The President's Daily Brief - PDB Situation Report | October 17th, 2025: Russia’s Economy Buckling Under Ukraine Drone Strikes & Taiwan Braces for What’s Next

Episode Date: October 18, 2025

In this episode of The President’s Daily Brief: Ukraine’s drone war is hitting Russia where it hurts most—its wallet. Precision strikes on refineries have crippled Moscow’s fuel production and triggered a budget crisis. Correspondent for the Kyiv Post Jason Jay Smart joins us with his insight. China’s military is stepping up operations around Taiwan, and officials on the island are warning it could be a prelude to something bigger. Former CIA analyst Buck Sexton just got back from Taiwan—he’ll join us to break down what he saw on the ground. 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, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.org. APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.327% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB.Goldbelly: Impress your friends and family. go to https://GOLDBELLY.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code PDB.Stash Financial: Don't Let your money sit around. Go to https://get.stash.com/PDB to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Exclusions apply for licenses. See homedepo.com slash license numbers. They say everything happens for a reason, but I suspect everything happens for a recesses. Like this commercial break, did you need 15 seconds away from music or 15 seconds to eat or Reese's? Perhaps it's true. Everything happens for a Reese's. Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, Ukraine's drone war is hitting Russia where it hurts most. It's wallet. Strikes on refineries have critical.

purpled Moscow's fuel production, sparking a budget crisis. Correspondent for the Keith Post, Jason Jay Smart joins us with his insight. Later in the show, China's military is stepping up its operations around Taiwan, and officials on the island are warning that it could be a prelude to something bigger. Former CIA analyst Buck Sexton just got back from Taiwan. What was he doing in Taiwan? He'll join us to break down what he saw on the ground. But first, today's PDB spotlight. Russia's war machine is now showing signs of breaking under economic pressure. Ukraine's deep strike campaign, especially its recent attacks on Russian oil refineries, has reportedly sidelined up to 40, that's 40% of Russia's refining capacity,

triggering growing fuel shortages, plunging revenues, and gaps in Moscow's war budget. In response, Putin's regime appears to be conducting internal purges, seizing oligarch assets and watching its elite flee Moscow on private jets. That's how I always flee a place on my private jet. Signs that loyalty could be fraying under economic strain. For more on that, we turn to Jason J. Smart. He's a Keev-based national security strategist and correspondent for the Keev Post. You can find his work on YouTube at Jason J. Smart.

Jason, welcome back to the show. It's great to see, Mike. All right, let's start with a fairly broad question, and you can run this anywhere you want to. How much damage has Ukraine done to refining capacity for Russia? Pretty substantial. At this point, it's about 58 different facilities have been struck. It's about 40% of the oil refining capacity of Russia that's been destroyed.

Overall, Russia today is having shortages of gasoline and diesel throughout the entire country, most especially in the western parts and especially in the occupied territories such as Korea. So today, Russia is in pretty bad shape. It is a country that is only known for exporting oil, but today it is not a country that even has sufficient gasoline for its own population. 40% is significant, right? What is that doing more broadly to the Russian economy at the present time? Well, the Russian economy is in pretty dire stakes.

I mean, today, the Russian economy is in a situation where that faces high inflation. It faces a central bank that's under control of the Kremlin, so it's not operating independently. So it's not making fiscally wise decisions for the future debt ownership of the state. But also, we look at the banking sector. The banking sector is really low on liquidity. Common citizens are unable to take out the cash they have in banks. And these are all indicative of the fact that there is some serious problems. About 48% of 50% of Russians that are currently employed are looking for a second job.

These are jobs does not cover their basic cost. So when you have about half the population looking for a second job, that's usually pretty bad. At what point, I had this is pure speculation, but what point does all that equate to, yeah, the citizen saying enough is enough, let's get Putin out of here. Well, they didn't have protests two days ago in St. Petersburg, which is very unusual. There is, if I better call them, a group of young people, a very large group, hundreds of people singing anti-war songs and anti-government songs, and also playing the song from Swan Lake, Lake, as you recall the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 during the coup. Swan Lake was paid on

national television across all of the Soviet Union. And the fact that that's coming back up as being a cultural reference is probably a good sign for the Kremlin. Okay. Now, have you heard anything about Putin's attitude, treatment, actions against the oligarchs? So there have been some recent arrest of the oligarchs. There's also been the seizure of their assets. it's usually perceived to be more about the FSB, which is the security service of Russia, try to consolidate the amount of assets that there are in the country. There's not a lot of money going around these days. So you've got to get money where they can.

So try to squeeze the liquidity out of those oligarchs who are still left to remain standing. Well, am I wrong in saying, look, an important part of Putin's power base has been the oligarchs, his ability to keep them on side in part by letting them do well. Sure, absolutely. So the oligarchs, I would always argue that Vladimir Putin ultimately was somebody who was sort of like a cornerstone that kept the oligarchal base happy. He was the one who kept it all together. And today, though,

as time passes, he has become more of a keystone. It all depends on him. And today, that keystone is becoming rubbed away, and those oligarchs are getting closer and closer to clash. And we see that the FSB is taking sides, especially against oligarchs or closer than the military. There's been

17 Russian generals arrested in the past three years. Fifteen of those generals are those who come from the background of logistics or from acquisitions. why those are important or those are the ones that deal with finance. Now, in me, given military, that's probably what, I don't know, 25, 30 percent of the military is someone that works in logistics. But the fact of Russia, the fact of 15 as 17 of those arrested,

are those that coming from the background? There's also a sign that the FSB is trying to milk as much money of them as they can. Okay. Yeah. And to what degree have you heard about over the past, let's say, again, three to half years, three years, concerns over corruption within the military, contracts, etc. Well, corruption is a significant problem in Russia, but that's the whole joke about it, though, is that everybody in the FSB understands that you do not make general in the Russian military

unless you're gauging corruption. You're not going to be promoted. Because, I mean, truthfully, your senior officer is not going to sign off and be promoted unless you help him cover up the corruption. The reason you got the promotion is because you're helping him in the business. Why does he need you if you're not going to help in the business? Or are you going to report on him? You're going to squeal on him? Why would he possibly want to recommend you?

And so when you're choosing who goes up the ranks below you, you, you're going to be going to below you, it's also people who helped you engage in corruption. So they all understand that everybody's engaged in corruption. The only question at this point is, why are they going after the people that they are? If they have information about everybody, why are they selectively choosing who is prosecuted? But most importantly, it's probably the general who just got arrested who was in charge of promotions. Why the general is so important is that he would be the one that has all the compromising material about everybody else and what they did or paid in order to get promoted, to get the assignments that they wanted the military. He would have to have

his little black ledger of exactly who it was that was engaged in corruption with him. So the fact that it went for him is something that sort of shows that the FSB now has quite a significant amount of compromising material about other military officers. To what degree had they been successful at, it's going to sound strange, but at hiding the war from the urban centers. I'm thinking in particular to St. Peter, Moscow, etc., But, and by that, I mean, you know, to what degree of the problems, the fuel shortages and other issues, been pushed out to the outer regions in an effort to keep the main population centers happy? Well, it's reached the main centers as well. The fuel allergies are not just limited to the regions. It's also reached the major cities.

That being said, I mean, gasoline prices have increased about 50% in the past three or four months. There's some significant problems. Now, within Russia itself, historically the weakest base for Vladimir Putin was Moscow, followed by St. Petersburg. That is his weakest support area. Why is that, you know? Urban elites, liberal, higher education level, more well-traveled, more international. They have a greater grasp of what's going on outside the country. People that live in the regions tend to be poor.

The average of Russia makes about $900 a month. Pensions or a few hundred. Those people are not, you know, they don't have, you know, smartphones. They're not scrolling on the internet. They're watching state television so that people out of the regions just receive propaganda, and believe it. But they're also the ones that are the least important ones in the society. They lack agency totally.

Whereas the ones in the capital, one have capital, but secondly, they have social capital and the ability to create change or affect change. And so the fact that they understand what's going on and they're not happy with it is not very good for the regime. So where does that go? Again, I know that's speculation, but, you know, I thrive on special. speculative questions. Where does that go if you follow it in its logical conclusion? You know, ultimately, I don't think there'll be a red revolution in Russia where the people

rise up against the regime. However, if we look at the history of when coups occur in countries just universally, Russia included, is that if you're about to overthrow a government violently, the one of the things that you look for is to see is there going to be a counter-revolution. The most dangerous part of any sort of coup is that somebody says, well, who chose you to be the new boss, waiting for you. And so to make sure that to prevent that from happening, you have to see the population is generally aligned with what you're trying to do. Now, remember the Prigosian rolled up towards Moscow with the leader of the Wagner group two years ago. We saw that the people came to his car and they brought him food, they brought him wine. The military leaders in Russia and

Rostov came to meet with him. The generals sat there and drank coffee with him in the street smoke cigarettes. They were not running away. They were a little bit nervous that he might actually take power. So the fact that Russian people didn't resist him, the fact that the Russian military leadership didn't resist them, the fact that the leadership of Russia, whether it's Dmitri Medvedev, the former president, Kareel, the head of the Orthodox Church, they all disappeared. Nobody stuck up for Putin, which is probably a good sign that if push comes to shove, people are willing to take a step over Putin and keep going onwards. What would cause that shove? I mean, again, you're talking about fuel shortages, you're talking about a variety of problems within the economy,

a kind of a war weariness, massive casualties over the past three to half years. But, you know, if none of that has had any impact and Putin still got his grip on power, what would be that shove that's required? I think that ultimately it's going to be less ideological, more just rational. I mean, I think game theory would indicate that we can all understand of Vladimir Putin turned 73 this past week. He is eventually going to expire. It's a matter of when. but you realize the other oligarchs there is this friction. They're not going to long anymore. And you realize when some other oligarchal faction takes power in Russia,

they're definitely going to have to kill you and your family and take all your assets. So if you recognize that days eventually going to come, it's sort of about a wise just to wait for them to die naturally. The smarter thing is to just seize power because you realize you're getting ahead of an eventuality. To just allow the chance or to allow the circumstance to control the situation is probably the least strategically wise thing you can do. The wisest he can do is always control the situation.

wishing they're in. Yeah, yeah, I take your point. Jason, listen, being mindful of your time, if you could stay right there, we're going to have to take a quick break. And we're going to be back with Jason Jay Smart. He's in Kiev, by the way. So if you'll stick around, we'll be right back with more from the Situation Report. Hey, Mike Baker here. Now, I'm sure you've heard that the Fed has finally dropped interest rates, right? And that's great news for American homeowners. Like, expenses have been a major burden on families, obviously. Wages are flat. Prices keep climbing, and for many, the only way to make ends meet is spent to lean on credit cards. But that cycle of high interest debt makes it hard to stay ahead. So if you're a homeowner, I want you to call

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It's next today. Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. And joining me once again, it's Jason J. Smart. You can find his work on YouTube at Jason J. Smart. He comes to us from Keeve. Jason, thanks very much for sticking around. Let's talk about something that made the headlines in a big way over the past week, and that would be the potential for the U.S. to provide tomahawk missiles to Keeve.

What do you make of that? Well, that looked like it was pretty set to go up until I saw just in the past hour that Donald Trump now is seemingly reneging on that and believes that perhaps the US doesn't have enough Toml-Malcock missiles for everybody and so perhaps we'll not be doing that any longer. Yeah, and he's now making noises about meeting in Budapest in the coming weeks with Putin to talk about possible peace. Yeah, do you think that's likely to go anywhere or is this just Putin being Putin and stringing it along? Well, it's Putin being Putin.

is that the Russians have no respect for him. Even if you hear the way that they speak about him, it's with such a low regard. It's so obvious that they have this sort of mocking attitude towards him, which is, once again, surprising to me is that we do have the entire U.S. government, are what is it, 16 intelligence agencies and state department who are all informing him. They read the Russian news. It's not a secret that the Russians despise him and they think he's an idiot. And why he would continue to think that it's something where they keep tapping them along, I have no idea. I really have no justification. I mean, the Russians are quite explicit about what they believe. This is not a secret. I'm not a liberal. I just read the Russian news. It's quite

obvious. They think he's a moron. Yeah. Yeah. No, and one thing about Putin is I've never looked at him as a cat that's hard to read, right? I mean, he's been pretty clear in the past about what he believes, what he wants, what he thinks. And so, I mean, I agree with you. I've been confused in the way that President Trump has dealt with Putin. And sort of this, what seems to be a very deep well of patience to try to find, and who knows, maybe down the road, maybe, you know, what he's doing is, you know, four-dimensional chess and he's, you know, he's going to eventually find an off-ramp that Putin wants to take and that will be acceptable, but I'm a cynic.

So I don't know if that's going to happen. Well, I see no reason to believe it's going to happen. At this point, it's very clear that the Russians are taking advantage of the situation. They think that the United States as a whole is a country that's moving closer, it's decaying greater, I should say, or faster than it had been before. They think that Donald Trump is, yeah, and once again, I don't think that he's pro-Russian. I think that the Russians do perceive him, though, to be just for their own purposes, somebody's convenient because he's very easy to trick.

They think he's just not very clever. I mean, they just frankly think he's dumb. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think I agree with it. Look, he's not, you know, this narrative that the left or, you know, however you want to refer to that, sort of the progressive media, the narrative that he's, you know, Putin's puppet in which, you know, they slung around there for several years.

And I don't buy that. I just think that he's a very transactional individual, meaning President Trump. And he's always imagining that he can find a deal. but I don't know that he's ever dealt with an individual like Putin before. I don't think that Putin sees anything to gain in this. I think that he sees everything in the gain quite the opposite. I think that he believes that Donald Trump is desperate to get a Nobel Peace Prize.

He believes that he's desperate to achieve these personal goals of his own. And they believe that if they tap him along, he'll go with it. Because they don't think that he ultimately gives a damn one way or another what happens to Europe or to what happens to Ukraine for that matter. And so they believe that if they just try to help him along, he'll go with it. him long, he'll go with it. And if you look at just the comments they made publicly, and once again, I said, watch Russian TV. This is seven days a week. There's no secret what they think. This is not the conspiracy. This is seven days a week. They think he is a moron. It is that simple.

Yeah, what was your thought on the Tomahawks? I mean, did you think that that was a solid idea? I don't want to shut the door on that yet. Who knows where it's going to go? And if he is strung along, then perhaps we're revisiting this issue later on. But at the point where it looks, like it was going to be a done deal. What was your perspective on it? Well, of course, it's a positive. I mean, they are weapons that are typically fired from a water base. They're fired from ships. That being said, there are other ways to get them off, but I think it was more interesting was the intelligence sharing that was probably going to go along with that. You know, Ukrainian drones could physically go further than most Tomahawks.

That being said, Tomahawks came out, what is it, 1982, and they're better than anything the Russians have ever had or ever will have. So they are an oppressive piece of weaponry. they would have been very helpful. Ukraine is going after things such as the refineries, but also the factories that produce the chemicals that are needed for those refineries. There's a lot of single-source refineries in the former Soviet states because they'd ever thought there'd be independent countries. So by going after these refineries and going after the factories that produced the chemicals for them,

it was something that could be a game changer. I mean, it really is within the U.S. president's choice. I mean, with the signing of a document, He can make sure that we would destroy such factories and Russia's ability to produce future oil in the country would collapse. Russia's economy would go totally into freefall. And it would be a matter of hours. It would be very fast.

It would not take a long of time. Russia as our enemy, which we spent tens of billions of dollars across the Cold War, would be defeated. But for some reason, we've decided not to do that. We've decided instead that Butterpoint wants to make a deal. And, okay, so is that more... because of sort of the nature of Trump's thinking, or do you think it's fear of escalation? What do you think drives that?

Well, it's two different ideologies that argue. I think in the case of Biden, it was fear of escalation, total weakness, total lack of appreciation for American strength. Jake Sullivan was probably the worst we could possibly have running national security, a person who is just scared of his own shadow. But on the other screen, you have somebody who just does not recognize. Vladimir Putin no point said he wanted a peace deal. At no point did he say, Donald Trump, please come negotiate for us. I don't know why the U.S. President believes that anybody has asked

him. The Ukrainians have it, the Russians haven't, but he has taken it upon himself to go in and negotiate something that the Russians have said, this idiot is over here, fishing waters that are on his own and sticking his nose as business does belong, and he's going to end up screwing the Ukrainians and doesn't even realize it. They're laughing at him. They're laughing at Americans. Yeah. Now, I'm glad to mention Jake Sullivan. I agree with your assessment. on Sullivan. And one of the things I found entertaining, and this is completely off topic. But over the past week, it's clear that the Democratic strategist brain trust put out a memo saying, okay, here's how we have to negate Trump's success over the Hamas ceasefire. And so they put out a

memo saying, talk about how he's just following Biden's blueprint. And so Sullivan, and Sullivan, to be fair, other toadies that era came out and said, well, we left the exact blueprint on Trump's desk, so he's just following it. So, but I do love, I do love references to Jake Sullivan for some reason. Look, if the economic pressures kept on Russia and the Ukrainians continue to target their energy infrastructure, And Putin continues to be basically isolated in key parts of the world stage. Is that enough to get a successful resolution? Or does Ukraine need to mount a very serious counteroffensive in order to drive them out? And is that even possible out of eastern Ukraine?

Well, it is possible. It's a matter of, though, a lot of different things happening. at the same time, one of which is that I think the rapid decline of the Russian economy would be something that would be quite useful to making that a realistic outcome. Right now, the Russians are suffering massive losses. They're losing more than 1,200 men a day. Just in the summer offensive, they lost over 200,000 men that were casualties, and they gained less than 1% of the territory of Ukraine. Since 2022, they've gained less than 3% of the territory of Ukraine I've had 1,200,000 casualties, 1,200,000.

That's simply incredible. What's an incredible casualty count that you've seen for Ukraine? Realistically, and by way, and I would have assumed that it was just nonsense, but realistically, it probably is about a fifth of that, it's a quarter of that. And the reason that it's true, and at first you say it's not possible, it's such a big difference, but it is. When you just watch the videos day after day, and I follow Russian news again, and I follow the Russian telegram channels, you don't see the videos like you do on the Russian side. I mean, they agree

that the Russians send all these guys in with crutches to go assault positions with no weapons. It's really just insane. I mean, there's, you'll see that every day they lead the assaults down the same paths. There's dozens upon dozens of bodies just laying in the left, laying on the right. Guys are sitting in motorcycles, guys are sitting on golf carts. And they just get blood up pretty quick. And the Russians, and their officers see this. They're watching from a distance. And they send the same guys the next day, the same group, another group down the same path, another group down the same path day after day after day. And the only conclusion is that simply the officers are not rewarded for doing anything that's useful.

They're rewarded for you followed the order. Today, you made three attempts to assault. And if you lost three times, that's okay. You made the attempt. It's so, it's so World War I like. It's a very definition of insanity. Jason, look, I've got a bunch more questions for you. but I want to be mindful of your time, and I really appreciate you.

I know it's late there where you are in Kiev, but I do hope you'll come on back because the cynic in me tells me we'll be talking about this for some time. Thanks. Great talking with you, Mike. All right. It's Jason Jay Smart. You can find him on YouTube at Jason Jay Smart. I suggest you go there.

He's got that place wire. He's been covering it for quite some time. All right. Coming up next, China's military. military is tightening the news around Taiwan, with new drills and gray zone tactics raising fears of an invasion. Former CIA analyst Buck Sexton just got back in Taiwan. He'll join us to share what he saw on the ground and now the island is preparing to fight back. Stay with us. Now, Mike Baker here. Now, I'm the host of the PDB, as you know, but did you also know that

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Taiwan's defense ministry is warning that China has intensified its military posture in recent weeks, engaging in so-called gray zone operations designed to wear Taiwan down without triggering an outright war. Chinese aircraft are crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait almost daily and new satellite images show amphibious landing drills ramping up along China's coast. All of that could be a clue. It all points to a sobering reality. Beijing appears to be rehearsing for a blockade or even an invasion. Our next guest just returned from Taiwan, where he met with the president, the vice president, and top national security officials. He was very busy. He toured drone factories, saw the country's defenses for hand and says Taiwan is racing the clock to prepare.

Joining me now is Buck Sexton, former CIA analyst and co-host of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show. But thanks very much for taking the time to be here on the Situation Report, man. Hey, thank you so much for having me. I feel like we're just about to start plotting to overthrow a small but relatively significant third world country between the two of us. This is great. Really? Does it sound like Schwentemeylon or anything like that? No. Something could be going on somewhere. I'm hearing some stories about some of our former colleagues.

Well, let's not let's not let all the cats out of the bag. Hey, first question, I know I want to be mindful of your time. But first question, how come you let Clay Travis have the first name in your show? Oh, that's easy. He's older. Way old. You know, age before beauty is how that goes. That's actually a good point.

So you're saying he's a bit infirmed as way. you're saying. I mean, I'm not, he's not, he's not Biden level. I mean, but if you saw that golf swing that he put out there, I mean, it's even worse than my tennis serbs. So, who knows? Wow. And that's, yeah, that's not something to watch. Listen, I, all right, fine. I didn't bring you on to talk about that, although I think the audience will find it very interesting. You just got back from Taiwan. Tell me what you learned. I was fascinating. I mean, we sat down with the president, the vice president, national security advisor. I mean, a whole range. of the people that are making the decisions there. And look, China is definitely preparing for an

invasion. Whether they pull the trigger on it or not is the multi-trillion dollar question. But there's no other possible military explanation for the massive buildup that they're doing. And the buildup has been accelerating in recent years, as has the frostiness of China-Taiwan relation. they've essentially cut off travel and cut off trade between Taiwan of the mainland that CCP has. And so there's really no conversation between these two states. Obviously, China says this is an internal matter. There is no country that we should be having a conversation with that is known as Taiwan.

But I think there's very real, very elevated concern now. And because of a few things we can get into, I understand right now there's a big, well, is it America first to get involved in someone else's world? war. In this case, it's, it's, we don't want there to be a war. In this case, it's, if we allow the Taiwanese, if we give the Taiwanese the defensive capability to prevent a war, that's better for absolutely everybody. And I think that if we were to allow China to take Taiwan, it would cause enormous problems for America, even if we totally sat back and let the whole thing happen. Yeah. Yeah. So, what does that look like if we give them the ability to defend themselves? What

we talking about? Well, there's a whole range of what I think you could consider asymmetric force multipliers. When I was in country, Mike's couple weeks ago, there was, we toured a drone, actually a drone factory, and then also a boat drone factory. So there's like sky drones. We saw those being made. And then I also saw a boat maker that was creating or effectively. autonomous speedboats packed with explosives that can be controlled simultaneously multiple speedboats by one control panel essentially. So it's like a speedboat explosive speedboat AI-enabled swarm. And you can imagine for amphibious landing purposes for the Chinese, this is the kind of thing that can make life more difficult. Now, they obviously have countermeasures. They've got all kinds of, you know,

ship-mounted machine guns and other things that would try to deal with that. But the weapon systems that they need to have are going to be the kind of things that rely on being smarter and being, like I said, asymmetric than what the Chinese are able to throw at it. Because in pure resource terminology, in pure resources, you got a billion people with more ships than we have. It's a big problem for the 23 million men, Taiwanese islands to figure out how they're going to do this, they just have to raise that cost high enough. It's a bit, well, it's not a perfect example, but it's not unlike what Russia and Ukraine, you know, are staring at, right? I mean, you've got a significant manpower advantage for Russia. And since I'm

talking about those two right now, there's evidence that China, the PLA has had observers on the ground in Ukraine for some time, right? And they've been observing and learning from what's happening. in particular, I think sort of the advancement of drawn capabilities has been a big issue for them. Any indications that you saw that the Taiwanese are taking advantage of Ukraine's experience and working with them in any way in terms of their drawn capabilities? I asked them specifically about that. We're big idea guys is what we are. It's what we call tradecraft, Mr. Baker, tradecraft.

So, you know, the answer to the question is both, is, is a yes and no. I'll start with the, well, actually, let me start with the no side of it. They view it as a very different battle space, which of course it is, right? When you're talking about Taiwan, it's defense of an island that's almost 100 miles from the mainland. So the amphibious slash naval component and aerial component is really the ballgame, right? I mean, if you're trying to stop massive or mass Chinese divisions once they have a beachhead, and that's pretty much going to be game over. So you really have to have to view it as a naval and aerial situation, first and foremost, different than Ukraine, which is turned into trench warfare.

However, to your question, what they are seeing and where they do take a lot of lessons learned is it's about both technology and manufacturing capacity. So you've got to be able to make this stuff that can either take out the other guy's stuff or his, you know, or obviously his anti-personnel take out his troops. But you need to make them at scale. So what they're seeing in Ukraine is it's not just I have the newest version, the newest iteration of whatever this drone is that has anti-jamming capability, that has the speed and quiet needed. I mean, all these different things are being changed month to month, right? They're really moving very fast on the technological capacity of these things.

But then it's, well, can you make a thousand of them? Because if you can only make one or two of them, that obviously doesn't have the same So that's where the Taiwanese are looking at this, and obviously everything they're doing is purely all their military capacities inherently defensive. Like they're not invading anyone, certainly not the Chinese mainland. But they realize it's can we make this stuff better than our opponent? And can we make it at scale? Because even if you have better gizmos, better drones, better air defense tech, whatever it may be, if they can just overwhelm via swarms and is what the Russians have been. doing the Ukrainians, they're going to get through your air defenses, right? So that's, if those two

pieces together that they've seen in Ukraine are so essential that the Taiwanese are definitely paying very close attention to. Do you think that there's any chance that Xi Jinping is just using this threat of an invasion of Taiwan in whatever form it takes for leverage in other areas? Or, I mean, I realize I take your point from the beginning, which is what would be the other any other reason for this massive buildup. But, you know, do you think that there is a chance that perhaps they're bluffing? I guess is the word I'm looking for. I certainly hope so. This is where you start to look at, I mean, it's funny because I have, I had somebody come up to recently that says, you know, I teach at the Naval Warfare College and amphibious landing. There's no

chance the Chinese would ever do this. Okay, well, if you talk to people all the time with these national security side, yeah, just because of the difficulties, first of all, China's never bought a modern war. It's interesting when you think about it that way. I mean, there was obviously Chenkai Shecht and Mao in World War II and fighting against the Japanese invasion, but they haven't fought a post-World War II battle really at all, you know, some little skirmish stuff here and there. They fought in Vietnam, but I mean, nothing meaningful as a first world power, right? So their ability to do this stuff is a pretty big question mark in the first place to execute on this stuff.

It's one thing to have the tech and the soldiers, but can you actually get it done? But it's funny because on the other side of it, people are, you'll talk to people with Taiwan who are saying, look, they just view this as a necessary part of the CCP's really origin story and therefore future, right? that this is a, that the one China policy is a central promise of the communists in China. And for them to pass, to go beyond the one island, the first island chain, rather, this is an absolutely necessary step. And if they want to be able to go up against us as the other power across the Pacific for really global hegemony, this is, this has to happen, right? There's no way they can be hemmed in by

Taiwan and these other nations. So, you know, again, it's the multi-trillion dollar question. Do I think they believe they have more leverage in negotiations with us over the Taiwan issue, maybe. I know the Taiwanese are concerned that China is going to try to run Trump through all these circles on trade, cheat on trade, and then leave Taiwan high and dry. I don't see that happening, but we're watching it in real time. I mean, this is going to be happening in the weeks and months right ahead of us. Right. No, I think you're right. I think the timeline, is constricted. Okay, Buck, if you can stay right where you are, right, unless you have to go, you know, change a diaper or the baby.

But stay right where you are. We'll be right back with more from the esteemed Buck Sexton. And here are the Situation Report. Stick around. This podcast is brought to you in part by Stash. Now, what if you could start investing without ever picking a single stock? That sounds intriguing. With Stash, the experts handle the hard part for you.

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Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Joining us once again, the famous, infamous, let's go with both. Buck Sexton from the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show. Buck, thanks for sticking around. Let me ask you this. You were just there in Taiwan. What, from your perspective, what's the expectation from Taiwan, from Taiwan as far as U.S. involvement or engagement in the event of an invasion from

Xi Jinping? Well, I think that there's the first order of business for them, which is that they really want to have the, and this came across in my interview with President Lai, that they just want to have the defensive capability to prevent all of this from happening. And the U.S. has a role to play in that in selling them a lot of, they're not looking for any. freebies. They have obviously a very important economic component of this as well. And it's also why they can buy these things, right? They're manufacturing, their tech sector is the global leaders in pretty much the most important thing in technology right now, which is microchip processing, microchip manufacturing. And they're 90% of the top end microchips, 50% of all global semiconductors

are microchips. So they can pay for this stuff, Mike, and they want to buy it. They are finding that there are delays in getting it because in part our manufacturing capacity for being able to make things that go boom is strained right now because of Ukraine, because we've been supplying so much to the Ukrainian front. You know, we're not at war, so we haven't maxed out our capacity like in a World War II all of the above setting. And so we're already churning out. Now, some of this is going to be transferred, I think, to our European partners and certainly the monetary component that might be more on their shoulders. That's part of what Trump has accomplished. But they want more stuff and they want it faster. That's their main thing. They want to be able

to buy more American, you know, advanced missiles. I mean, they were talking to me about all kinds of stuff. They, you know, they want F-6. People say, why do they want F-6C? The Chinese will shoot them out of the sky right away during a war. Well, they want to be able to patrol their own skies and deal with these gray zone incursions in the meantime. And they say, oh, well, why can't they make their own, you know, drone boats or whatever? They are. they just can't make enough because China's obviously enormous and turning these things out at incredible capacity. So that's really what they want. I mean, if you're asking, would the U.S. come in if there was this invasion as the cavalry over the hill, or in this case, over the horizon,

you know, with our submarines and naval capacity? They certainly hope so. And if we do the Japanese, it's believed would as well. And that would be enough to probably halt this thing and it tracks with China. But that's also a pretty big freaking deal. and I understand that. So, again, what is it, what is the, what is the, what is the, what is the, that our parents used to say, an ounce of prevention, pound of cure, you know, that whole thing? Preventioning. But again, I would, I would think that, you know, I'm sorry for interrupting, but I mean, if you

think about this, you know, how much can you build up their defensive capabilities, right? Without, I mean, if you don't have a compact, if you don't have a treaty that says, in the event X, we will, Japan will, others will come in and defend you. If you don't have that, if you take that off the table, then basically what you're saying is, you know, give them all the defensive capabilities you can, hope that that's a deterrent for China not to move on Taiwan. But I guess me being a cynic, if I was Xi Jinping, I would be watching the past three and a half years in Ukraine and thinking to myself, okay, yeah, they're providing hardware. are they going to do that? But do I really believe they're going to get engaged in a in,

in combat over Taiwan? So what you're actually putting your finger on, Mike, is the U.S. policy, which is called strategic ambiguity, right? So yeah, the, the back and forth that you and I are having on this of like, well, would we, wouldn't we? That is the policy. The policy is, maybe we would, maybe we wouldn't. That is our actual U.S. government approach to a defense of Taiwan, we leave it as we're not saying we won't, we're not saying we will, we may be. And that is also going into, I don't know, it seems like how could that be, but that is in fact the longstanding. There was the Taiwan Defense Pact, but then, you know, we moved away from that. Congress passed that, I think back in like the 70s, the 80s, I can't remember now. But we've, we've since gone away

from that pact. And now we have the strategic ambiguity issue. Look at all, it depends on a lot of things. How fast can shot? I think that the concern, by the way, the number one TV show in Taiwan right now is a TV show about a journey? Let me guess. Let me guess. Is it South Park? No, but that would be amazing. That won't be always. That's it. Yeah. You know, it's a TV show about the invasion, about a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. So just to give you a sense of like how much this is on their minds, there's a show called Zero Day and it is about the days before the Chinese invasion hits and it's a drama and it's, you know, it's like a top TV show. I actually watch some episodes of it because we had it, you know, obviously dubbed over. But yeah, I think that, I think

that it's going to be very interesting to see what the Trump trade policy with China ends up looking like because that's also going to either weaken or strengthen, I think she at home. But you've got some big challenges like the demographic reality in China, Mike. You got millions and millions of men because the one child policy with no realistic demographic hope of getting married or a better economic future, you got a country that has a lot that has stalled out economically internally, that's getting called out, all the cheating practices on trade. What does a country like that do? Sometimes it does aggressive bad things. So there's just a precedent to be really concerned about this. But again, I hope that this is like the thing that we keep talking about and

then never happens, and then people wonder why we talked about it so much. But increasingly, I think the data is looking more like, you know, we talked about the Iran thing forever. And then we actually just, well, the Israelis and us just blew their stuff up. Yeah. Well, I think, yeah, you look at the previous timelines. We go back, not very far back, and look at what people were imagining in Washington, D.C., about, okay, when would China make a move on on Taiwan? It was quite a ways down the road. It was a long timeline. And now that is, and now that is, has shrunk. And, you know, personally, I, you know, again, I'm not a betting man, but if I had to, you know, I'd say it would be before Xi Jinping rides off into the sunset. So part of this can be

based on what is his health like, what's his grip on power like. But, okay, so let's, can I just, just, I think it's important, Mike, because you led to this, I mean, look at what Putin did with Ukraine. I mean, was it really, he already had Crimea, he'd already sort of established this de facto control in the East, he had to go for the whole thing. He wanted to take Kiev, as we know. He was going for the whole old King Caboodle, right? Yeah. Why was he doing that?

Well, it was because of narrative. It was because of broad national security perception from the Kremlin that we don't necessarily share at all here, but it moved them, and they've lost hundreds of thousands of casualties in this war already. For anyone who's like, America first, I don't care about Taiwan. China seizes the capability that Taiwan has to make these sense. semiconductors, they are the leader in AI, they're the leader in technology, and they can choke off our tech economy overnight. That's a big problem. Yeah, we already saw that with sort of the

rare earth's minerals, you know, exports, slack that was hurt around the world. So, yeah, I am always fascinated by that, and I get this a lot from people who basically espousing an isolationist point of view, a lot of them being libertarians. And I got a lot of time, a lot of respect for a lot of the ideas that libertarians have. But I'm, you know, at the end of the end of the end of of the day, I'm always thinking, I could never be one because I don't think that we exist in a bubble, right? The world is shrunk to the point where we're all in your connected. And just because we want to pretend like we're protected by water and friendly neighbors, that somehow something bad happens, it's not going to impact us from overseas. And so I take your point there. Listen, I got a bunch of

questions, but what we don't have is a bunch more time. Buck, I hope you'll come on back. Edison Buck, thanks so much. The Clay Travis and Buck, Sexton show. If you're not already a regular viewer, you should be. Well, that is all the time, unfortunately, that we have for this episode of the PDB situation report. I know. Sad trombone. We've got to get that sound effect somewhere. If you have any questions or comments or humorous anecdotes, please reach out to me at PDB at thefirsttv.com. You know what we do? We take your best questions and comments, and once a month, we put them all together in a much, much loved, highly acclaimed episode called Ask Me Anything.

So keep your cards and letters coming, please. We do really enjoy hearing from you. To listen to the podcast, add free, you can do that, you can do it very simply, and just become a premium member of the president's daily brief by visiting PDB Premium.com. I'm Mike Baker. Until next time, you know the drill. Stay informed. Stay safe.

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