The President's Daily Brief - PDB Situation Report | September 21: Inside Israel’s “Beeper Bomb” Operation & Another Trump Assassination Attempt

Episode Date: September 21, 2024

In this episode of The PDB Situation Report: We kick off with one of the most shocking covert operations in recent times: thousands of communication devices exploded across Lebanon, killing and injuring scores of Hezbollah terrorists. We’ll be joined by Kervin Aucoin, founder of Aucoin Analytics and host of This Week Explained, to help break it all down. Later in the show, we dive into the latest assassination attempt on former President Trump and the increased scrutiny on the Secret Service with insights from Michael Matranga, former Secret Service agent and CEO of M6 Global. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. Email: [e-mail]. ☕ Blackout Coffee: https://www.blackoutcoffee.com/PDB 🏅 Patriot Gold: Call 1-888-870-5457 for a free investor guide. 💵 Tax Network USA: To schedule a complimentary consultation, call 1(800)958-1000 or visit https://TNUSA.com/MIKE 🕶️ MySudo: Go to https://MySudo.com/MIKEBAKER & use code 'MIKEBAKER' to get 30 days free on a SudoPro yearly subscription   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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All right, let's get brief. We're kicking off today's show with a look at one of the most shocking and complex covert operations in recent times. This week, thousands of communication devices exploded across Lebanon, killing and injuring scores of Hezbollah terrorists. Now, to help break it all down, we'll be speaking with Kervin-O-Quin, founder of the private intelligence company, O'Quinn Analytics, and host of This Week Explained. If you haven't caught this week explained before, tune in.

I guarantee you'll like it. Later in the show, we'll break down the latest assassination attempt on former President Trump and the increased scrutiny on the Secret Service with our friend Michael Matranga, former Secret Service agent and CEO of M6 Global. But first, our Situation Report's spotlight. Chesbullah was blindsided this week. That's putting it mildly. by a devastating series of explosions that tore through their ranks

as thousands of pagers and handheld radios, otherwise known as walkie talkies, detonated in a coordinated and deadly attack. It all started on Tuesday when thousands of pagers used by members of the terror group exploded almost simultaneously in parts of Lebanon and Syria. Now the coordinated attack left at least 12 people dead and wounded thousands more.

The following day, a second wave of destruction struck the group, This time, their handheld radio. The walkie-talkies began detonating. According to Lebanon's health ministry, at least 25 people were killed and over 600 were wounded in this second round of explosions. Now, Israeli officials have not commented on the blast, and the exact method used to carry out the attack remains unclear. However, a senior Lebanese security source provided some insight.

They indicated that a small amount of explosives had been planted inside a batch of 5,000 pagers that Hezbollah had ordered for its members. The New York Times reported that the pagers received a message at 3.30 p.m. local time, which appeared to come from Hezbollah's leadership. It's believed this message triggered the hidden explosives. Details about Wednesday's walkie-talkie explosions while they remain sparse. But a security source told Reuters that the devices had been purchased around the same time as the pagers, about five months.

months ago. As the details behind this unprecedented attack continue to unfold, well, we're left with a lot of questions about the methods and implications of such a sophisticated operation. To help break it all down, very pleased to be joined by Kervin O'Quinn, founder of the private intelligence company, O'Quinn Analytics, and host of the podcast This Week Explain. Curvin, thanks very much for joining the PDB Situation Report. Mike, thank you so much for having me. Sure. And thank you for wearing a sport coat and kind of, you know, making the effort, right? I mean, I think it's very impressive. It's a whole suit.

That's a whole suit? I should ask you to stand up. You've got trousers that match that jacket? Okay. All right, fine. But I appreciate you. It's a sophisticated look for the PDB that we're not really used to here. Anyway, let's get started. Let's go with the opening question. Break this down. what happened? Oh, that's a loaded question, Mike. So let's start from from the very beginning when this happened. So, you know, in the intelligence community, you obviously know, we work on various methods. So there's no known unknowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. And so I'm going to start with the known known knowns. What do we know? We know that pagers and walkie-talkies that were procured by Hezbollah were in fact detonated by an unknown entity. That's what we know because Israel has not

commented on it and they've not expressed their, they're not like a terrorist organization that comes out and says, we did this. So we know that. We know that these detonated, that they killed various individuals. We also know this was highly targeted. This was only devices that were procured by Hezbollah, they were then distributed from Hezbollah leadership to other members of Hezbollah, and then those were detonated at the time that they were detonated. So those are our known knowns. Now, our known unknowns is that this is most likely a Mossad or a Unit 8200, likely Mossad and Unit 8200 within the Israeli intelligence operation, that as that were tipped off that Pesbila was going away from using cell phones to using less sophisticated items like

pagers and walkie-talkies, which are more one-way communication devices. Now, it's no surprise to your audience that the U.S. intelligence community and most all intelligence communities understand that cell phones can be tracked. They, the communication devices, and so the communications in those devices, talking, text messages, they can be taken by intelligence agencies and then analyzed and disseminated in order to inflict damage on those terrorist organizations. That's no surprise to anybody. So what happened was, and this is a long-term, operation. And so there is a lot to unpack here. So about six months ago, it was brought up that the Hezbollah leader, Nasra had said, listen, get all the biggest impact to our organization is your

cell phone, your wife's cell phone, they're being tracked by the Israelis, throw them out. We're going to go to Pagers. Hesbala went to Pagers. They procured those. seemingly from a company in Taiwan. Now, Taiwan, that Taiwanese company has come out and said that they did not actually send those devices to Hezbollah. It was actually from a different organization out of Hungary, based out of Hungary. That's BAC consulting. And what it looks like here is that either Mossad or this Unit 8200 started a shell company.

what I like to consider what I like to say is a it's a drop shipping company I don't know if you know what a drop shipping company is it's gotten a lot of popularity since the since COVID basically what it does is you pay that company to procure the items they get the items they don't have to have a warehouse they don't have to have the actual equipment and then it gets shipped out to whoever's buying it so it looks to me from my analysis it's an intermediary yeah it's an intermediary yeah it's an media, correct. It looks like from my analysis, in 2022, this company started. And why I say it's a drop shipping company is if you look at it, follow the money. It runs the same line as a typical drop shipping company. It starts and it gains a lot of revenue very soon. So it was getting revenue in the first year of

$750,000 or more. It was in the millions by 2023. And it was actually the company that has Bala contacted or worked through to get these pages. And so from that point, if we, if we assume, so these are the known unknowns, if we assume that Massad or Unit 8200 was actually part, part of this company, they procured these items, had them, they, they put you, 55,000. Five, thousand pages, right? And they had their operatives put in certain explosives into these devices. Those devices were then also, it's not really hacked into from a signal's intelligence perspective, but they had sort of a triggering device that if the message is sent, much like an improvised explosive device that we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan while I was there,

if you trigger the remote device, then that then triggers all the other devices associated with it. That sent a message to those devices. Well, we know now it's an error message, and that is what caused these explosions. And so that's all that we know right now about all of this. But I have to tell you, in working in these kind of operations, and I try to catch myself sometimes when I talk to people about this, because I say I worked in similar operations to this, there's no similar operation to this, but there's no other way to describe this operation in comparison to other operations, unless you go back to Vietnam where, you know, U.S. Special Forces kind of

did the same exact thing to the Viet Cong, where it was a supply chain issue. They figured out the supply chain. They got it together, and they started inserting detonation devices into Viet Cong devices that would then explode. So that's about as close as we get to to this operation. Yeah, now, I'm a little bit bass-acquoise, but why don't you talk a little bit about your background? That will help as we go further into this,

that people understand what you did in the past before you got out and started the most excellent this week, explain. How many discounts does USA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount. Safe driver discount? New vehicle discount. Storage discount?

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Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak. And get your trip. Right. Kayak. Got that right. Well, first of all, I want to thank you very much for that. You know how much I respect you and I respect everything that you say. So yeah, so I was a, well, I started my military career as a geospatial intelligence analyst, then a human intelligence analyst. And that obviously led me to be a signals intelligence analyst. That's how my career path went. I was a cryptolinguist with Arabic as my language identifier. I then moved on. to the Joint Special Operations Command as the Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Operative,

which used a significant amount of signals intelligence information. Now, like I said, from the very beginning, I can't put any classified information out there, but it's not really classified that cell phones and those sort of devices, Wi-Fi routers, those are all devices that the United States can tap into from foreign, agencies, terrorist groups. And for a long time, we really tracked cell phones within Iraq and Afghanistan to infiltrate the enemy. That's what we saw with Israel, supposedly Israel, and what they did in this kind of attack. And it's fascinating because if you think, if you think about it, I'm sorry for interrupting you, but if you think about it, turning a device into an explosive device,

that part of it's not new, right? That has been done in the past, and there have been targeted assassinations, but very specific and individual. The scope of this is what is really surprising. And the operational lift involved, right, as you've already discussed, the idea that, and And we don't know. We're speculating, right? And that's just the way it's going to be, because we're not going to get the details of how this operation developed. That's not going to happen unless someone opens their yap that shouldn't, right?

And that would be a bad day. We shouldn't because those are the tactics technique and, you know, those are the TTPs. And those are classified TTPs. And I want to keep it that way. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, right. It's sources and methods. But if you imagine that, you imagine that Nasrallah or his minions, says, all right, we got to dumb things down, right? All right. Were they goaded into that?

I mean, you have to, again, the mind really goes into this and thinks, okay, how deep was this? Were they trying to get Nasrilla and his lieutenants to the point where they would dumb it down, where they would set down their cell phone, right? So were they setting the table for that, knowing that then their next step would be, you know, likely pagers, handhelds. And so once that happens, once that happens, the idea that they then had to figure out, okay, maybe they have assets already, right? And that's the, the, the, the, Hesbalah is facing a similar problem that the IRGC is facing after

Ishmael Hanya's, you know, assassination. You know, who is, who's bad within our rank, right? Which is one of the side effects could even be one of the objectives of operations like this is to create that mistrust, create that paranoia. but if you've got sources, if you don't have sources, then what do you do? Do you dangle an asset in front of them who has the ability to acquire the gear for them? I mean, this thing is a fascinating operational case study. But again, we're speculating because we're not going to know those details.

Now, have you seen, Curvin, have you seen any forensics that indicate what type of explosive material was used? Now, I mean, first of all, yeah, there's a lot of speculation on the, type of explosive that was used. I haven't seen the forensics. I know it was a small level, one to two ounces of explosives. Hespolaz put out anywhere from three to five ounces, but really we're talking about low, low level explosive. This is why early on, it was assumed at the outset of it, that the batteries within the pagers had been hacked, and that at a certain time when the remote, device had said to heat up, the battery would heat up and explode. And if you look at the video, look at the video for anyone that's saying that this is some indiscriminate attack, I have seen

videos of someone standing and there was someone standing next to that person. The device went off and the person standing next to them walked away from that attack. So this was very targeted. This is the most targeted attack I have ever seen in my career and I have been part of some very targeted attacks on individuals. I have honestly never seen anything of this level, anything of this capability. It's incredible. That's why we know now that it wasn't just some battery capability that exploded into it. It is a very low level. It's basically the same. I would say, so if you remember the shoe bomber from the early 2000s, it's the same sort of explosive device that was used in the shoe bomber because it is undetectable.

You can get through TSA security. In this case, it doesn't look like the device is tampered. And that's the reason why, allegedly, Israel used this. And I also want to go back to the start of this. And just talk about how frustrating it was for me when doing targeting and, you know, commanders within the command is heavy, heavy. on we want a digital targeting. We want to make sure that this person is who they are based off of their digital footprint.

And Hezbollah went away from it thinking that they were safe. Now, Hezbollah has to look. Not only. So there's secondary and tertiary effects. So the first effect of all of this is that Hezbollah operatives, leaders, operatives, also the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, they are all effectively. My God, it does make your question and say to yourself, why does the Iranian ambassador have a pager that was obtained and handed out by Hezbollah? Oh, well, I guess that was.

So my question is, why is Iran putting it out? It's a mystery. That's not why. I would not put that out there because, listen, all Hezbollah. So it's kind of like the Venn diagram of, you know, these are all pagers, this is all of Hezbollah. These are all pagers that exploded with Hezbollah. In the Venn diagram, you can see all pagers held by Hezbollah exploded. All members of Hezbollah had these pagers.

The Lebanese ambassador, the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon had a page. So that's a first area effect of it. The secondary effect of that is? You know, in Curvin, Kervin, I don't mean to interrupt. But first of all, what we call that in the investigative world is a clue. A clue. The clue, yes, that's what I'm... Holy God to a Hezbollah pager.

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Welcome back to the PDB situation report. Joining me once again is Kervin O'Quinn, founder of the private intelligence company, O'Quinn Analytics, and host of the podcast this week explained. Curvin, when last week talked, I think I interrupted you from the conversation that we're having around the pager slash walkie-talkie operation that we've been looking at that took place in Lebanon and Syria this past week. Right, yeah. And if you let me, I want to get into the secondary and tertiary effects of this from an intelligence

perspective. So when you're talking about targeting in an intelligence perspective, the secondary effect of this, and we talked about the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, so now you know, those known knowns, now you know who's working in Lebanon or who's working in Hezbollah. Hezbollah has now named those. The Iranian ambassador to Lebanon. He is now known as a Hezbollah agent. So now you can understand that.

That's a known known to your targeting team. And then you can take their network and who they're associated with and branch that out to understand who the other Hezbollah individuals are. you have clandestine Hezbollah operatives that you kind of understand who they are now. But now with the pagers going off and you've got thousands of people that are affected by this, you have doctors, who I call Hezbollah medics. That's a military term that we have medics. Hesbala has these medics or doctors whose pagers went off. You can now dig deep into their network and understand who the other Hezbollah operatives are.

Israel may now have a perspective of Pesfala agents who are working within Israel, within Europe, within parts of the United States, and they can feed that intelligence to other friendly nations and tell them, be on the lookout or Bolo, these individuals, they are associated with the individuals whose pagers are exploded. And also, I don't, this is a public statement or public attorney, If you're on social media, maybe don't out your friends as Hezbollah agents and say that your friends played pageer blew up and could have caused damage to them. PSA, your friend is a Hezbollah agent. Don't out them for that.

Yeah. No, I think, look, there's, there's a lot to unpack here, you know, in terms of the objectives and then the knock-on benefits from an operation. like this. Look, there's a lot of, there was some in the immediate aftermath, there was some condemnation saying, oh, look at this. This is a random act outside the traditional normal code of conduct for warfare. Hassan Nasrallah himself said, you know, this crosses all red line. And mind you, some of the known leaders, some of the leaders of Hezbollah going years back were engaged in responsible for the deaths of 241 Marines back in 83 in October for the bombing of the Beirut

barracks and then 50 plus French soldiers in a similar attack. Not to mention that they've fired thousands of rockets, unguided rockets into Israel, not to mention that they've been doing that for the past year or so in support of Hamas and supporting what Hamas did on the 7th of October. So spare me, Nasrales, you know, self-righteous claims of being victim somehow and the, whoever is responsible for these operations, you know, somehow crossing a red line, you know, please. This is a non-traditional war at this point. And so I think sort of the pious attitude from some that you see in the West where they say,

well, this is just not proper conduct, it doesn't speak to reality, right? You don't get to choose the nature of your enemy. Yeah. So go ahead. Anyway, I'm sorry. You know what? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, Kervin. I'm going to step down.

I'm going to step down off my soapbox now and turn it back over to you. So I can step on mine. I want to reiterate, honestly, as someone who has worked on, like I said, similar operations to this in a significant capacity, this is the most target. So let's go from the beginning. Hezbollah, they procured. pagers and walkie-talkie for Hezbollah individuals. Those Hezbollah leaders passed down those pagers and walkie-talkies to Hezbollah operatives to have on them at all time so they could be communicated. This is not here's your pager so that you can give it to your child or your friend or you can sell it on eBay.

This is a communication device because you're getting rid of your cell phone. this is more targeted than any operation that I was ever a part of. And let me tell you, Mike, I was a part of some targeted operation where it was individual on an individual level. And I have not seen or participated in anything like this. It is fascinating me. I have, I don't know if I slept in the last 48 hours because of all the stuff that I was reading because of how well done and targeted this was. So, so forget indiscriminate. if you're going to go on on X and Instagram and TikTok and Facebook and say this was an indiscriminate attack, you immediately lose credibility.

If you are an intelligence analyst that's saying that you immediately lose your credibility as an intelligence analyst. There is nothing like this that has ever happened. Well, I think it's not so much an analytical perspective. I think that a lot of the people are saying that. it's just again it's more of a self-righteous following of a standard narrative which is you know whatever the idea for or whoever is responsible for this again no no they haven't claimed credit for it but whoever was responsible for this you know you always know where the narrative is going to go when it comes down to um Israel and you know their efforts against uh whether it's

Kamaas, Hezbollah, Islamic jihad, you know, whomever. So that part of it is not surprising. But I agree with you that the, look, from an operational perspective, this made perfect sense, right? Now, here's a question, though. From your perspective, why sort of the daisy chain, right? Why the pagers first and then the handhelds the next day? So, yeah, that's an incredible question. And here's how it goes.

So if you understand Muslim culture, you understand that certain people, when they die, you have 24 hours to do a funeral procession and a burial procession. And so the pagers are first. You understand not everyone's going to die. This is just to maim and to instill fear into Hezbollah, but some people will perish from this. So during those funeral processions, it seems like, I'm going to say Israel again, but understand when I say Israel, we don't know that that's who did it. That's just the prevailing theory. So Israel understood that was going to happen.

And during these funeral processions, who's going to be there? Other Hezbollah operatives. They're going to be holding other devices. We have, you know, during the procurement process, we've taken those devices. We have, you know, gotten into those devices and made them explosives. So now we have more devices that are going to explode. And during the funeral processions, we're going to have live footage from various Arab media. We're going to be able to tap into certain CCTV cameras.

And we're going to be able to see on an individual level who's holding those. So even if Hezbollah doesn't come out and say that that person perished, you do have some CCTV footage of who did it. now you can go back to that intelligence process and target their network. But also, yeah, you bring up a very good point because, so in typical operations, and you're an agency guy, I was a military guy. And we worked, you know, I worked with you guys and you guys work on the special operations level as well. You understand this that if you're going to carry out this attack, there is a military

aspect to the follow-on attack to that. So the prevailing theory was if this was going to happen, then the IDF was going to then invade the northern border of Israel, southern border of Lebanon. And so you cause chaos with Hezbollah and then you become that iron fist that then just knocks them back. And that didn't happen. That still has not happened, even though strikes are happening right now. So what we're learning through the fog of war here is that.

It is possible. And so with open analytics, the way that I work, my intelligence probability, I do an unlikely possible and probable. And right now it's possible that certain people within Hezbollah saw that their pagers were tampered with. And before they could get that to Hezbollah leadership to discard all pagers, Israel or Mossad or Unit 8200 decided, This is the moment, whether the IDF is ready to invade or not,

this is the moment that we are going to do this. And listen, IDF, you're going to have to have a plan and you're going to have to go in very soon. And we are very close to a regional war within the Middle East. Yeah, I think once you, it's a very good point. Once you get that gear in place, you know, you've got a limited shelf life, right? That window starts closing of opportunity because anything could happen. could drop it and it just breaks open and they see it. One could go off for whatever reason. Accidentally, it is stunning that on a Tuesday you have thousands of pages go off and then

you still have Hezbollah operatives and fighters walking around with their handheld, right? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I'm just going to toss this in the sea, right? Maybe I'm going to start carrying around a bunch of three by five cards instead of an electronic device. How is that? I mean, that's, you know, again, we saw that with Al Qaeda and others. You know, once they finally dumped it down to the very basic, sure, I mean, it makes it very hard to intercept communications because they're just passing it face to face to the known entities or individuals, but it also, you know, binds them up. It slows them down and measurably in terms of their ability to communicate and make operational decisions and actions.

So, look, this has been, this has been fascinating, Corby. And I hope you'll, I hope you'll come back again on the situation report, but there's a lot of more things we could be covering here. And I don't think, and maybe you'll tell me I'm wrong, but I don't think that this conflict in the Middle East is going to go away anytime soon. Mike, we've been talking about it on my podcast this week, explained for over a year now since October 7th. And it has been, let me go back to my probability, unlikely that this war finalized. and that it doesn't turn in to a regional war. A regional war is at probable. We're probably

going to have that in the Middle East. Yeah, no, I don't disagree with that at this point. And by the way, good marketing for this week explained. Again, Kervin O'Quinn, thank you very much, man. I hope to see you again here in the not too distant future. Thank you so much for having me. And as I always say, stay safe out there. All right. Up next, well, a second assassination attempt, you may have heard about this on former President Trump has sparked renewed scrutiny of the Secret Service. Really? We'll look at the details and the growing calls for reform with former Secret Service agent and security expert Michael Matranga. Stay with it. Bank of America recently said, and pay attention to this, they said do what central banks are doing, buy gold. And for good

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situation report. The investigation is still, well, underway, still ongoing into a second attempted assassination of former President Trump, this time at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. The suspect, 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Ralph, has been charged with two counts of illegal gun possession. Now, authorities say that Ralph hid in the bushes for nearly 12 hours, armed with an SKS-style rifle fitted with a scope. From about 400 yards away, he aimed at Trump before being discovered by Secret Service agents. The agents engaged Ralph, who then fled the scene, but was later detained by police. In the aftermath, renewed scrutiny has once again fallen on the Secret Service.

Well, that's natural. Acting director of the agency, Ronald Roe, acknowledged the need for reform, stating that agents need to get out of a reactive model and get to a readiness model, end quote. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a fine example of government speak. This comes as the Secret Service is already facing criticism for its handling of a previous assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, just eight weeks ago. Lawmakers from both parties are turning up the heat. Republican Senator Ron Johnson accused the Secret Service of slow-walking vital information to investigator, while Democrat Dick Blumenthal has gone a step further, alleging that the Department of Homeland Security is stonewalling the investigation altogether.

Look at that. It took two assassination attempts to get the Republicans and the Democrats to work together. As questions mount over the Secret Service's readiness and transparency, it's clear the changes may be necessary to prevent future threats. And for that, I award myself the PDB Situation Report statement of the obvious award. To help us unpack the challenges facing the agency and what reforms might be on the horizon, we're joined by Michael Mstrunger, a former Secret Service agent and CEO of M6 Global. Mike, thanks very much for coming back on the situation report. I'm glad we didn't scary off the first time. No, it was an honor.

I appreciate you giving me a platform to speak on these things. And, you know, it's unfortunate that we're back here today. But if you recall, around the July 15th time period when I was doing some media then, And I said that I wasn't surprised by the attempted assassination and that I felt that the current political rhetoric would lead to additional attacks on the Secret Services Protectees. And here we are, not even nine weeks later, having a discussion about a second attack or attempted attack. No, you did.

I mean, you were very clear about that. You were very clear about saying, look, I, you know, hope obviously God, always hope to God that something like this doesn't happen to anybody, but that you wouldn't be surprised if it did. Now, were you surprised at least by how quickly the second attempt took place? No, not at all. I think as we approach the general election, that we're going to continue to see these things happen, unfortunately, you know, the political rhetoric for about a day usually tones down with the president giving some type of pre-can speech about, you know, toning the rhetoric down and whatnot. And then later on that night, both sides start with the insults, which leads

to promote this particular type of behavior amongst the unstable followers of both the Republican and the Democratic Party. The bad thing is that one candidate seems to be the intended target. So we need to figure out why. Yeah, it is, I take your point. I think you're absolutely right. And this is a real problem. In the immediate aftermath of the first attempt, the one in Butler, Pennsylvania, you know, you did get that from the White House. Right. They came out and they were very clear. about it, you know, that we've got to stop this discourse. We've got to turn down the temperature. We've, you know, we've got to be more civil. And to your point, that lasted about, I don't know,

maybe 36 hours. And then, you know, they were right back to saying, yeah, Trump is a threat to democracy. And they were right back into that, in that standard narrative. Now, again, to your point, it's on both sides, right? After the second attempt, you know, former President Trump came out. And he made a a logical first part of the statement, which was blaming the inflammatory rhetoric and saying it's causing me to get shot at. He should have stopped there, but then he went and he said to the effect of, you know, and I'm the one trying to save the country while, you know, the Biden Harris team are the ones trying to destroy the country.

You know, both, so both sides, if we're going to be fair and analytical and pragmatic, you know, have been guilty for some time now of this really harsh rhetoric. But you raise a very good point. that, you know, we've got to figure out how, not so much why. I think we do know why it's happening, but how do we prevent the next one, right? If you go with the assumption that we're not going to get the rhetoric turned down, I don't think that's going to happen. Nobody's going to find Jesus suddenly and say, I've got to be more civil.

So between now and November, in your opinion, what does the Secret Service have to do to get a handle on this? Well, I think there's been, you know, multiple conversations since July 13th of whether former President Trump had the same protective package that a sitting president would have. And what I will tell you is though the media likes to say that that he did not, I will say that he does not have or did not have July 13th or even as early as Sunday of this week. He does not have a full protective package outside of DOD assets. There's not a whole lot more that they can add.

As we saw on July 13th, he had counter-sniper units who ended up neutralizing Thomas Crooks, as they should have. We saw that he had a counter-assault team, which is my former team, as he should have at that point, especially with the Iranian threat. And I think that the Secret Service did not get enough credit for making those adjustments prior to Butler. I think since since the Butler attempted assassination, what we've been able to determine is that this was a catastrophic failure, which we already knew in advance work, coordination of assets and communication. And I think that they've made some significant changes to those policies regarding former President Trump. You know, in what we saw on Sunday,

the tactics worked of pushing out that forward, advance element. allowing that individual to scan that aOR and was able to identify where Ryan Wesley Brough was. The question that I have, and I think is what is most unsettling to me, is that, well, actually twofold is why was there not anybody running that wood line out ahead of time with a dog or with a tactical element? The other question that's actually more concerning is if this was a true off-the-record movement, as the director stated, and that they did.

did not know that he was going to play golf until the morning of, how did Brian Wesley, Ralph, know to be in that wood lineup to 12 hours prior? So where did he get that information? Or was he just super lucky? And I seriously doubt that he was just that lucky. Yeah, that's, that question's been asked repeatedly. And you'd like to think, I'm sure they have that during their questioning that, you know, they posed that. Did you just decide to camp out, assuming that there's a high probability that the former president would be playing golf at some point on a nice weekend. Okay, perhaps.

But were you conducting surveillance? Did you identify something in the activities? Were you able to see a convoy movement? What was it that they created that opportunity for Ralph? Are you seeing, and I'm glad you also point up the idea that they weren't sweeping the perimeter. I mean, I think the acting director mentioned that or admitted that they did not work the perimeter as they should have. And I think he was indicating that perhaps because it was not an official on the record activity, they didn't necessarily have the resources to do that. Are you seeing much of a

difference in the aftermath of the second attempt compared to the first in terms of how the Secret Service is dealing with, let's call it the optic, how they're dealing with the public in a sense to demonstrate transparency. Yeah, I am. If you recall on the last podcast that we were on, I was very critical of the former director, Kimberly Cheathel, you know, after a second or after, I'm sorry, after the assassination attempt that we hadn't had in 43 years on a Secret Service protectee, she didn't even have the leadership skills to know that she probably should have been on site within 24 hours to assess that situation for herself instead of go do an ABC news, national news segment where she could defend her actions. And so, you know, I have no defense of her. I'm glad that she had the forethought

to resign after such an embarrassing testimony. I will say that I am happy to see the direction and the leadership that has been exhibited by acting director Roe. I believe that he has taken a forward operational stance getting out ahead of this. I was happy to see that he was on scene on Sunday or Monday doing his due diligence as the leader of that agency, setting an example for those beneath him. And I think that this time it's a little bit different because, you know, in the first assassination attempt of the former president, the suspect was deceased. So it was hard to gather that information, you know, in an exigent manner, whereas Brian Wesley Ralph is not deceased and the agency is able to gather, you know, more information in an exigent

manner. So I think there are some stark contrast between the responses of the leadership and, you know, is it perfect? It's never going to be perfect. But at the end of the day, I think that they have made some significant strides moving forward to try to rectify the failures of past administrations and past leadership. Yeah. From your experience and from what you've seen so far, what do you make of Ryan Ralph? You know, I believe that he probably was radicalized due to the divisive rhetoric within the United States. We know that he traveled to the Ukraine. I have questions as to his capabilities, his mental status, and how he was financially able to to do the things that he did what appears to be a professional activist, you know, roaming the United States,

appearing at these events, causing confusion or questions and turmoil and what seems to be a professional agitator. I called the question, how in the heck he got to the Ukraine, why he would even go there. I don't believe that he has any formal militarized or military or law enforcement experience. Is this guy, you know, I don't want to create any controversy, but why? You know, how did he get so enraged in politics that he felt that this was his only option? And so I'd like to see what his mental capacity is and how long he might be suffering from whatever it is that he's suffering from. Okay, to that point, to what degree do you think we'll get some transparency in the short term on that? because there are some, okay, let's just put it this way.

There are a lot of theories out there related to Ralph, right? And part of it because he was very prolific on social media. He wrote a lot on social media. People sometimes tend to, I think, when they get on social media, they read something, they go, yeah, that makes sense, that's right. And they don't necessarily step back and go, okay, well, is the guy a psycho or not? They're just taking it at face value, and then they're running with it. So there are some scenarios out there being put forward about Ralph and his connections,

supposed connections, who else is behind this? It seems like there's an element that's quickly disappearing down a real conspiracy path. So how soon do you think we might get some transparency on who he actually is, what the issues are, and what his condition is? Well, I mean, the question really is, will we ever really get the truth? I mean, it's been 60-something years since John F. Kennedy was killed. It's been 60-something years since Martin Luther King was killed. And, you know, RFK and Malcolm X and all of these other, you know, prolific people that would, which I would consider were unifiers, that sometimes, that's not exactly what

some of the powers that be within the United States government or those entities that support, or are supported by the United States government want. So the question is, you know, would we ever really get the truth anyway? We don't know. I mean, we still don't know who killed. I mean, we still don't know the full truth behind JFK or RFK. So, you know, with this individual in particular, you know, I think this is a perfect example of political rhetoric, creating a tender box for unstable people to take actions and matters into their own hands because they don't have. the mental capacity to be able to decipher what's true and what's not true. I'm curious to see,

like I said, how he was supported and what motivated him to want to carry out this attack. Will we get that in an exigent time period? I don't think it'll be too soon. I think it'll be probably after or just before the election, because we know sometimes that information is strategically released for purposes that benefit one person or one party over another. So I don't think it'll be too soon, honestly. Yeah, no, I agree with you on that point. If we actually do get really any transparency. And that's incredibly frustrating for the public.

And it creates more of this, you know, this sort of this murkiness that exists in social media, right? So I think it's incumbent at this stage of the game for Secret Service, the FBI, in particular, to be more forthcoming with the results of any investigation that are engaged in. And if they do that, then the likelihood is that you won't end up having to get a investigation started up on Capitol Hill, where, you know, they're basically butts the nuts on investigations and committee hearings and things. So how about we just cut that off at the past and say from the Bureau, from Secret Service, here are the findings. It's not national security issue. Here's what we got. And by the way, maybe it starts a discourse that's more effective about the way that people talk to each other. Certainly in politics, but then again, I'm a cynical person. So I don't think that's going to happen. Mike, if you wouldn't mind staying right where you are, we've got a quick break coming up,

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Catch rock and protein in the dairy cooler at a store near you. Rock and protein and Shamrock Farms are registered trademarks of Shamrock Foods Company. Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Joining me once again is Michael Matranga, former Secret Service agent and CEO of M6 Global. Mike, before the break, we covered a fair amount of ground over this second attempt on the former president. From your perspective, are you, and I know this is a subjective question, are you optimistic that the Secret Service has or will be getting additional resources to beef up their, protective efforts? I'll tell you what. I am optimistic. And if there's ever a time to articulate the need for whatever it is that they want, it's right now. And if they don't articulate the need

and they're not successful at their request, then they have nobody to blame but themselves. And, you know, one of the things that I would like to talk about is that, you know, the Secret Service has a dual mission. In 1865, we were founded and, you know, to for counterfeit currency. We know the history of the Secret Service. In 1901, we became a dual mission agency after McKinley was shot. The landscape, political landscape, threat landscape in the United States has changed significantly. I believe that the Secret Service seriously needs to have some conversations about the path moving forward. And what I mean by that is that the dual mission, I truly believe, for all the good work that the Secret Service does in regards to financial crimes investigations,

I believe that the time spent on financial crimes is hindering the protective operations of the Secret Service. I believe at this point, we should be having serious conversations about relinquishing those financial fraud or crimes investigations to larger agencies that are more equipped that have more manpower and resources to provide that support for the nation's financial stability and let the Secret Service specialize in what they specialize in. That's protecting people. And so the question I always get asked is, okay, well, if we stop doing financial fraud investigations and we do protection, you know, what does that look like? We can't just solely be, you know, protective or agents of those at the highest levels of the Secret Service. What else will consume our time? Well, if you look at the threat landscape in the United States, it's not getting any better. Yeah.

You know, schools are being shot up. threats being, you know, made towards average citizens and entities, the Secret Service truly has the potential to be the leading threat analyst or leading threat protective agency in the United States at this point if they were to relinquish those financial fraud investigations. That would be the reason is that we have that conversation. Now, I mean, one thing I'd say to that is it's government, right? And government organizations, once they get some turf, are very, very disinclined to give anything back, right, for any reason. And that includes when we're talking about operating budgets, but it also includes responsibilities and service lines.

So I think I agree with what you're saying. I just think looking at how the government tends to work, I think that's pushing a massive rock up a very big hill. I agree with that. Yeah, that's a common argument amongst even us agents that are, you know, still on the job or even former agents as some still think that we should hold on to that. But, you know, at the end of the day, we have to really question how effective are we when we're, you know, working financial fraud investigations. And we have to basically abandon that investigation for a three week or a four week protective and, you know, assignment. the crime happening back in the field office doesn't stop. So, you know, hand that over to DHS, hand it over to the FBI or whoever's better equipped

to handle that and left the Secret Service, you know, solely focus on specializing on keeping people safe. There's plenty to do. Like I said, there's threats that happen throughout the United States all over the place, you know, with a national center for missing and exploited children or whatnot. Sorry, go ahead. Right. I'm sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I, you know, I agree with you. You've got, what, 15 election offices that have received, you know, suspicious substances in recent days. And that investigation is obviously ongoing. And, you know, potentially very disruptive to the voting process since early voting's already started. But has there been any talk that you're aware up on Capitol Hill? Has this idea made its way from, you know, from, you know, from, you know, from, you. you know, conversation to actual discussions up on the hill.

Not that I'm aware of. I seriously doubt that that's occurred. My question would be, why not? You know, why is this conversation not been had with the president of the United States? Why is the conversation not been had regarding manpower of, you know, sir, madam, vice president, we can't continue to protect, you know, 30. six protectees, which we were never designed to do or the agency was never designed to do. It's tasking manpower and causing serious morale issues.

And, you know, a blind person could see that. Heck, I saw that, you know, a decade ago when I was there. And that was always a topic of conversation amongst the men and women who were boots on the ground doing the things that they were doing. You know, it wasn't too long ago that even, you know, acting director Ron Roe was was an operational agent, boots on the ground, I am certain that he had suffered some of that pain as well. So, you know, these are conversations that need to happen.

Whether they do or not, I'm not sure. But, you know, our Senate and our House need to be having serious conversations with the leadership of the Secret Service about this. And then I guess looking at former President Trump's situation. Obviously, I think a lot of people have learned a great deal about, you know, on a surface level, about how the Secret Service operate, right, ever since Butler happened. So now, you know, you've got a nation full of experts on Secret Service, myself included. But I think the idea that, you know, there's been this talk about, well, look, we've got the package

for a sitting president and then we've got a package for someone who is a former president. I mean, it seems like the thought process should be more like, okay, we're going to base our security package on the current risk threat assessment that we have on any protectee, right, rather than what their title is. So, yes, you may have former presidents and you do a risk and threat assessment on them on a regular basis. And okay, fine, the traditional, whatever that may be, the traditional former president security package is sufficient. but it seems like we shouldn't be any more talking about one package based on a title,

another package based on a title. I'm assuming that this is already done, right? That you're basing the security packages on the risk threat assessment rather than just some wrote title? Well, I think traditionally that's the way that it's happened. I don't feel that that's the way that it is. I believe that as we saw in Butler, you know, the foreign Iranian threat towards former President Trump cause for him to have those SOD assets. So, you know, I do believe that the service does their due diligence and increasing those assets based upon threat level. However, that doesn't,

that still doesn't explain why Robert F. Kennedy was, you know, turned down multiple times for Secret Service Protection. If we were basing it solely on intelligence and on past and historical events, he should have had it a long time ago. It shouldn't have taken Trump being shot at for him to get Secret Service protection. So, you know, I think it ebbs and flows with the political climate. And that's the problem. You know, I'm not saying that the men and women of the Secret Service or even the leadership are compromised. It's just there is a certain level of politics that is in play here that should never be in play. The president of the United States should never know who his director of the Secret Service or their cabinet align with politically. You know, the bigger question is,

that I have is throughout all of this, where in the heck is the Secretary of Department of Homeland Security been? Where is Alexander Majorcas? Where is the Department of Homeland Security? Why have they not been grilled before a House or Senate committee? Where are they? Yeah. Well, I think we all know that it's very difficult to get any direct answers out of Majorcas. I don't think that's going to happen or change anytime soon. So I suppose on a final note, being mindful of the time that we've got left, what's your top line? What would you like people to know?

What would you like people to take away from the conversation following this second attempt? I would say this. For as much bad for us as the Secret Service has gotten over the last nine weeks, what I will tell you is that I am still very good friends with a lot of the men and women there. their commitment to the American people and to the people that they protect has not changed. And I did an interview the other day and someone asked me the same question. And what I would tell people is this, is that don't be deceived by the Republican or the Democratic Party to get you to do something so foolish that will end with you not residing on this earth anymore. Because the men and the women of the Secret Service are prepared to take.

it to that level. And don't let a single mishap on July 13th of 2024 let you think that the men and women of the Secret Service are not prepared to take your life in the event that you want to cause harm to any of these people because they absolutely will. So we're not any weaker than we were before July 13th. In fact, I think we're stronger. Okay. Well, I got to tell you, I appreciate you bringing that up. And look, I think everybody saw the agents rush the stage on 13 July and surround the former president and get him off to safety. So that bravery is definitely not in question. And I appreciate your time very much.

Mike Matranga, I hope the next time we call, I hope you'll come back again. We really appreciate you joining us today on the Situation Report. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. All right. Well, yeah, that's all the time. we have, I know, don't look so sad. That's all the time we have for the PDB situation report. If you have any questions or comments now, please reach out at pdb at thefirsttv.com.

The PDB team loves to hear from you. I mean that, right? There's no happier time during the day than when Carl the mailman comes by with another mailbag full of your comments and your questions. And then don't forget, we take a bunch of those every month and we collect them and we, the intern team actually does that. And they're very good at it. And they mash them all together. and then we create an episode every month called Ask Me Anything. Okay, within reason, please. Let's keep it family. To listen to the podcast of this show ad free,

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