The President's Daily Brief - September 2nd, 2024: American Killed in Gaza, Kamikaze Drones Over Russia, & Brazil’s X Shutdown

Episode Date: September 2, 2024

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: We begin with tragic news out of Gaza, where the bodies of six hostages have been discovered in a tunnel beneath the city of Rafah. Hersh Goldberg-Polin, one of several Americans still believed to be in Hamas custody, has been identified as one of the victims. Then, we turn to Ukraine, where Kyiv has launched its largest Kamikaze drone attack of the war, sending more than 150 drones to targets across 15 regions inside Russia. Plus, the fight between Elon Musk and a Brazilian judge escalates as social media platform X has been taken offline in Brazil after the billionaire refused to adhere to local regulations. In today’s Back of the Brief, California steps up as the first state to tackle AI regulation. Lawmakers have approved a series of proposals aimed at controlling the artificial intelligence industry and combating deepfakes. 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] 🏅 Patriot Gold: Call 1-888-870-5457 for a free investor guide. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to the President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. Let's get briefed. First up, we have an update from the Israel-Hamas conflict. The bodies of six hostages have been discovered in a tunnel beneath the city of Rafa. Among them was Hirsch Goldberg-Polin, one of several Americans, still believed to be in Hamas custody. Later in the brief, we'll turn to Ukraine, where Kyiv has launched at the largest drone attack of the war, sending more than 150 drones to targets across 15 regions inside Russia. Plus, the fight between Elon Musk and a Brazilian judge escalates as social media

platform X has been taken offline in Brazil after the billionaire refused to adhere to local regulations. And in today's back of the brief, California steps up as the first state to tackle AI regulation because nobody loves regulatory action, like the lawmakers in California love regulatory action. California lawmakers have approved a series of proposals aimed at controlling the artificial intelligence industry and combating deep fakes. Well, that should do it. More and bigger government telling you what to believe and not to believe. Yeah, that should be the solution. But first, today's BDB spotlight. I want to start by acknowledging something that we sometimes overlook, I think, when it comes to the conflict in Gaza, and that is that a significant number

of Americans were among those kidnapped on 7 October. At least 14 Americans were abducted. Now, this makes the ongoing war in Gaza the largest American hostage crisis since the Iran hostage situation in 1979. And yet, well, nobody's tying any yellow ribbons around any old oak trees. It's with this in mind that we got some tragic news this weekend. The bodies of six hostages captured after Hamas' attack at the Nova Musical Festival were recovered early Sunday by the Israeli military. Among them was Israeli-American Hirsch Goldberg, Poland. Hirsch was arguably the best known of the American hostages with his parents even addressing

the Democratic National Convention. The last time he was seen was back in April when Hamas released a video of the 23-year-old which revealed that he lost part of his arm to a grenade on 7 October. Now the details are grim. The bodies of the hostages were found in a tunnel beneath the southern Gaza city of Rafa, about a half a mile from where another hostage was rescued just last week. According to reports, the six victims were shot at short range and killed just before the arrival of Israeli forces as their captors fled.

Making the situation all the more tragic is that the thing, three of the hostages who were killed, including Goldberg, Poland, and had been slated to be released in the first phase of a possible ceasefire proposal that never materialized, but was discussed back in July, according to an Israeli official speaking to the Associated Press. With the discovery of the bodies this week, a total of 97 hostages now remain unaccounted for after being kidnapped by Hamas last year. The discovery of the bodies has led to renewed pressure on the Netanyahu government to make a deal with Hamas, because, well, clearly, Hamas is the sort of rational actor that you can make a deal with. In a statement released on Saturday night, the hostages

families and missing families forum, the largest organization of the families of those taken by the terror group, said, quote, Netanyahu abandoned the abductees. This is now a fact. Starting tomorrow, the country will tremble. We call on the public to prepare to bring the country to a standstill, end quote. Sure enough, tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets on Sunday, most of whom blame Netanyahu directly for failing to bring the captives home safely. I don't know, how about you blame Hamas? Israel's largest trade union called for a general strike from Monday to pressure the government the first time they've done so since the October 7th, Hamas attacks. The strike is expected to shut down or disrupt major sectors of the economy, including banking, health care,

in the country's main airport. All right. Coming up after the break, Kiev targets Russia's energy sector in the biggest drone barrage of the war. And Brazil, well, Brazil takes X offline, accusing the platform of promoting misinformation.

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war efforts in a shift that extends the battlefield far beyond the front lines. On Sunday, Russia's defense ministry reported that more than 150 Ukrainian drones had been intercepted or shot down across 15 regions. Unprepared Russian forces were seen using machine guns in desperate attempts to shoot down the incoming drones. Despite these efforts, one drone struck a major refinery in Moscow owned by state energy giant Gazprom. Another significant target was the Konikovo power station in Tver, two hours from Moscow. This facility is the largest energy producer in central Russia, and its destruction could have severe repercussions for the region's power supply. The Moscow refinery, located southeast of the city center, was engulfed in large explosions as seen in videos circulating on social media. While these videos could not be immediately verified,

Moscow mayor Sergei Sobjani has confirmed the facility's damage. The mayor reported that one of the drones had damaged a, quote, adjacent technical facility at the refinery, but assured that emergency services had quickly extinguished to the flames and there were no casualties. Sobionan noted that the refinery's overall operations had not been significantly affected. While Russian refineries were built with Soviet air protections against traditional air bombing, the Ukrainian drone strikes, often referred to as kamikaze drones, due to their one-way mission to self-destruct, caused substantial damage leading to prolonged repair efforts. Now, international sanctions have complicated those repair efforts, given that they restrict

Moscow's access to crucial Western-made parts. Ukrainian President Zelensky defended the attacks, stating that Ukraine has every right to strike back at Russian infrastructure in response to ongoing Russian. aggression. Zelensky emphasized that these attacks, which have grown in frequency and scale on Russia's refinery, are particularly significant because they, obviously, target one of the country's most important industries. Oil and gas exports was, of course, a vital to Russia's economy and war effort. But it's not all good news for Kiev, as one of the few F-16 warplanes delivered to Ukraine by Western allies has crashed, resulting in the death of the pilot.

Ukraine's army general staff reported this on Thursday. Now, this marks the first loss of an F-16 in Ukraine since they were introduced to the conflict at the end of last month, aimed, of course, to counter Russia's overwhelming air superiority. According to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, the F-16 successfully intercepted four Russian missiles defending Ukrainian territory before it went down. The defense ministry has opened an investigation into the crash of the F-16 to determine the exact cause. Okay, turning your attention to Brazil, where one of the world's most popular social networks, X, of course, formerly known as Twitter, has gone offline following a decision by the

Supreme Court to block the platform. The move, prompted by CEO Elon Musk's refusal to comply with local laws, has left millions of Brazilian users without access to X, marking an escalation between Musk and Brazil's judiciary. The backdrop to this conference, is Brazil's ongoing struggle with online disinformation, which peaked during its 2022 presidential election. To combat this, the Supreme Court granted Justice Alexandra de Maurit, extensive powers to order the removal of content deemed threatening to democracy, raising concerns about the balance of judicial power regulating online speech. So yeah, one dude in Brazil gets to decide what the entire country can see online. That seems reasonable. Musk's defiance of Brazilian law has led to swift and

severe consequences. On Friday, the Supreme Court judge issued a ruling ordering the immediate blocking of X in Brazil, accusing the platform of treating itself as, quote, a no man's land, a veritable land without law, by allowing the, quote, massive propagation of disinformation and harmful content. Now, by Saturday morning, Brazilian internet providers and mobile phone companies began enforcing the ban, leaving millions of users without access to the network. The court also imposed hefty fines for users attempting to bypass the ban using virtual private networks or VPNs. Those who violate the ban could face fines of nearly $9,000 per day. Now, that's an amount exceeding the average Brazilian's annual income.

So, yeah, another reasonable idea. The sudden blackout forced many Brazilian users to seek alternatives. with Blue Sky, a rival social network, seeing a surge of some 500,000 new members in just two days. As you can imagine, Musk's reaction to the ban was characteristically confrontational. The billionaire CEO took to X, launching a series of attacks on Judge Moraesh, even though his words were no longer visible to Brazilian users. Musk went as far as to compare Moresh to the infamous villain Voldemort, he who must not be named, from the herryry.

Potter series and posted crude memes. The socialist government's hardline voices, though, applauded the Supreme Court's decisive action. They argued that Musk's behavior exemplified the dangers of allowing social media platforms to operate without accountability, or, to put it another way, to disseminate ideas and information that they disagree with. Yeah, that could be it. While intended to safeguard upcoming municipal elections, the decision has sparked significant backlash, even among Judge Moratius' supporters, who now worry that the crackdown may have gone too far, you think? As X remains blocked in Brazil,

the incident may serve, may, as a precedent for how other countries handle similar conflicts with social media platforms. All right, coming up in the back of the brief, the state of California takes aim at AI, passing legislation aimed at regulating artificial intelligence in combating deep fakes. We'll have the details after the break.

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With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into... Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. In today's back of the brief, California lawmakers have taken steps to regulate the artificial intelligence industry, addressing voter manipulation, deepfakes, and worker exploitation. The proposals passed this week by the Democrat-controlled California legislature are now on their way to Governor Gavin Newsom's desk. Among the landmark measures approved by lawmakers are broad safety regulations for large AI models. Developers would be required to disclose the data used to train the models, and that some move aimed at increasing transparency and preventing potential disasters. Additional measures include mandating safety protocols to prevent algorithmic discrimination in state contracts involving AI, and I have no idea what that sentence means. Let's read that again.

Additional measures include mandating safety protocols to prevent algorithmic discrimination. in state contracts involving AI. Huh. Specific legislation targets deep fakes related to elections. The new bills mandate that large social media platforms remove deceptive AI-generated material 120 days before election day and 60 days afterward. The bill also mandates that political campaigns

disclose when they use AI altered content in their advertisements. Another first-in-the-nation safety measure, focuses on AI-generated child sexual abuse imagery. Under current law, prosecutors face challenges in going after individuals who possess or distribute AI-generated content if it doesn't depict a real person. The new legislation would make AI-generated child sexual abuse material illegal. Worker protections are another focal point of the legislation. Inspired by the recent Hollywood actor strike, one bill seeks to safeguard voice actors from being replaced. by AI-generated replicas.

The measure is identical to the terms agreed upon in the SAG-after contract with studios back in December. In addition, proposals would prevent government agencies from using AI to replace call center workers. New penalties could also be introduced for digitally cloning deceased individuals without the set of their states. This measure responds to growing concerns about using AI to recreate people posthumously for commercial purposes, and that's an area where current laws have yet to catch up. To address AI's growing influence, California lawmakers passed several bills to improve AI literacy.

One proposal suggests incorporating AI skills into school curriculum. This would equip students theoretically with the knowledge and tools needed to thrive in a future where AI plays a central role. The legislative session's final votes are wrapping up this week with Governor Newsom, facing a 30 September deadline to act on the bills. And that, my friends, is the President's Daily Brief from Monday to September. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at PDB at thefirsttv.com. Of course, as if you need a reminder, to listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of the President's Daily Brief by visiting pdbpremium.com.

Also, I hope you had a chance to check out our extended weekend show this past weekend. It's the PDB Situation Report. New episodes air every Friday evening at 10 p.m. on the first TV. And of course, on our YouTube channel, at President's Daily Brief, and all podcast platforms. I'm Mike Baker. I'll be back later today with the PDB afternoon bulletin. Until then, stay informed. Stay safe.

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