The President's Daily Brief - PDB Situation Report | March 21st, 2026: The Fight With Iran Takes A Dangerous Turn & Inside China’s Iran Problem

Episode Date: March 21, 2026

In this episode of The PDB Situation Report: First up — the war with Iran enters a dangerous new phase, as both sides begin targeting critical energy infrastructure, raising the risk to global supply. We’re joined by Janatan Sayeh from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies to break down what this shift means and where the conflict could head next. Later in the show — China finds itself deeply exposed as the war threatens its energy lifeline, with Beijing relying on Iran for the vast majority of its oil imports. Casey Fleming joins us to explain what’s at stake—and how China could respond. 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 American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org. APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB Ava: See how millions are boosting their credit with Ava—download the Ava app and use code BAKER for 20% off your first year. CBDistillery: Visit https://CBDistillery.comand use promo code VIP for 50% off your entire order! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, and your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right. Let's get briefed. First up, the war with Iran, you may have heard about it, enters a new phase as both sides begin targeting critical energy infrastructure, raising the risk, of course, to global supply and global economies. We'll be joined by research analysts at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Jonathan Sayy, for more on that. Later in the show, China has a major stake in the war with, Iran, relying on Tehran for the vast majority of its oil imports. Casey Fleming, CEO of Black Ops Partners and an expert in national security strategy and

unrestricted warfare, we're going to ask him what that means, joins us to break it down, right, and how China could respond. But first, today's situation reports spotlight. We're now three weeks into the war against Iran, and we're seeing a clear shift in the battlefield. This fight is no longer confined to military targets or civilian infrastructure. it's now moving into the global energy system. Uh-oh, that shift became clear after Israel struck Iran's South Pars gas field. It's one of the largest in the world and a critical piece of infrastructure that they share with Qatar.

Now, Iran responded, as you might suspect, by targeting energy facilities across the region, including major LNG infrastructure, and is now warning of broader attacks if strikes on their infrastructure continue. So, what's emerging? is a new phase of the conflict, energy for energy, right? And with the Strait of Hormo moves under pressure, of course, the risk to global supply is growing and prices are rising. For more insight, we're joined by research analysts at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Jonathan Saei, Jonathan thanks very much for joining us again here on the Situation Report.

Hi, it's a pleasure to be back. Well, hopefully you'll feel that way after we finish our conversation. So let's start from the kind of the top, I guess. It seems like we've kind of broken the dam here in a sense, right, with the targeting of energy infrastructure. Talk to me about that. So this was really a retaliatory measure because, you know, you're right to point out there's an economic angle.

But the war started with going after the military apparatus. And parallel to that was the repression sites that we'll get into in depth a little bit later. But afterwards, once Tehran realized they don't have the capabilities to meaningfully match or respond, striking back at Israeli-American military, they pivoted towards the civilian infrastructure. And that was a lot of, of course, homes, residential areas across the Persian Gulf states and Israel.

And after that, they quickly shifted towards economic targets. So they did strike Saudi oil facilities. They went after ports that are logistical hubs for some of these transports. And more importantly, I think it came down to how they blocked the street of Hormuz. The economic implications of that are really, like not. even comparable to other scenarios. So I think it's because of that that we're seeing a retaliatory measure from the United States and what mostly Israel against Iran and oil facilities. But that's said, the way that Iran went about this war of not only regionalizing it, but really going after

the economic, I guess, chokehold of the Strait of war moves to this extent, I think is going to be the main reason that Washington really hasn't concluded the war. They could have declared a military victory probably by now, given that they've destroyed all the military sites, silos, launchers and some of the nuclear assets as well. But because of the implications of how the strait is closed right now, it unfortunately now, or really fortunately, depending on who you ask, the United States now has to finalize this before we move on to the next phase or before we even reach a ceasefire. But they must have known, I mean, and by that I mean the U.S. administration, they must have known that this was going to come down to a

essentially the strait of Hormuz, right, and energy, because as you pointed out, I mean, look, there was no chance of the Iranian regime was going to go toe to toe with the U.S. and Israel, you know, missile for missile. I mean, it just wasn't going to happen. Well, you have to assume, maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but there must have been significant discussion and scenarios drawn up and then responses you would have thought, although we're not seeing them, regarding what would happen if they blockade the straight. Correct. There certainly were, which is why the United States let the efforts against the IRGC Navy,

Iranian naval assets as a whole, because that was seen as a primary way or tactic for Tehran to block that straight. But I think parallel to that that maybe perhaps many had not assessed or did not think about it that thoroughly was the drone component. So we talk about Iran's military capabilities. It was mostly missiles. We went after the launchers. So even they might still have thousands of hundreds left, but they can't launch them anymore. as often as they used to. Numbers don't lie.

But that's not the same case with drones. And they're actually using these UAVs to go after some of these vessels. The issue with that is, of course, they're smaller, they're cheaper. Iran has plenty more of them. But more importantly, they don't need a launch site or a launch pad. They could just be operated from practically anywhere. And it's because of that that we can't really pursue any options of boots on the ground to secure the south, the southern coast of Iran.

Because with these drones, our personnel would be really exposed to any attack. given the capabilities here. So maybe it comes to that kind of a tactical decision there. On the other hand, maybe the understanding was that by targeting the command structure of the Islamic Republic, these forces would not have the capabilities to attack or carry out operations. Now we realize, or maybe had already anticipated, but now it's very evident, that the regime's main body, the core military apparatus does not need a command structure or a supreme leader to to tell them to close the strait, target civilian infrastructures, or open fire on Iranian dissidents, given that this is a contingency plan they had really structured for half a century.

So I think comes down to those two pillars that maybe we're not seeing immediate results in the state of formulas. Yeah, you'd have to assume they've had a playbook on the shelf for quite some time, right? It's not the first time they've moved to blockade the strait. It's not the first time they've made threats about doing that. So I guess I, along with, I suspect a lot of people, are really curious to know what conversations took place ahead of time to kind of anticipate the way this was going to go because there weren't that many options for the Iranian regime.

And I do get the sense, to your point, talking about the command and control, the structure, the leadership, you know, you get the sense that perhaps there was an overconfidence. that, you know, decimating some of that leadership would result somehow in a sea change within the direction of the Iranian government, right? Maybe, you know, IRGC commanders would rise up and say, okay, enough, it's enough, whatever. There may have been some optimism there and some hope. I don't think that's ever a good way to base your strategy. But let me ask you this, if I could, Jonathan. the strikes that Israel has claimed they're responsible for on the South Paris gas field, which then resulted in the Iranian retaliatory strikes,

including against Qatar's largest LNG facilities. Jerusalem is saying, that was us. Trump's come out and said, I didn't know anything about it. Do you think that's true? Do you think there was no consultation between the two nations on something of that importance? It is tough to really assess. What we've picked up so far between Washington and Jerusalem is that the overall objectives are the same, but one might have a different bar as to why they would really label a success versus another.

So as we noted for Trump, declaring a military victory would have a lower bar, given how overpowered the Islamic Republic's armed apparatus were. And you can just look at the numbers, how they don't have any missiles and launchers. So, but then again, that doesn't mean it's a military victory equates a moment comparable to the Berlin Wall collapse, for example. The political successes there are different from a military victory. But nonetheless, you know, Trump can still sell that as something that he neutralized. It was a major threat from the Islamic Republic and an attack was able to battle a lot of that. It is not the same thing for Netanyahu because his policy against Iran needs to stand out compared to Israeli war against Hezbollah or what happened.

in Syria with arming the Jews or what have you. I think for the average Israeli voter looking at Netanyahu, and of course there's a lot of internal political unrest against them, they want to see how this war is different from the 12-day war. So if this were to conclude and the regime would still stay in power, they might lose some missiles, but they would still have the capabilities to rebuild them in, let's say, five, ten years, that is not going to be seen as a victory by Israelis.

So because of that, I think the bar is different, but the objectives are not between the two. And it really comes down to how we assess the next phase of the war. If it's going to be somehow leveraging someone from within the system to talk to, to see if we can get some sort of a deal that looks unlikely, or are we going to go about systemic regime change and really a transition of power across Iran? Yeah, I like how this possibly apropos of nothing, but I like how the New York Times in particular,

when Ali La Ranjani was killed just the other day, I like how they tried to paint it almost as if he was a moderate, right? Like, oh my God, he was the one guy who could have these conversations and he was leading the nuclear talks. And, of course, they didn't bother to mention that he was also the architect of murdering thousands of Iranians during their recent protests and the detention of tens of thousands of others. So it's always interesting how to see these things get framed. But let me ask you this if I could. do you think that regime chase, let's call it that. But, you know, again, sort of a significant change in the government.

Is that a possibility from your perspective based on what you're seeing at this stage? It certainly is, but very quickly, I really want to address why you mentioned, because it's very significant for us. As we're engaging, whether we can talk to the Islamic Republic or not. So growing up there, there was the 2009 Green Movement. That's when a lot of people, myself included, we had hopes of bringing somehow change from within the system. I like a camp called, quote-unquote-unquote the reformists, those who put up a facade of negotiations and appeasement, who as in reality, as you noted out, they still have the worst crackdown resume.

They still were about uranium enrichment. They were still about arming proxies. But now the word reformist has now shifted to pragmatists. All of a sudden, we hear this new term that somehow some of these individuals are meant to be seen as rational thinkers or somehow different from the clergy. You know, different sides of the same coin. You know, this is, if the Islamic Republic was a clock, these are different moving parts with the same agenda.

The idea that somehow we're going to turn it into a Venezuela scenario where we can somehow use someone from within the system. One, it's not going to play well with the Iranian populace. They want this regime gone in its totality. That's one. And two, I don't know if Israelis are going to be receptive to that. And three, and the most important one, you cannot get behavior change from an Islamic Republic that was,

built on Islamist ideologies, anti-Americanism, and gender apartheid. You just can't do it. At that point is no longer an Islamic Republic. But to your immediate question about whether regime change is possible or not, this is the closest we've been. And I think there's a few factors that we need to really consider. Another war against the Islamic Republic was inevitable after the 12-day war. Israelis thought they were not done with the situation.

The nuclear issue was still lingering. The missiles were a major issue. So it was about maybe they were anticipating sometime and later. 2026 to go about this. But what happened in January changed everything. Once the regime, one opened fired on 40,000 unarmed people within 48 hours, that was just unprecedented. But it really informed the intelligence calculus in the Western Israel that not only this regime less, more unpopular than we thought, but more importantly, the anti-regime momentum is real. If the Crown Prince called on protests to take place and we saw millions come out unprecedentedly,

That in itself tells you that the opportunity was maybe closer than we thought. So I think that shaped how we went about this war. And you look at how Israelis are going after taking out the internal security infrastructure, the repression apparatus, going after different not only buildings but individuals. Like now we see hyperlocal targets specifically going after unit. And they publicize that. They talk to Iranians and they say, you know, your time is near. The message of solidarity is there.

So Israel definitely has an incentive to push that through. The average Iranian on the ground sees this as no way but through. Because if we fail to get regime change out of this conflict or regime collapsed more so in this scenario, Iran is going to turn to North Korea. And I think Trump was very accurate that when he said in February 28th that it is now or never, meaning if you fail to leverage this chance, this is for generations to come, you're going to be stuck with this regime. So what I'm looking out for is defections, any sort of signs coming in from inside the country.

that these military officials no longer see a future with the regime, and they rather have their lives spared join the movement. And I think the next few days, if not weak, is going to be critical. And it comes down to once the day comes that the Crown Prince is going to call on protest to take place, that's we can truly measure how much we're able to degrade the regime's internal refression and how much we cause fractures amongst their intelligence apparatus. Okay. I want you to hold that thought.

We're going to pick up right where you just left off there for a second, So that raises a couple other questions. But Jonathan, if you could stay right there. We will be taking a quick break. And then we'll be back with more from Jonathan from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies right here on the PDB Situation Report. So you know what I'm going to say next, right? Stick around.

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Joining us once again is Jonathan Sayy, research analyst at the Foundation for Defensive Democracies. Jonathan, thank you very much for sticking around. We were just talking about the potential at this stage for regime change, a shift in the government in Iran. And you mentioned, you know, the idea that the next few days will be very important. First, I want to ask you, what's important about the next few days? and also have you seen any indications or have heard of any indications that you give credible reference to for defections, anybody coming out of the IRGC or any other elements that could provide perhaps top cover for the people of Iran to come out on the streets?

So on your first question, time is of excess for numerous reasons. Number one, the economic implications and the oil prices, the market as a whole, That poses significant challenges. I think Washington also has an incentive to conclude this as much as they can. On the other hand, we've seen how Trump is able to enforce a ceasefire like they did in the 12-day war. Israelis had more of an appetite

to keep the war going during June, but America put an end to it. So we know that the preference from this administration, of course, as they've always stated, is to not let wars drag out for too long. On the other hand, the Israeli population has been going really at this for years now. Since October 7th, they've been at constant war with different entities.

They have also, as economic implications for Israelis as well. But more importantly, the average Iranian who's on standby right now, hoping that this is going to be the last or final battle, as they call it on the ground, we risk losing them. So the idea here, or at least how the war was perceived by the majority of Iranians, was that this was the help that was promised to them. Once Iranis were massacred on the street, we saw them, you know, call for humanitarian intervention, and this is that, this is what they were hoping for. But that doesn't mean they want regime change at any cost. They do not want to see heavy, heavy strikes against Tehran as it's been going on.

There's a limit as to how much the average Iranian can tolerate before they get disillusioned. Paralleled to that, they do not want to see their country fragmented. Any form of backing separatist groups, some of them that have tied to terror networks is going to alienate the average Iranian. So because of that, I think it's in everyone's interest to really move swiftly with this. So that's why the next few days are going to be critical. I'm sorry for interrupting, but what does that mean to move swiftly on this? I mean, how does this, you know, it almost feels like, right, we're in a way, I don't that's going to sound wrong, but in a stalemate, right?

We're continuing the air campaign, hitting additional target packages. The straight is effectively blockaded. now we've expanded to hitting energy infrastructure, which is going to have an increasing shock on the global economy. And yet we're not seeing any real significant fissures within the Iranian government, at least that, you know, we're aware of. So what does that mean? It needs to move swiftly. What is the actual practical way that anything breaks free here? That would really answer your second question that you originally proposed. But quickly, I would notice, I would mention that that when there was a new wave of conflict in Syria,

it took a week for Assad to fall within that. Within like a few days Assad was gone. Or another way of looking at it, before Israel carried out the pager attacks, none of us could have speculated what the Mossad was capable of until it happened. So I'm inclined to think there's a lot of covert operations that a lot of us are not familiar with until it happens.

That might be too optimistic, but that has been the case in other Middle Eastern countries in the last six months. So that's critical. Well, I would push back on the Syria thing only because obviously that was an armed conflict, right? You had an armed, you know, what do you want to call them an insurgency or an armed force, whatever, moving on the Syrian government. And of course, the Syrian military just collapsed and Russia did not come in to provide

his support, et cetera, et cetera. Here you've got people who know if they go out on the streets, there's a high potential for them to get killed. And I'm just wondering, you know, how do you, How do you get past that? And I know what you're saying about the defections and the cracks in the government and will you get that? And again, I go back to that earlier comment that I think, you know, conversations were probably overly optimistic about how that might happen. They may have been too ambitious. I guess it's too soon for us to tell. But the thing about fractures is that you're not going to hear about them until the day of the major clashes that are going to take place.

Yeah. So for the IRGC personnel that would want to defect, you wouldn't hear about it now. So the Wall Street Journal put out something very interesting that I think answers your question to an extent. So the Mossad is specifically going after certain mid-level commanders informing them that now is not the time, but there will come a moment. Well, you have to decide whether you're going to be on the side of the people or you're going to be eliminated just like your supreme leader was. So the idea is that you have to change the calculus. And how do you do that? You need to ensure that the average IRGC or Basque personal on the ground

fears their lives as much as the protesters do. And for the first time ever they do because of the hyperlocal attacks. So everything is in motion for us to get there. And you have to, one, you have to ensure that at least some of these guys, as we said, defect. And the first steps to that are desertions. And we're getting reports of that. We're getting reports of IRC guys. Again, nothing is confirmed because it's a war zone.

So it might not be true. But there are a lot of reports hinting at some of these guys of refraining. from showing up to their post because they know they're going to be killed. There's no real air defense system. Their commanders have abandoned them or they've been killed. And rationally, it does make sense. If your foot soldier on the ground, even if you believe in martyrdom, you still are not going to sit there like a sitting duck to just be exploded.

So there's an incentive there. Now, if I were to be a bit more pessimistic, the question is, do these armed personnel really think if they join the movement, they're going to be spared, given the blood that they have on their hands? So to your point, it's definitely not going to be that easy. it's probably not going to happen overnight. But once that moment comes, also, we're talking about numbers here. So if you have millions that are taking to the streets

that are backed by Israeli drones, as we've seen so far, there might be any incentives to arm them. There might be other areas where Israel might be supporting separatist movements. Again, that's going to have its own ramifications. So you have to look at it in a multiple stage level. But again, as to the very details, I think that is going to happen very swiftly. And when it does, there's going to be. so many different developments that we have to, I guess, wait and see until then. But I think

this roughly addresses a- Right. I think you're right. I'm sorry for an interrupting. I think you're right in the sense that there's undoubtedly a lot of conversations going on, right, that we're just unaware of within maybe the mid-level ranks, maybe even some senior level ranks of the Iranian military and the IRGC, maybe other organizations, looking at this and talking about, you know, what their future might look like, right? And we've had some good reporting, and we've covered some of that on the PDB recently, that the Israeli strikes on the internal security apparatus are having a significant impact on the besieged militia and other elements that have been responsible for suppressing the people

and maintaining internal control. And we're seeing, you know, some of that impact. And I think that's from a strategic point of view, right, I think you could argue that they could have even done that sooner. Obviously, they were busy working the missile program as target packages. But, you know, I think going after the internal security, because if anything is going to give the people on the street, hope, it's seeing those elements that have been directly responsible for keeping them, you know, under the boot, you know, being targeted. So I think that's a really good point that you raise. It certainly is, and in the initial stages, they were going after this. But here's the issue.

They were going after the infrastructure. And it took the Iranian armed apparatus 48 hours, if not 24 hours, to realize that they cannot stay in their basis. So they evacuated it. So when we hear numbers that they struck like 8,000 targets, I think, the Scentcom was claiming. Right. So that. And now pair that with how many have been killed. The numbers are generously 10,000, maybe.

So that tells you a lot of these sites where maybe one man was guarding it, if anyone. And also, when you talk about the total armed apparatus, it's about half a million if you combine RGC, besiege, the conventional military, the armed forces, different battalions. So that's still quite an extensive number. But I think what is the recent wave is the hyperlocal ones specifically recording a video of it. And that's the ideological aspect of recording these and saying this is a besiege guy. and that was his fate. Do you want to end up like him or do you want to take your chances and really maybe defect? Yeah, part of this is always going to be or a situation like this is always going to be

come down to some level of propaganda of covert action campaigns, of trying to reach the people and get them so that in particularly in an information-starved environment so that they understand what's happening. And so yeah, I guess, Part of the problem is, and you've certainly been, you know, closer in this, is that over the years, so if you've watched what's happened since the Revolution 79, you can develop a certain sense of cynicism, right? And, you know, every time you think maybe this is it, maybe this is the moment, then, you know, they continue, the regime continues to display this level of resilience that you just didn't imagine.

that they would have or the opportunity for the people at a certain point and then it just kind of it goes away and it's it's back to business as usual so there was just such an enormous amount of hope and continues to be at this point I think within a lot of circles that maybe this is that that time but yeah it's it's very tough to read because again part of the problem is as you pointed out it's a war zone and it's Iran and it's always been difficult to get information out of there, intelligence out of there, that you can count on. Very true. And you're right to point out that we've seen different episodes, started in 1999, 2009. Then again, we saw it in 2016, 17, 2022, and now with the recent wave. But I do

think there are a few factors that set this apart. One, I think post-October 7th, Israel is set on something major in Iran. So I think that is one key element there that is really trying to advance some sort of a regime change policy. We haven't seen that level of appetite from Washington really post George Bush. Even the fact that Trump went this far, I think, was unprecedented post that era. So that's one key factor. The other one is that Iran is a very young country. And you have these young people, it's 60% about the age of 30.

They have only lived under regime brutality. And that in itself has really, I don't want to say radicalize the population, but has cultivated sentiment amongst the people that it is really now, never for us because it's either this or as Iranians we cease to exist. And that was not the mindset. I remember being on the ground. We did not feel like as a country that there was an existential threat against us by our regime. Now that's the mindset. So that's very different. And like, listen, you saw 40,000 people die get to get massacred on the street. For them to risk their lives, that was also unprecedented. I would not have predicted no one would, that

this many Iranians would risk their lives and really take to the streets. The question, The question is, does the same energy exist? Does the same moral exist? And that's why I say time is of essence for us to be leveraging that against the Islamic Republic. But that said, you know, cynicism is there. But at the same time, we can't let the Iran and people to lose their hope because that is ultimately the main leverage. And the more this drags out and the more there's less information that risk demoralizing them. It's really interesting what you said, Johnson, you know, the idea that you couldn't imagine that that many people would turn out on the streets in protest. but I suspect those people who did couldn't imagine that even their repressive government would be that brutal, right, in that moment. Just shocking. Jonathan Sayy, listen, always a fascinating discussion, and really appreciate you taking the time to join us here on the situation report, and I hope you'll come back again. Thank you for having me. Great conversation. Jonathan Sayy of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Man, great guy, terrific insight, first-hand insight into how this is playing out on the streets. All right. Well, coming up next, the war with Iran is creating a high-stakes dilemma for China. That's right. One that could both impact its economy and its global strategy. National security and unrestricted warfare expert Gasey Fleming joins us to explain what Beijing's next move could be. Stay witness. Hey, Mike Baker here with an important message about improving your personal finances. Now, a lot of folks have had experiences with bad credit, unfortunately, at some

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Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. As the war with Iran enters its third week, time flies, China is watching closely, of course, and it has a lot at stake here. Beijing has built a deep strategic and economic relationship with Tecran, and nowhere is that more evident than in the energy sector. China currently imports roughly 90% of Iran's oil exports, yep, making it a critical lifeline for the regime as it navigates international sanctions. That means any disruption to Iran's production or the flow of oil through the region as direct consequences for China's economy and its broader strategic ambitions. The question now is whether Beijing stays on the sidelines or becomes more directly involved.

Joining me now is Casey Fleming, CEO of Black Ops Partners and a recognized expert in national security strategy and unrestricted warfare. He's also the author of a terrific book if you haven't picked it up yet. I don't know what the hell you're doing with your time. The book's called The Red Tsunami, The Silent Storm Killing Your Freedom. It's available on Amazon, and I highly recommend you go get it. Okay. All right. Casey Fleming, thank you very much, man, for joining us here today. Thanks for having me, Mike. Well, let's, I guess let's approach this from 30,000 feet to start with. Talk to me, if you could, and explain to the folks watching the significance. Why, Why is China so concerned about what's happening with the Iran conflict?

And I guess the second part of that question, do you see any scenario where they get more involved in the support of Iran? So China is the 4,200-pound gorilla in the room. They have been added for well over 40-plus years to destroy America from within for complete and utter takeover. It's called unrestricted war against the people. In the past, we've been trained that war is with military to military. Not in this case. They realized back in the Gulf War that they could not go head to head with us. So they said, how else can we get them?

So it's weakening the United States from within by putting every man, woman, and child on the front lines. Fentanyl, drug warfare, COVID, all the rest of it. So they are the grand puppeteer. Underneath them, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, drug cartels, and underneath Iran are the terrorist organizations. So that is really the big picture. Don't be distracted with the war of the month with Iran. However, Iran is one of their key components, their key partners, their key pillars. They are the strategic forward operating base for Russia and China in the Middle East. just like Venezuela was the forward operating base for China, Russia, and Iran in the Western

Hemisphere. So all of this is connected. If Venezuela drug cartels, as I just mentioned, Iran, all roads lead back to the Chinese Communist Party and their complete and utter destruction of the United States. So Iran is their key pillar. They've been funding Iran. They've been ensuring Iran against all the sanctions that the U.S. put forth, they say, hey, don't worry about it. Any sanctions U.S. puts on you? We'll take them off. We'll cover you. So just even after the attack started, we saw that there are two Iranian ships. Immediately after the attacks, our offensive started, two Iranian ships were in port in China receiving solid rocket fuel, and they made it back to Iran. Now, will you see boots on the ground? We'll see ships. I doubt that. I think it's

everything that they can do to support them in that war, whether it's components. And they're building drones for Iran in China, supplying components for the drones, the electronics and engine mechanisms and so on. So it is a strategic partnership. Don't be distracted by the war of the month. The biggest strategy, the biggest enemy. Incidentally, the head of the FBI, Christopher Ray, for seven years, said the largest single threat to the future of the United States is the Chinese Communist Party. Cash Patel has echoed that as well.

And so this follows all along the same lines. And again, it's unrestricted war where every American is on the front lines. And they sense it, but nobody would step forward and tell them the truth. Nobody would step up and connect the dots until now. We've talked about it and a lot on the PDB and I've talked about it over the years in terms of China's influence, their efforts, they're the theft of economic intelligence, their economic espionage, their theft of research and development, the cost of all that. It's not even quantifiable. It's so significant. And I think it's only been the past few years where there's been an effort, right? mostly by, and again, look, love them or hate them, but mostly by the Trump administration, frankly, to focus on the threats coming from China. Now, I want to talk about their involvement with Iran because there's a school of thought that says, look, China never gets involved, right? They only do what's in their best interests.

They always talk about, you know, we just want peace. Everyone should work together for peace. they never get their hands dirty in things, right? That seems to be because in part maybe they don't like the chaos. But when you look at the potential damage that a change of government and alignment with Venezuela and a change potential, I'm not sure if it's going to happen and a lot of people are skeptical about whether you get a change in government in Iran. But that's really significant, you would think, from Xi Jinping's,

perspective. It is. And don't forget, we took out the head, well, Mexico with our assistance, took out the head of the worst cartel with strong operations in all 50 states in the U.S. So all of those are basically putting Xi Jinping on check because he has been expanding for the past 30 years unchecked. And in certain circumstances, other administrations have been accelerating their growth with Iran, with China, and so on. So yes, Lever-Mur-Hadem, Trump has basically put him in check over the last few months, took 30 years of complete ignorance towards China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and their global aggression towards the free world and taking over the free world. So Lovmer-Hadam, he did this for America. He did the housekeeping nobody else would do over the past 47 years. And it doesn't

matter where you start. The longer you wait, the uglier the housekeeping is. And we're actually there. So it's a nasty situation, but it had to be done. Yeah. What do you think about this? There's been some fairly credible reporting. Of course, the Kremlin denies it all that Moscow's been providing Iran, not just with intelligence, but also now assistance in making their drone strikes more lethal, more effective, right? And obviously sharing their experience over the past four years of Putin's invasion. Now, have you seen anything that would indicate that China has been engaged in anything along those lines with Iran? Yes, they've been providing satellite intelligence as well. they've got their own satellite system to compete and replace U.S. GPS, which is a by do that they use of their own satellite system, which is really excellent in targeting.

Same thing with the Russian thing, as you mentioned, with the drones. Their targeting has gotten a lot sharper, even since the beginning of the war, which is not good for us and not good for our allies in the Gulf. So it really is stepping this thing up to be very serious. Make no mistake. So make no mistake, Russian and China are completely behind Iran financially, military equipment, military training. And by the way, even in Iran, you had the Iranian IRGC using Chinese surveillance and AI and tracking to track the dissidents in, you know, the non-believers. and the non-supporters for murder. So they helped execute 32,000 people by identifying them for the IRGC to go in and kill these people.

So China's got blood on their hands on this thing. But again, to your point, they always like plausible deniability. And don't forget, these guys still follow Sun Tzu to the letter. So everything is done on deception. If the CCP is moving their mouth, they're lying. and nothing that they've ever agreed to since day one with Nixon and Kissinger and Bill Clinton and the WTO, they've never honored any agreement that they've ever agreed to do. So this is the true enemy.

It is the most serious enemy, the world honestly, has ever faced. It's the number two economy that we built this monster. So again, China is the, you know, all roads lead back to China. And let me say, there's only one China. and it's completely controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. And if you remember high school history, communism and freedom do not mix. They are oil and water. They cannot coexist.

So that's what China is up to. They are trying to non-coexist by taking us out of existence. Yeah, I want to pick that up after the break because, you know, the past, well, several decades. You know, it's all better about, oh, you know, we're not really adversaries. We're living in the same, you know, global economy and we want to find strategic partnerships and et cetera, et cetera. That's always been the approach. And whether people believe it or not, nobody wanted to come right out and say, look, they've created, with our help, an unlevel playing field. And they also believe that their rightful position is at the top of the food chain.

And Xi Jinping in particular has been very clear about that. But Casey, if you could stay right where you are, we've got to take a quick break. We'll be back with more from Casey Fleming, and you should, again, check out his book. It's an excellent one. It's the Red Tsunami, the Silent Storm, killing your freedom. And, again, it's available on Amazon. But we'll take a quick break, and then we'll be back with more from Casey Fleming here on the PDB Situation Report. So, as you know, stick around.

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Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. Welcome back to The Situation Report. Joining me once again is the CEO of Black Ops Partners, Casey Fleming. Casey, thank you very much for sticking around. Let's just talk briefly for good about China and Taiwan. Now, it was interesting. The recent testimony up on the Hill, Capitol Hill, where the general consensus from the latest Intel assessment, you know, sort of their annual report about what to watch

and what to be worried about, indicated that they felt China wasn't interested in moving on Taiwan in 2027, looking forward. just a brief bit. What are your impressions of this? What's your perspective on China's intentions, you know, particularly from a timeline regarding Taiwan? Our intelligence community and our federal government has underestimated China and the Chinese Communist Party since day one. So Xi Jinping just gutted all of his top generals. He has no operational experience, but that's not going to stop him. He's been very clear. In 27, he fully intends to take over Taiwan. And now, now with, if you look at it from his perspective, from the, the global

impression and the global branding that Trump went in and took out Venezuela, Mexican drug cartel, head, and now Iran, that gives them, in his mind, full license to go forward. There's also school of thought that says those top two generals that were left that were fairly loyal to him, did not want to engage Taiwan. And so that's why he let him go. But that's really what's at the crux of this thing. So, and by the way, their economy is being run into the ground for five years. Their real estate economy is vapor. It's house of cards. Their banking economy is a house of cards. And now the rest of their economy is a house of cards as well. So what you have is don't, you know, say, well, how are they going to fight a war? Well, guess what? Wars have a

tendency to reset all the banking figures and reset the economy. So in other words, I can't think of another country that can use a war than China right now. So don't count them out. You know, if you, the other thing is, you know this, Mike. When you're at war, you have to become intimate with your enemy. You have to think like them. And that's what we've done. When we came aware of this, my team and my company came aware of this 16 years ago, we all roads led back to the CCP then and they do even more now. So we've become very intimate with that enemy. They believe that they ran the world for 2,300 years, the last century, 1850 tonight, which started with the Opium Wars to 1950 World War II, where the Japanese came in and the Americans had to kick them out. that is the century of great humiliation and then they feel like the rest of the world is theirs for 23 new

the additional the next 2,300 years and it's their rightful destiny to run the world and if you're not Han Chinese, that's H-A-N Chinese, then you're inferior and you're either going to be a slave or you're going to be killed with additional viruses that are coming out. Now I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I work off of data, facts and intelligence. And that's coming from the intelligence community. Yeah, look, I mean, you go back to late 2019. And there were rumblings about problems and something happening and concerns over the Wuhan lab.

And then suddenly all that got, again, it was a very strange time. But the speed with which the administration at the time wanted to not talk about China as the origin of this rather, you know, and from a lab perspective was was very puzzling. It's interesting what you mentioned in terms of how Xi Jinping interprets or processes what's happened recently in Venezuela and now in Iran, possibly in Cuba, as okay, you know, now the gloves are off. I see that's how the world's going to operate at this point, regime change or removing leaders. And so I think I think you're right that Xi Jinping looks at it possibly as the doors open now. Absolutely. The other side of it is that it's always been their

plan, and we know this from our own intelligence, to keep the United States spread between three wars and a terrorist organization. So that's Ukraine, that's Middle East, a future war with North and South Korea, or you name it, and then terrorist organizations to keep the mainland of the United States on the back of your heels with this terrorist event, that terrorist event, and so on. So at that point, they are weakened enough

to where we can get what we want by taking over Taiwan. And by the way, the rest of the South China Sea, which is rightfully, quote, in their words, rightfully theirs. Yeah, it's interesting. China looked at, I think they've, well, they've been following along since, you know, certainly the efforts in Afghanistan, but they've looked at our effectiveness in conflict zones, right? And from a U.S. military perspective. And, of course, you know, then they kind of got on the giddy up to improve their own military capability.

how effective have they been? And you touched a little bit on the restructuring, the reshuffling, the removing of key leaders within the PLA, but how effective do you think they've been in modernizing their military at this point? They've been very effective in stealing. We taught them how to manufacture. We taught them how to manufacture efficiently. We gave them intellectual property. And the intellectual property we didn't give them. They stole. And they've got a massive, they've got an incredibly effective system for stealing intellectual property. So all that combined, the issue is they have trouble putting it all together at the end. So it all looks good. But there's final tweaking that needs to be done. So that is, that's not that far off. So you have to understand what unrestricted

warfare is. Unrestricted warfare says we're going to, there are no rules. And we're, are going to take out our enemy from the inside, have them destroy themselves from the inside with cognitive warfare, which is social media, TikTok, schools, all that, drug warfare, fentanyl, all that other stuff, biological warfare, which is COVID-1, COVID-2, COVID-3. Incidentally, COVID now is known to be an absolute bio-weapon, which was a lab leak. That's on the White House's website, calling it a lab leak. there now. So everybody knows this is going on. So that's really what's its sake. So unrestricted warfare, they never want it. They follow Sun Tzu win the war without fighting.

So the last stage of unrestricted warfare, which they hope they never have to go to, is military conventional hot war. They want us to capitulate. They're killing 150. They're murdering. 150,000. Yes, double the number than the government reported. they're murdering 150,000 American military-aged young men and women every year with fentanyl. My question to you is, why are you not seeing that on the front page of every paper and on every news program because your mainstream media is corrupted and compromised? So you're losing 150,000 murders every year. That's the same as 2737s going down every day.

350 family funerals every day. And the same as World War II never ending. So why are we not holding the Chinese Communist Party accountable? And why is our government not standing on that? Yeah, I think it goes all in line with, I'll bring up that Intel assessment, the latest Intel report that came out that was discussed up on Capitol Hill in the latest hearings. and John McCliff was there, Tulsi Gabbard was there, and they talked about their assessment, the intel community's assessment of China is that,

and I find this interesting, right? I find it, I don't want to say it's because it's not naive. There are a lot of smart people, you know, that are involved in this, but it's the way that it gets phrased is that, you know, they don't want to take it by force. They don't want to, you know, they're not going out. And then the implication becomes, because you've said that, because, you know, the assessment is that China's not looking, you know, to engage, they don't want to engage in military takeover of Taiwan. The implication there is that, oh, okay, we don't necessarily have to worry about this.

But there's little talk beyond that of these other efforts to go on, right, to win the war without firing a shot. So it's very important what you're talking about. It's, you know, look, the Soviets, you know, have did the same thing in their day. You know, the Russian intel apparatus still believes the same thing. They can corrupt America. It will fall on its own because it is corrupt and they'll do everything they can to help support that move. Yeah. So, you know, we do tend to get kind of blinders on where we just look at, well, how many naval ships do they have?

You know, how many aircraft do they have? How many tankers do they have? And we forget about everything else that goes on. And I'm glad you raised again this point of the theft of information. They had a whole plan that said, we're going to, we're going to bypass the research and development, all the heavy cost of that over the years. And just hoover up everything from the U.S. and allies in the West. Now, you could argue they bypassed a generation or two of engineers, you know, developing that ability.

but they've been working very hard now to correct that problem. They have by putting their, us allowing their students to go into U.S. universities and to steal information. People don't understand that when a Chinese person, Chinese communist citizen, leaves the country, they have to check out with their local police station and they have to sign a loyalty pledge to the Chinese Communist Party. They must agree to espionage for the national security laws of the CCP of 2015, 16, 17, 18, that they have to be loyal to the CCP. So we're teaching these kids right next to our own kids.

And then I've had CEOs tell me, well, how the hell do these guys have all this information? How can they act us so bad? I mean, how can they be so good at this? I said, well, I can promise you this. It has nothing to do with their kids sitting right next to our kids in Internet security classes and master's degrees in Internet security. I promise you that's not the case. And so it's all those things. By the way, one of the things that you mentioned also is, you know, our government kind of downplays this.

Don't forget. Our government is politicized. And a lot of our lawmakers receive CCP money in their re-election pay. Pax. So that's called foreign influence, and that absolutely has to stop. If you think there's any foreign influence inside the walls of China, there's not. And they have a Chinese firewall with technology. Nothing gets in. The same thing needs to happen with us. Block everything from China. And absolutely, foreign influence will get you treason. And your luck will give you a rope. But that would imply campaign finance reform would imply maybe an

end of stock training. I'm not sure any of those are going to happen, but I'm glad you got your book up there because that's, we've run out of time, but tell people about your book and how they can get it. The book was written for you. It's written for every man, woman, and child because you're on the front lines of this war. It's unrestricted war. It's the most important thing you'll ever read in your entire lifetime. I'm not a book guy. Never wanted to write a book. Still don't. But here it is. I connected the dots for you when nobody else would. It's backed by over 20. top intelligence, who's who in the world, as well as subject matter experts. And it connects the dots for you to understand what's going on and what's happening now and in

the future. This is the most important thing that's going on in your life. Nobody's told you about it. Excellent. And available on Amazon. Everywhere. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Ingram, you name it. Well, I recommend that the BDB global community, go out and check out that book.

It is an incredibly important topic. and Casey Fleming, I want to thank you very much for taking the time and to join us here on the Situation Report, and I hope you'll come back next time we pick up the phone and call you. Well, that is all the time we have before today's PDB Situation Report, right? If you have any questions or comments, and I hope you do, just reach out to me at PDB at thefirstTV.com. You know what we deal with your cards and your postcards and your letters and your fax? Anybody write letters anymore?

Do people send postcards anymore? I don't know. I think we'd be a better world if we did. Maybe you write one letter every week to somebody you know, right? How much fun is it? You go to the mailbox. You actually have a letter instead of a bill. I'm going to start a campaign.

I think we need to bring that back, along with cardigans and fedoras. Yeah, I'm going that direction. All right. Once a month, anyway, we gather up your best questions and comments. We mash them all together into what we call and ask me anything episode. We got another one coming up here. shortly. So keep those cards and letters coming. And of course, to listen to the podcast of this show ad free, you can do that. It's very simple. Become a premium member of the President's Daily Brief

by visiting pdb premium.com. I'm Mike Baker. And until next time, you know the drill. Stay informed. Stay safe. Stay cool.