The President's Daily Brief - September 24th, 2025: Trump Blasts ‘Paper Tiger’ Russia In Ukraine U-Turn & Secret Service Foils Plot

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: Following his sit-down with President Zelensky at the U.N., President Trump appears to have completely reversed course on Ukraine—declaring it may be possible for Kyiv to reclaim all its lost ground. Later in the show—the Secret Service takes down a rogue telecom network that threatened New York during the U.N. General Assembly. Plus—it’s a showdown between Washington and Sacramento: DHS calls California’s new ban on masked law enforcement agents unconstitutional and says it won’t comply. And in today’s Back of the Brief—a jury in Florida decides the fate of President Trump’s would-be assassin Ryan Routh. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com.Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief.YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybriefCBDistillery: Visit https://CBDistillery.com and use promo code PDB for 25% off your entire order!TriTails Premium Beef: Reclaim dinner from the jaws of school-year chaos Visit https://trybeef.com/PDB. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, a major, and I do mean major, U.S. foreign policy shift. Following his sit-down with President Zelensky at the U.N., President Trump appears to have reversed course on Ukraine, declaring that it may be possible for Keev to reclaim all the territory that it's lost to Russia. I'll have those details. Later in the show, the Secret Service takes down a rogue telecom net. network that threatened New York during the UN General Assembly.

Plus, it's a showdown between Washington and Sacramento. DHS, that of course, is the Department of Homeland Security, calls California's new ban on masked law enforcement agents unconstitutional and says it won't comply. And in today's back of the brief, a jury in Florida decides the fate of President Trump's would-be assassin, Ryan Ruth. But first, today's BDB spotlight. President Trump's patience with Vladimir Putin may have finally run out.

In a post-to-truth social yesterday afternoon, Trump stunned both allies and adversaries by declaring that Ukraine is in a position to take back all the territory it's lost in its three-and-a-half-year war with Russia. Trump wrote, quote, after getting to know and fully understand the Ukraine-Russia military and economic situation, and after seeing the economic trouble that it's causing Russia, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and win, all caps, all of Ukraine back in its original form, end quote. He then added, and who knows, maybe even go further than that. Well, that's a line guaranteed to get Putin's knickers in a twist.

He went further deriding Russia's performance on the battlefield, saying, quote, Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years, a war that should have taken a real military power, less than a whole. weak to win. This is not distinguishing Russia. In fact, it's very much making them look like a paper tiger, end quote. Now, if Putin is confused over the Chinese

expression paper tiger, he could always ask his no-limits partner in crime, Xi Jinping. Trump later added, Putin and Russia are in big, all-caps, economic trouble, and this is the time for Ukraine to act. In any event, I wish both countries well, we will continue

to supply weapons to NATO for NATO to do with what they want. He signed off with a good luck to all. Oh, that's nice. Very magnanimous. Good luck to all. Now, I don't need to tell you, but this is a striking departure from Trump's posture since the beginning of his presidency. For months, he suggested Ukraine should be prepared to give up land to secure peace with Moscow. He repeatedly criticized U.S. aid as a wasteful blank check. This latest message suggests a sharp pivot from that line. The timing is also important here. Trump's apparent public U-turn came shortly after Trump's meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky

on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Before that private session, Trump praised Zelensky to gathered reporters, calling him a, quote, brave man for continuing to resist Russia's invasion. Apparently, yesterday's huddle with Zelensky went much better than his disastrous meeting at the White House back in February, where the two leaders ended up in a very public spat. And Trump's shift on Ukraine wasn't the only news to come out of the United States. of his trip to the UN yesterday. In another major announcement, Trump told reporters that he now supports NATO countries shooting down Russian aircraft if they violate Allied airspace. That position

echo statements by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who recently warned that Poland would destroy any intruding Russian planes or drones. As we've covered here, Russian aircraft have repeatedly violated NATO airspace in recent weeks, including Estonia and Poland. So, what does this all mean? Well, by calling Russia a paper tiger, Trump isn't just mocking Putin, although he is. He's sending a message to European allies that his administration may now be more aligned with their harder stance on Moscow. It also suggests a willingness to show NATO that he's serious about deterrence, something that has, well, often been in question. At the same time, Trump's wording about supplying weapons, quote, we will continue to supply weapons to NATO from NATO to do what they want with them. it still suggests more of a hands-off role for the U.S.

He's signaling that Washington may provide the tools, but the alliance and Ukraine will still have to decide how to use them. That's in line with Trump's long-standing desire to shift more of the responsibility over to Europe. But we also have to remember that this is President Trump we're talking about. And as always, it's worth noting that he's best judged by what he does, not necessarily by what he says. Even in the middle of this apparent about face,

he did leave himself some wiggle room. When asked directly by a reporter while sitting next to Zelensky, whether he still trusts Vladimir Putin, Trump replied, quote, I'll let you know in about a month from now. That non-committal answer is something Trump frequently falls back on, declaring that his decisions are always about two weeks or maybe a month away. But for now at least, his words have given Ukraine and its supporters a jolt of encouragement.

Whether those words become actionable policy, well, that remains an open question. All right, coming up after the break, the Secret Service shuts down a telecom threat to New York, and DHS defies California's new mask ban. It seems like just yesterday when California was insisting that everyone should wear a mask. Hmm, how times change.

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In the stripped-down rooms, they found 300 servers stacked beside more than 100,000 SIM cards, in a configuration capable of blasting out 30 million text messages every minute. This setup had the capability to jam cell towers, crash emergency dispatch systems, and blanket the country in denial of service attacks in just 12 minutes. In a video statement, Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Matt McCool. Wait, what? The dude's name is McCool? And he's in the Secret Service?

He's Agent McCool? That, my friends, is a real. righteous moniker. Anyway, my man McCool said, quote, I mean, that's like, that's like McLevin, right? Or, well, I can't think of a better name. Anyway, my man McCool, which I honestly, that name is just as good as McLevin, said, quote, this network had the potential to disable cell phone towers and essentially shut down the cellular network in New York City. He added that the timing and location made the implications unmistakable. This wasn't some fringe operation. It was positioned to interfere with the UN itself.

And the raids turned up more than just electronics. Cocaine? Of course there was blow in there. Illegal firearms, computers, and burner phones were piled in with the servers, signs of a network tied to a variety of criminal activities. Officials insisted there is no longer a credible threat to the General Assembly or the tri-state area, but the sophistication and proximity to the setup hammered home a sobering truth that New York's critical systems can be pushed offline in an instant.

The investigation traces back to the spring of this year when several senior U.S. officials, under Secret Service Protection, including high-ranking members of the Trump administration, began receiving telephonic threats. From there, agents began peeling back the layers, tracking signals that eventually led them to the abandoned apartments. Within the last three weeks, the network was seized. Now, now begins the harder task of parsing through every call, text, and search logged across 100,000 SIM cards. As of now, analysis shows the system was a hub for communications between foreign governments, organized crime syndicates, drug cartels, and human trafficking rings. One investigator told CBS News, quote, each SIM basically has the equivalent data of a cell phone.

That means tens of thousands of phones worth of data and just as many potential leads. The takedown is also symbolic. It marks the first major test for the Secret Service's new Advanced Threat Interdiction Unit. A team stood up by Director Sean Curran, in partnership with Homeland Security Investigations. HSI is steering the criminal probe, while the Secret Service zeroes in on threats to its protectees. No arrests have been made, and as one investigator cautioned,

it would be, quote, unwise to assume that this enterprise was a one-off effort. Okay, shifting gears. California Governor Gavin Newsom, apparently taking time out from positioning himself as a presidential candidate for 2028, has signed a controversial bill aimed at, law enforcement, banning the wearing of masks during operations in the state. Now, that's a move that Trump administration warns could put immigration agents in danger. The law, called the No Secret Police Act, is the first of its kind in the nation. It bars state and local officers from concealing

their faces except in cases of riot gear, undercover work, or medical necessity. But make no mistake, its real target is federal immigration enforcement. The statute takes effect next year, with The agency's ordered to finalize mask policies by July 26. The fight's been brewing for months. As we've been tracking here on the PDB in Los Angeles has seen a surge of federal raids under President Trump's mass deportation drive. Ice agents, often masked to shield their identities from doxing or violent reprisals, have become a flashpoint, while illegal immigrant activists staged protests over the optics

Newsom seized on those images to brand the practice as authoritarian and move to strict officers of that identity protection, because Newsom is nothing, if not big, on pandering to the left. In signing the bill, Newsom declared, quote, detentions by masked men hidden from accountability, any transparency, any oversight, that's Trump's America, calling the masks, quote, a new construct conceived to terrorize our diverse communities, end quote. He then checked his air, voked for the cameras, and flopped onto the fainting couch. For Newsom, a frequent Trump antagonist, it was another chance to accuse ICE of intimidating immigrant neighborhoods in ways the governor casts as corrosive to democracy. As for legal experts, well, they say the state may have gone too far.

A University of California Davis law professor noted that Newsom is effectively testing whether he could dictate how federal agents operate within his state's borders. That's a clash that all but ensures a future court battle. Washington responded to the law, as the Department of Homeland Security made clear in a statement that, quote, we will not comply with Gavin Newsom's unconstitutional mask ban, pointing to a thousand percent spike in assaults against ICE agents in recent months. California law enforcement groups echoed that outrage. The Sheriff's Association, the Peace Officers Research Association, and the Police Chiefs Association all opposed the law, warning it recklessly puts officers' lives at risk. Well, I can't spot the lie in that.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, running for California governor in 2026, turned the law into campaign fodder. Democrats, he charged, quote, care more about the safety of criminals than officers. And then a broadside aimed directly at Newsom, Bianco added, quote, he didn't ban criminals from wearing masks. Anyone that votes for these people are absolute idiots, end quote. Hmm, well, once again, I'm not sure I can spot the lie in that statement. And the mask ban is only part of the package.

Other laws signed in the state now require officers to display names or badge numbers, schools to notify parents when ice agents arrive on campus, and health care facilities to block ice unless presented with a valid warrant. These measures are designed to essentially choke federal immigration enforcement operations, operations that have already netted more than 5,000 arrests in Sanctuary City, Los Angeles, since June of this year. As we've covered, the Trump administration frames these raids as a cornerstone of law and order. ICE officials insist masks remain critical for keeping agents alive in what they describe as an increasingly hostile environment. So for now, agents say they'll keep doing their jobs with masks on, as the matter undoubtedly heads towards a legal battle. All right, coming up next in today's back of the brief. A jury in Florida has found Ryan Ruth, the man who attempted to assassinate President Trump last September, guilty on all counts. more on that when we come back.

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In today's back of the brief, the man who tried to assassinate Donald Trump, well, that would be the second guy, not the first guy from the Butler, Pennsylvania attempted assassination. Well, he's been found guilty on all charges. A federal jury on Tuesday convicted 59-year-old Ryan Ruth after a nearly three-week trial. The charges included attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer, and multiple firearms violations. Together, they carry a maximum penalty of life in prison. The verdict, kept an extraordinary trial in Fort Pierce, Florida.

Prosecutors presented hundreds of pieces of evidence, phone logs, text messages, bank records, surveillance footage, and forensic tests, all painting the picture of a man obsessed with targeting Trump. They noted Ruth made at least 17 reconnaissance trips to the West Palm Beach Golf Course before the attack last September. Seventeen trips to Recki, a very high-end golf course. You'd think somebody would have noticed and maybe said something. At the center of the case was an SKS semi-automatic rifle recovered near the sixth hole of the course. The weapon was loaded with 19 rounds, including one in the chamber.

Forensics experts testified Ruth's fingerprints were on the scope, and his DNA was found on the rifle itself, as well as on gloves, a bag, and other items at the scene. Prosecutors described what they called, quote, sniper tradecraft, a hidden position outfitted with steel plates for protection, fences used for support, and clear shooting lanes down the fairways. In closing arguments, assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Brown told jurors, this was not a publicity stunt, the evidence has shown one thing and one thing only. The defendant wanted Donald Trump dead, end quote.

Jurors also learned of a manifesto that Ruth allegedly mailed to acquaintances, offering $150,000 to anyone willing to, quote, complete the job. Though only parts of that letter were admitted, prosecutors said it went to show his intent. Yeah, it does sound like a clue. Ruth, representing himself, oh, introduced almost no evidence in his defense. Well, that probably came in handy. He questioned just three witnesses,

two old friends who admitted they hadn't seen him in years. When the guilty verdict was read, Ruth tried to stab himself in the neck with a pen before U.S. Marshals restrained him. His daughter shouted at the jury, calling the trial rigged. Jurors deliberated for only a few hours before reaching their unanimous decision.

Ruth now awaits sentencing, where he faces the possibility of life behind bars. And that, my friends, is the president's Daily Brief for Wednesday the 24th of September. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at PDB at thefirsttv.com. And of course, to listen to the show ad-free, just become a premium member of the president's daily brief by visiting pdb premium.com. I'm Mike Baker, and I'll be back later today with the PDB afternoon bulletin. Until then, stay informed. Stay safe. Stay cool. Wireless can feel like a world of traps. But not with Visible. It's one-line wireless with unlimited data and hotspot.

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