complimentary boot brand to make them extra special. Come for the boots, stay for the good times. Tocovis Forever West.