The President's Daily Brief - PDB Special Bulletin | Mike Baker Explains The Spy Game Behind The Iran War With Mike Slater

Episode Date: March 8, 2026

Mike Baker joins Mike Slater to discuss the intelligence battle unfolding behind the Iran war. From satellites and signals intercepts to human sources on the ground, Mike explains how modern intelligence gathering helps identify targets, track Iranian military movements, and shape the battlefield. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Use code savings to become a shipped member for half-off only $49 at shipt.com slash offer. Terms apply. Hey, Mike Baker here. I wanted to highlight a conversation that I had with my good friend Mike Slater about the war with Iran. We discussed the intelligence side of those opening days of the conflict, how information's gathered, what might be happening behind the scenes, and some of the dangers that could lie ahead. I hope you enjoy it. Welcome back to our special War of the World's time about Operation Epic Fury. Go to the great Mike Baker. He's a former CIA officer and host.

of one of the top podcasts in the country, the president's daily brief. Mr. Baker, how do you do, sir? I'm doing well, thanks very much for me. Good to see you. You too. What have you found to be the most impressive aspect of Operation Epic Fury from either a military or an Intel standpoint? Well, yeah, I think you just nailed both of those things, the intelligence gathering, both from the U.S. Intel community and also obviously working in partnership with our liaison, primarily the Israelis, although don't discount some of the information sharing that we have with other regional players out there. So there's very tell side of rules that set the table for, certainly for timing of operations.

And then there's just always what you kind of need to be impressed with, which is the execution by the military of an operation like this. The complexity of this is amazing. and so far, at least, you know, some 60 hours, 65 hours, whatever we're into it at this time that we're talking, it has been an incredible display in terms of managing all the spinning plates at the same time. I want to talk about where it could go wrong or where it could keep going very, very right. And you can just speak generally. What's the Intel operation look like to get us, for us to find, for us to find,

finally know that 48 or whatever number of the top guys happen to be in the same location. The Oaitola happens to be right there, shoot the missile now. Like he's there, guys. What is that, what's like, is there a mole in the inside of Iran? Is there, is it drones? Like, what does that, what could that look like? I tell you what it looks like. It looks like layers of resources.

So everything from human sources, which typically, You know, if I had to have one thing during the course of the lead up to an operation, I wouldn't want a human source, right? Signals intercept, communications collection, the data you can get from satellite imagery, from overhead surveillance, from drones. All that is incredibly valuable, but, you know what, nothing replaces having somebody. No, I'm not saying that we had, you know, well-placed sources inside that were able to say they are going to be meeting as bizarre as that sounds at this stage, given how well aware they

were of the potential for conflict. But it's a combination of all those things that you gather. And again, working in concert with our liaison partners. Iran's always been a heavy lift for the U.S. intelligence community to gather real-time, credible, verifiable information. So we've always relied on liaison partners out in that region, and again, particularly the Israelis, to assist with that. But the fact that the Iranian leadership were so careless and in deciding to have these gatherings, and it wasn't just the one where Khmeri was at, that allowed them to target. And you could tell from the timing, right, because we've talked about that in the past, but the timing of this, launching these strikes.

So essentially they were hitting targets roughly 9.45 a.m. Saturday morning, tech runtime is not typical. And so there was that element as well that look at the benefit of this, aside from that operational window we had knowing when the meetings were taking place, the benefit was also this element of surprise because the Iranian leadership likely expected any attack should it occurred to be happening at night. Just again, to go back on your CIA background, like what types of human sources are there? It's a whole range. You know, you look for anybody with access. So that could be a driver,

someone who drives the defense minister around. It could be someone who, the charwoman, someone who cleans the offices. It could be a secretary. It could be a deputy foreign minister. You know, you look for anybody who's got access to actionable intelligence. And then you look for reasons why you might be able to get them to cooperate in some fashion. And, you know, you obviously need to have access to them. So there's a lot of parts to trying to identify and then develop a human source. It's not, you know, I know this is not the statement of the obvious. obvious. But there's a lot of work involved. And when you're talking about a denied area like Iran,

same problem we have in a place like North Korea, they're hard targets. What makes them so hard? Why is that Iran so tight? Well, part of it is just access. Do you have, do you have, you know, like if you're operating in Europe, you're operating in Africa, you're operating in Latin America, you know, typically, you know, you can spot and possibly develop because you have access, the ability to actually meet or talk to or, you know, assess an individual, right? In a place like Iran or, again, North Korea or places like, it's a denied area in a sense, right? You don't have that ability. So sometimes you have to do things somewhat remotely.

That makes it more difficult. Sometimes you have to rely on a third party. Again, you know, a liaison partner who has access for whatever reason because they're able to operate, in that country. So it's a, you know, I always, anytime, anytime we have a success, you know, I'm always reminded of how difficult a recruitment process is for human sources. Yes. Okay, I couldn't imagine.

And the people who do that recruitment, it's insane. One more dumb civilian question to a CIA guy. Whether it was El Mentiono in Mexico or Maduro at Venezuela or Ayatollah here in Iran, whoever the Intel was, guy on the ground was, let's say they know that El Mentiono's going to be here, or Maduro's going to his compound tonight,

or Ayatollah and all of his guys are right there. How do they call it in to their guy, their CIA guy? Well, you have to have, I mean, again, without going into sources and methods, you have to imagine that if you've developed human sources, and again, look, sometimes it's not possible, so sometimes you are relying on technical collection,

right, on people, I think sometimes by this point in time, certainly after the global war and terror, they're familiar with things like chatter, right? Well, you know, you're intercepting communications. That sometimes is what you have to depend on, along with imagery and other technical collection means. But if you've got a human source, then theoretically you have a way to communicate. And it may be a very remote means of communication. Again, if the environment allows for it, it's in person.

But one of the first things you have to do with a source that you're developing and that you've recruited is to ensure that you could maintain those communications, particularly if you've recruited a source for very specific operational actions, right? So you know that you're going to have a very short window of opportunity for something, which is why you targeted that individual or those sources in the first place. Yes. What do we need to know about the history of Iran at all from a 30,000 perspective or the people of Iran or the government of Iran that is going to make this operation moving forward, perhaps more difficult. USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day,

like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With USAA, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a quote at USAA.com slash bundle. Restrictions apply. Yeah. The problem I think right now for the public is they watched what happened in Venezuela, right? Now, to some degree, we reshuffled the deck chairs. Deli Rodriguez is there in charge.

But we are getting cooperation. We are seeing signs, and they have released political prisoners, and they're apparently going to do more of that, and they are moving in the right direction. You can't take Venezuela and say, this is a template for Iran. It's not going to happen. Venezuela's got a history of elections and democracy. There were identifiable opposition leaders who you could work with.

There was an ability to map out, and hopefully it follows that map, a transition. It's not the case in Iran. I mean, it's not the case in other places as well. Cuba's a good example. There's no definable, no established opposition to say, okay, maybe you can come in behind this. The problem with Iran is they've spent a lot of time thinking about what happens

if we lose three or four layers of leadership. You know, how do we continue this? The other problem is you're talking about an Iranian population, That's essentially unarmed. What are they going to do? How are they going to respond in this moment? They just had thousands and thousands of their citizens slaughter by this regime during the last round of protests. Are they going to see this moment because of the death of Khomey and a lot of the other leaders?

Are they going to see that as their opportunity now to get out on the streets, to incensed on a changing government, to pressure the security apparatus into saying, okay, maybe it is time to lay down our weapons or find an alternative way of running this country. These problems can be very messy. And I don't think anybody should imagine that a transition in Iran is going to be quick or easy by any means.

That being said, do you think this was a good move by the president? I think it was overdue. I think this move should have been done by previous presidents. And the reason I say that is because you will never have short or mid, long-term, certainly stability and peace in that region, as long as the Mullahs and the IRGC run Iraq. It's just not going to happen because there are stated objective, which they've said many times over and over and over, is the destruction of Israel, which is why they set up their proxy

network, a ring around Israel. that's their goal, right? And when they chant death to America, well, they meet it. They have killed thousands and wounded thousands of U.S. soldiers over the years through the export of IED technology and resourcing proxies in Iraq and elsewhere. And we will always be kicking the can down the road, worrying about their nuclear capabilities. And that's all we've been doing. Every administration going back since the revolution has been doing nothing but putting lipstick on a pitted when it comes to Iran and saying, ah, somebody else could take care of this problem down the road.

And all those people out there protesting on the streets of the U.S., thank goodness there's not many of them. But look, I live in Idaho. We've actually had a protested Boise against this conflict, against this targeting of the Iranian regime. I didn't see any of those individuals out there protesting the regime of Iranians. Iran killing thousands of their own citizens, detaining tens of thousands of their own citizens. They were silent about that. So apparently they decided that, you know, the right side of the fence is to support, you know, the Iranian regime, which is essentially what they're doing when they go out and protest this.

I get it. I get people saying, well, maybe we should have more agreement from Congress, whatever. But briefing Congress on a operation like this, can you imagine? The members of the house, all in being able to keep a secret, I can't. Got about 30 seconds. What's something you're looking forward to for in the next 48 hours, maybe a week, where you're like, oh, that's great news? Or maybe the flip side, too, like, oh, darn, this is not going the direction we wanted to.

Yeah, I think on the good side would be regional actors stepping in, being more forceful in their support of this effort. in their own ways, right? They're not, it's not like they're going to join and suddenly be flying sorries over Iran, but a little bit more force. In a private conversation, I can almost guarantee that the Saudis,

Jordanians, Uli, all the others would say the same thing. We would be better off here in this region without the Mollahas and the IRGC, but publicly that's, you know, that's not tenable than I can say it. So I would love to see more involvement from the regional actors in pushing this forward.

Something, you know, on the negative side, would be if we see a quick succession in Iran and suddenly we've got a stable leadership. I don't think that's going to necessarily happen. The commanding control has been really decimated. But if it looks as if the RGC and the leadership there have reestablished themselves quickly, then what that means is the Iranian people may think this, you know, despite the damage that's been done, this is not our opportunity. And if that happens, again, we're just kicking the can down the road. Okay.

All right. We'll watch out for both those. Mike Baker, former CIA agent, our officer, and host of one of the little, one of the top podcasts in the entire country. Watch it, listen to it every day. The president's daily brief. Mike, appreciate your insight. As always, brother, thank you.

I appreciate you, Mike. Thank you.