The President's Daily Brief - The PDB Situation Report | July 11th, 2026: The Iran Ceasefire Is Dead—Here's What Happens Next

Episode Date: July 11, 2026

In this episode of The PDB Situation Report: The ceasefire between the United States and Iran has officially collapsed, with both sides once again exchanging military strikes across the Middle East. Former White House National Security Council official Richard Goldberg joins the show to break down what triggered the renewed fighting, what comes next, and whether the region is now headed toward a broader conflict. Ukraine's campaign against Russia's energy infrastructure appears to be delivering real results, as fuel shortages spread across parts of Russia and occupied Crimea. Open Source Intelligence Analyst Ryan McBeth joins us to explain how Kyiv's strategy is straining Moscow's war effort and what it could mean for the conflict going forward. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief.  YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Acre Gold: Turn your pocket change into physical 24-karat gold and enter to win a limited-edition Hot Wheels gold bar at https://GetAcreGold.com/PDB QUO: Make this the season where no opportunity slips away. Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to https://Quo.com/PDB HomeServe: Protect your home systems from expensive repairs with https://HomeServe.com/dailybriefand get 50% off your first year of coverage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. And if you're asking yourself, is Mike still on the road? The answer is yes, Mike is still on the road. All right, let's get briefed. First up, the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran has collapsed. There's a shocking surprise, with both sides once again exchanging military strikes across the Middle East. Former White House National Security Council official Richard Goldberg stops by to give us as insights. Later in show Ukraine's campaign against Russia's energy infrastructure appears to be baying off as fuel shortages spread across parts of Russia and occupied Crimea. Open source intelligence analyst Ryan McBeth, you know him, joins us for more on that. But first, today's situation report spotline.

Just weeks after announcing what was billed as a breakthrough memorandum of understanding or misunderstanding, however you want to phrase it, the ceasefire there really wasn't between the U.S. Iran appears to have completely unraveled, and honestly, I don't think it was actually ever rambled. So it's a neat trek to unravel something that was never really rambled, if you get my drift. Not long after Tehran, yet again engaged in attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. forces responded with a series of massive airstrikes. Iran then retaliated, launching attacks against U.S. bases across the region, including installations inside several Arab partner nations.

with both sides, once again exchanging military blows, hopes for a broader diplomatic breakthrough appear to have collapsed. Joining me for more on this is Richard Goldberg. He's a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Richard's also a former director on the White House National Security Council and a former Navy Reserve Intelligence Office. Richard, great to see you again, Matt. Thank you very much for joining us here on the Situation Report. Always ready to join Let's start, if we could, with your assessment of where we are now. After the past couple of days, obviously the Iranian regime decided to fire yet again on commercial shipping in the strait. The U.S. now responded with two consecutive days of strikes.

Where do you think this is going? Well, I think the important context to remember that we never had full compliance from the Iranians. from the Iranians on what we thought they were supposed to do under the MOU. When we lifted the blockade up front, we issued a general license out of the Treasury Department that, at least on its face, allows the Iranians to sell their oil on the open market and get paid for it even in dollars, which was a pretty big concession. And if they do certain other things, they can unfree some more funds, let the inspectors back in, give up the nuclear material, dismantled things.

They can get a lot more money out of it. But upfront concessions on their side are free navigation, you know, free of navigation through the straight of Hormuz, no tolling, no interference, no harassment. And from day one, it was very much of, well, you know, a press release from the IRGC, you know, we're still going to charge a toll. You've got to come through us. And then the other side of the house would say, well, we're waiting 60 days under the deal to impose tolls, but get ready to pay tolls.

Then suddenly you'd see a ship. get fired upon. This wasn't the first time this happened since the MOU and the U.S. would respond, you know, with some sort of a retaliatory strike against points along the coast or on the islands around this rate of Hormuz. And so even despite all that uncertainty and the lack of sort of complete compliance by the Iranian side, the shipping community took the device of the MOU, sort of the feature of there is supposedly now peace, there is supposedly now a ceasefire, there's a bridge to something more at the end of 60 days, there's an incentive structure for the Iranians to play along. That seemed to be enough to change the psychology of the market to get ships moving out

faster. And we've cleared a lot, if not almost all of the product that was bottled up on the other side of the straight at this point. That's a huge relief to the market. And so the Iranians have not gotten some big massive financial windfall. In fact, because they haven't been quick to make more concessions, we have not unfrozen any funds. And because the duration of the license was only 60 days and we're still dealing with terrorists who are still acting like terrorists, they're not finding buyers on the open market outside of the Chinese. So the IRGC is watching their supposed effective control of this trade of Hormuz washing away. Ships are coming out under U.S. protection, U.S.

escort or other sorts of military protection and deterrence. They're not, you know, getting paid tolls. Nobody is looking like they're overly afraid of them. Even with one-off strikes against tankers, the market price has obviously gone down tremendously. Stocks can start rebuilding. And they're not getting any money. They're still bleeding out financially. So we're seeing this frustration rising from that side of the IRGC committee running

in the country that was opposed to the deal in the country that was opposed to the deal in the first place, lashing out, seeing if they can't disrupt the market, slow down or stop shipping, shake down President Trump for more money. And he's responding by saying, I'm not playing that game. We're going to keep the straight open. I'm going to militarily continue what is effectively sort of backing into Project Freedom at this point and respond militarily until we see an end to this harassment. And rather than sort of going straight to major military operations, inland strike, critical infrastructure, things like that, he's very focused, and I think that's the right move, very focused on the Strait of Hormuz. The direction to Admiral Cooper clearly has been

whatever targets that you need to push back on their attacks on the Strait of Hormuz, that's the target set. And obviously, if the Iranians choose to hyper-escalate, then we may have to go up the escalation ladder or the Israelis will or others. But for now, that's the focus. And again, for now, the price of oil is not skyrocketing, staying right around where it's been a little bit of an edge up, and ships are still moving. That could change. But if the president can keep shipping moving, denied the Iranians the benefit, he's in pretty good shape. How many ships have moved, do you think? Well, I didn't give an hour that that number is changing. I mean, I think we have seen a reduction

today in the numbers that we had seen, let's say a week ago or a few days ago before this round of strikes. But the tanker traffic data, which typically is going to reflect you, any ship that has their indicators on, their AIS on, their signals omitting. Others will be passing during the night with AIS off to try to get around any attacks. I think I'm going to wait to get some sort of official estimate out of the White House or others because their numbers and they're tracking this closely out of the Office of Naval Intelligence and elsewhere to really know exactly how much is moving. So I don't want to put a number on it, but it is not zero.

It's not unloaded. It's not sort of pre-flow, but it's not zero. Yeah. Well, to your point, we haven't had free flow since the memorandum of misunderstanding was signed. Now, a couple of things that you referenced, do we know for a fact that they have not been able to sell oil to anyone other than the Chinese? and do we know also with some certainty that they haven't been collecting tolls from vessels

that have been passing through their approved authorized route? So I'll tell you what I've heard from sources in the U.S. and the region. First is there's no verification, there's no understanding knowledge that they have found buyers that are non-Chinese. The Indians were flirting. They were thinking about it if they saw the 60 days become 120 days. or 180 days, they might have decided to move in there. They had not done so.

They didn't find any other buyers besides the Chinese there. There was a question of whether some of the trading firms would step in just to take product and resell it. I think Trafigura or others, I'm told they have not done that. Perhaps, again, sort of waiting for this first 60-day period to become a little long-term insurance, see that the risk is reducing. The fact there is no escrow account requirement that was attached to the license actually increases people's risk because if you are doing a transaction with the IRGC, a terrorist organization, you don't really know what's going to happen to you later on, especially with the criminal liability side of a terrorist designation. Whereas if they actually had a requirement to put money into escrow, you would actually be moving some of that liability risk onto the U.S. government.

you would just be taking the product and then let the government find out how the payment's going to work later on. The money gets trapped in escrow. And the tolls, you know, it would be sanctionable without any sort of official waiver or license to be able to pay tolls for this purpose. The U.S. has come down pretty hard on the Omani's in past weeks for saying that they would be into it. They would collaborate on it. When we saw some sort of collaboration happening, we saw a big slapdown of the Umanis in the Umanis in the U. Omani's very publicly, which was, I think, actually unexpected. Now, I have also heard a rumor that the Omanis are collecting fees on the Omani side and putting

them in their own escrow accounts in Muscat. Remember, there is Iranian funds trapped in Oman going back to the Biden administration. The news talks about the money in Qatar, the $6 billion or more that was moved in there under Biden. There was another $10 billion moved. from Iraq. These were electricity payments owed by the Iraqis to the Iranians that Biden moved into Oman to process invoices and give Iran some access back in 2023. Some money actually got paid out of there. The Omanis might be setting up an additional escrow account side of taking fees for further negotiations with the Iranians in the future. I don't know if that's happening. That is a rumor I've heard. That would be concerning if that's going on.

No, it's, you know, part of the problem is, you know, there's not a lot of transparency here on some of these issues. And in some cases for good reason, obviously, but there's sensitive conversations. Richard, a lot of questions left in my little book of questions. So we do have to take a break, though, first before we get moving on the next bit. But if you would stay right where you are, we'll have more from Richard Goldberg. Foundation for Defense of Democracies right here on the Situation Report. So, you know what I'm going to say? Stick around.

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Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Joining me once again is Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for Defensive Democracies. We're talking to all things Iran. Richard, let me throw out this comment. It's not really even a question, but I'd love your response. A couple of days of consecutive strikes, as you pointed out, going after sort of the Southern Coastline hitting targets that have been involved in the harassing of commercial shipping and U.S. forces, etc. So that does seem very strategic. but this is, you know, a rinse, wash and repeat pattern, right?

We've been seeing this really ever since the memorandum was signed. And after a retaliatory strike, then we go right back into this pattern about, you know, we're going to have some negotiations. We've got more talks coming up in Doha. The backstani's, of course, are very invested in the mediation. And so after the second day, you know, in my mind, I thought, oh, okay, maybe we finally've come to the realization that we're dealing with a regime that you just can't deal with.

They've never negotiated in good faith in 47 years, right? And that perhaps we need to take a different tact here. And then after the president had said, you know, as far as for him, the agreement is over, I mean, within a very short period of time, he turns around and talks about. how they want to do a deal very badly. And, you know, so we do seem to be right back into that pattern. I'm starting to feel like nobody in the administration has an appetite to get back into a conflict where the goal is, let's finish this in terms of the regime.

And I know that that's an easy thing to say. And people have been saying it for decades. But this is the one moment in all these years. of watching and dealing with the Iranian regime where you feel like, yeah, maybe we are close to creating the environment where you get the people of Iran rising up and saying enough's enough. And I realize that, you know, it implies that we've got to do a number of things. You can't do that by just dropping munitions. My goal, and here's my question after I spent all this time rambling at you, is I would

think you need to reinforce the blockade, get that back up and running, and then just choke out every bit of revenue that this regime has until you create the situation in country where you finally once and for all get rid of the IRGC and the regime. Maybe I'm completely wrong. What say you? Yeah, so there's a lot to unpack there. But I think you're stating all the right Thomas. Your observations are not wrong.

Your questions are the right ones to be asking the objective is clearly the, right one is how do you, you know, end this regime and leave it in the dustbin of history, as Reagan would say, nothing really changes if this remains a terrorist regime that has some capabilities to harass somebody and do do bad things. And we may have mowed the grass for the time being at some point the weeds will grow back and certainly it would feel like a moment of history and inflection point where a lot of things are possible. Then come the caveats.

clearly over a number of weeks of sustained military operations, we came to certain realizations of what was penetrable and what was not penetrable by air and sea alone. And there are certain capabilities that are underground that are clearly, to some extent, not penetrable to our military capabilities. Otherwise, they would no longer be here. Command and control bunkers, missile cities, etc. that which we could hit, we hit.

And if you look at some of the open source, it would appear to me that we ran a number of re-attack runs on key sites with B2 bombers. And if we could kill it, if we could hit it, we did. And if it didn't get destroyed, we weren't just going to keep wasting munitions. And I think that's a big reason why we transitioned into the ceasefire to begin with. So the question here now is, if Iran retains X number of capabilities, and at some level of command and control

to be able to use those capabilities with precision and lethality and response at some level of escalation, a modulation of escalation of their choosing, which they appear to do. What are you prepared to do to them that would level some sort of a death blow to their economy, to the leadership?

What capability have we provided to some organized group on the, ground to take advantage of that. That is a big gap in our knowledge. To date, it doesn't look like it really exists. I would hope it has been built over many years. I don't see it there. I don't see people with weapons organizing and logistics, secure communications and in Alshara-type band of brothers that are, you know, marching on Tehran or at least any other city in the country. That could be something that's being operationalized by the Israelis, you know, with our support in some way.

And if there was a moment to do it, you know, it would be, it would be now or very, very soon. If you were to bring back the blockade, you would expect there would be some heightened escalation on the Iranian part to try to shut down the Strait of Ramos more than what you are seeing. Three shots, you know, a few shots at three vessels is not a sustained campaign to shut down the strait in my view. they could be doing a lot more right now to inflict a lot more damage and frighten the shipping community from moving and inflicting a lot of precise damage on the critical infrastructure in the Gulf, on energy, on water desalination, etc.

If we feel confident in our ability to defend against that or degrade their ability to carry out those attacks and can prove that, then I think the president has absolute flexibility to maintain a military, operation that provides defense to our allies, defense to the shipping community, puts on the blockade and just squeezes them to death, you know, while you provide maximum support to the people. If we don't have that confidence and they still retain that short-range threat that can do a lot of damage globally to the economy and to the shipping community, then that's why I think you see the president and the administration trying to stay in this middle area that doesn't feel great in the short term, but provides at least some sort of continued pressure relief in the shipping

community, gets oil continuing to move, doesn't inflict harm on ourselves unnecessarily, and still tries to maintain as much leverage and pressure on the regime as possible. Again, the missing piece here, whether you're doing with a blockade in place or a blockade lifted, is what's happening on the ground. Is there any material support to the people going on? is there a covert program? If there's not, that's not good to the hopes of actually bringing them down. Now, obviously, you can't predict the unpredictable, the unexpected moments.

You know, we didn't know that millions of people were going to come out into the streets of Tehran and around the country in January. It just sort of happened. This can happen again, right? It's unpredictable type of situation. It would be nice to not make it unpredictable, but to actually make it quite predictable and planned with our support. material and financial support and communications, etc.

Intelligence. But I've said that from weeks before the operation kicked off and through it. And I've been surprised by the lack of creativity and imagination of support for the people, at least that is visible. So, you know, if we can put the blockade on, keep ships moving, protect the Gulf, degrade their capabilities in the retaliation side, no question. That's checkmate. I've always said that. If we're not confident in that, then we continue this dance of tit for tat, basically, try to get as much shipping going, get relief as much as possible in the stocks and inventories, build that back up, get through the midterm election, and then sort of see where the president wants to go from there. But if on the Iranians, you also have, you know, you know the clock, you get a, you've got to say the enemy gets a vote. And they may not let us stay in that middle ground. They make.

continue to provoke to a point where the president just continues to say, you know what? Gloves are off. And then the question is, what do you, yes, blockade can come back. That's the lowest one that still hasn't been done. You could do decapitation of leadership if you think you can get them. They've been allowed to come out into the open for the funeral for Ali Khomeini. That means they're getable. You don't think the Mossad's on every single one of them, you know, like looking at like,

oh, there's Ahmed Dahidi. He's out of the bunker. He's moving. Where do you go next? That's a possibility. And then you can turn the lights off. You could hit critical infrastructure, but you've got to be prepared for the response.

Yeah, I think that's a bad option. People have been talking about, well, we hit the civilian infrastructure, hit those desalination plants. I think that's, you got to now, you're creating an environment where the people are not going to take kindly to any of that because folks tend to want water. I think the problem here is, to some degree, is that you look at it,

the Iranian regime, and these are all just a lot of different faces, but they're all the same Islamic Republic. They haven't changed their stripes. They've always been exceptionally good at stringing along negotiations. It's just dragging these things out, playing a game. There's always been, you know, it's sort of like, this is a terrible analogy, but it's like corporations that for decades have looked at China as a holy grail of marketing. And the Chinese regime has always played that game so well, right? The U.S. Western companies rarely do well in China, you know, or as well as they think they're going to do. But it's always that idea that, oh, my God, I'm, you know, if I can just crack the marketing nut in China, you know, it's going to be fantastic. And it's kind of that way with the regime.

We've always thought every administration's like, ah, if we just, you know, if we just negotiate, we talk with them. They're going to come around. We'll keep mirroring our values and our Western ideas and the way that we process information on them. And that does doesn't. Doesn't work. And I think now what we're saying is even more so, even more so it seems like the regime has made a calculation that says, we don't have any other options here. We're carrying this out to the end, right? Because logic would dictate that they would just continue string this long, but just enough

so that they get concessions, right? And then they keep that going. and then they realize, you know, we're going to lose interest, and suddenly they're around for another 30 or 40 years. But they're not doing that, right? They're striking out of their vessels. They're trying to make a point about control of the straight. They know they're losing these opportunities in terms of their economy.

Their economy is, you know, it's a goat rope. And so it looks like they've kind of made this calculation and says, yeah, we're putting all our chips in the table here. And, you know, when you do that, you're dealing with a mindset like this. that, you know, it seems, I don't know, it almost seems like they're, they're forcing the president's hand to say, we got to do the same. We got to say this regime's got to go. I realize it's so easy to say that. There's so many problems that it's so complex. And I also realized that I just rambled another two minutes and it won't ask you a question. No, no, I, listen, I, I,

I think about exactly how you've articulated it. It's a hybrid of their old playbook and their current playbook. You know, they can't get out of the, like the playbook's the playbook. I mean, we've just, I mean, it's amazing. Like, they just, it doesn't matter what happens. They just literally have the one playbook that somebody has to like get off the shelf, go to the dead body of the old coach. Do you have the playbook, get it out? What are we supposed to do next? A lot of it is predictable in how they talk and how they, how they operate, how they negotiate, as you say, is from a rope-a-dope strategy through negotiations. And yet, what's materially changed is we've opened an artery financially. They're bleeding out. And even if you think maybe

there's a tourniquet on the wound from the MOU and the blockade lifting, it's not providing them relief. They know that the wound could be mortal. And so there is an accelerant on their timeline here. They do have to push harder. They have to get more relief faster or they could actually bleed out. And that means the president is watching that too. And if he sees that in the intel, and if they're fighting amongst each other and the situation is more dire than they let on right now and they brought a million people out for a funeral great it sounded like it was almost like a giveaway

at like a supermarket for people who are paying 100% inflation rates for basic goods right now like hey come for free food and goods and freebies and it's like a Black Friday sales here at the Cimini funeral like yeah you're going to get a lot of people out you just got a more in a little bit come out more than a little bit. Yeah, come on.

Come on. You go blowed up your freezer. Yeah. Yeah. Then that makes a lot of sense that we do have leverage and the president has to find this balance between the patients to protect the oil market and the opportunity in front of him to change history by tipping this regime. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, well, I, for one, am glad that you and I solved this entire problem during the course of our conversation. Wow. Our next episode will be live from Tehran. That's exactly right. We'll be doing this on Tehran State TV. Well, listen, Richard, I tell you what, it's always fascinating and always a real pleasure

to have a chance to get you back on the show. And so I want to say, thank you very much, man. I look forward to the next time we have a chance to talk about this because I don't think it's going away. I don't think it's going to resolve itself anytime soon. Richard Goldberg, Foundation for Defense of Democracy, great guy. All right, turning our attention to the grinding war in Europe. You may have heard about it.

Ukraine expands its campaign against Russia's oil industry, targeting Moscow's shadow fleet as fuel shortages continue to mount at home. This is something to really watch. Open source intelligence analyst and good friend of the show and man about town, Ryan Macbeth, will join us from Hawaii for more on that. We'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here. You may know me as the host of the president's daily brief podcast.

Well, hopefully you do know me as the host of the PDB. But I'm also a business owner, I've been for many years. And I want to take a moment to talk to all of you business owners out there. Look, do you ever wonder how many customers you're losing to missed calls and messages? An inefficient company communication system, you know this, is simply lost revenue. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo. That's QUO, the business communication system built so that you never miss a call. Quote works wherever you are via phone a computer, and you can keep your number,

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fuel depots, and now dozens of oil tankers linked to Moscow's shadow fleet, fuel shortages are spreading across parts of Russia and occupied Crimea. So is Keeb's strategy finally putting real economic pressure on the Kremlin? And could it, ultimately, affect Russia's ability to sustain the war? Joining us now is the esteemed Mr. Ryan Macbeth. Ryan's an open-source intelligence analyst. You know that. You can check out his YouTube channel at Ryan Macbeth programming,

or at Substack. I'm still trying to figure out what that is at Ryan Macbeth.substack.com. Now, Ryan joins us today from Hawaii, where excitedly he just finished filming the role of Maui in the new Disney live action film, Moana, which I thought, frantically, they would have given that role to The Rock. But well done you, Ryan. Good to see you again, Matt. You know, I was so lucky that I could be part of the RIMPAC exercise or Rim of the Pacific among 30 nations, and they gave me the Moana Raft. You know, it was fantastic. I think I would have rather had the Aege's destroyer,

but I was very happy on the Moana Raft. That is very cool. Now, Rimbach, that's a lot like, what, Burning Man? Yeah, you can think of it as Burning Man for the Navy, where you have 30 nations, multiple ships, hundreds of aircraft, and they all converge to learn how we can fight side-by-side-by-side. with each other better than we have before. And we also have a Synchx, where the USS Pelaloo and the USS Mobile Bay will be destroyed,

and they will go down like ladies. It is honorable to be sunk by the U.S. Navy and our coalition partners. There is no greater honor for a naval ship than to be used as a target in a large-scale exercise with multiple nations. Is that a naval technical term they're going to go down like ladies? I would say, yeah, they'll go down like a lady. They're not going to be chopped up into razor blades, some ignominious end. They will go down to the bottom of the sea as a training tool for our sailors and the sailors of our partner nations.

People will learn from this. And the crews, the former crews of that ship, will be beaming. with pride knowing that future sailors will become better sailors after these ships are sunk. And it's great. Do they eventually allow them to be dive wrecks or? Oh, I don't know. They're sunk in far deeper water. I'm sure if you have one of those submersibles, you can go down to look at it. But I would certainly say it's going to become a nice place for fish. But you want to sink these things out and see far enough that, you know, You're not going to have any kind of maritime hazard.

And these ships are also stripped of everything dangerous. So chemicals are cleaned and all that before they're actually used as targets. They probably take the torpedoes off. That sort of thing is what you're saying. Yes, absolutely. Okay. Well, you know what? I want to talk about Wimpact later on.

But in this first segment, Ryan, I want to get your assessment of the current situation as Ukraine appears to be, and certainly we kind of saw a little bit of that in the conversation between Zelensky and President Trump during that Turkey summit, they seem to be gaining, I don't want to say the upper hand necessarily, but they're certainly creating an interesting situation for Putin and the Kremlin through their efforts to attack the wartime economy there in Russia. Yeah, you know, I'm not going to call this. the beginning of the end, but it certainly

could be the beginning of the middle. And Ukraine still is a long way to go. But so far, Russia has never had to face direct consequences for its actions in Ukraine. Unless you knew personally somebody who was a soldier, a lot of wartime Russia looked not very much different

than the United States during the global war on terror. where the only time the war actually affected you was when you knew someone who was killed or injured. And everyone else just kind of went about their lives. For a couple of things, like Western companies shut down in Russia. It was harder to get things like microchips. But for the most part, the average Russian wouldn't even notice what was going on. And now with Ukraine specifically targeting refineries, which will raise the price of gas and make it a lot more difficult for Russia to gain tax revenue

from selling petroleum products overseas. Now Russia is actually feeling this pinch. And were you aware that the Russian government is allowing people to buy anti-aircraft guns? I am totally scared. I thought that was a uniquely American ability. Really? Oh, maybe in Texas. But here's what's kind of fascinating and how Ukraine is actually playing the card of insurance.

So since a war has not been declared, then Russian insurance companies don't have to pay out insurance for force major. And the war damage is invalid. So if you own a refinery and your refinery gets blown up by a Ukrainian missile, you don't have any recourse. You eat that. You have to pay for rebuilding your refinery yourself as well as any kind of employee compensation for death or serious bodily harm. So that's going to out of your pocket. Now, what Russia has said is if you would like to buy anti-aircraft systems and set them up around your plant, we will give you a license. to do that. Now, they can't buy

a panseer. They can buy like the 57 ZSU 572, ZSU 574s to shoot down incoming drones. But yeah, Russia is allowing their refineries in certain factories to purchase anti-aircraft

guns and anti-dron electronic warfare systems to protect those factories because the Russian government says they won't do it. This is a bit of a sidebar here, the production capabilities internally for Russia for anti-drone systems, counter-drone systems. Well, I know they are in the case.

I just realized I gave you the first half of the question, but then I didn't finish it by saying, how good are they? I got the gist of it. I've been doing this for a long time. I've given a lot of briefings where the person asking the question doesn't know what they're talking about. It's okay. Hey, now, you see what it does that. Yeah, the important part is never make the parish near briefing look stupid.

He's always the smartest guy in the room. I can tell you that they are getting better. Russia does have a capability to learn. They are not the same army from 2022 that kind of stumbled into Ukraine. They are learning. They are getting better. If you watched the Victory Day parade a couple of months ago back in, I believe it was May, you saw Russian soldiers with what almost looked like handheld,

handheld counter drone munitions. And we're not talking about the drone guns that go through every shutdown code. We're talking about actual surface to air, almost shoulder-fired, anti-drone munitions. They basically looked like old Sagger missiles with four propellers on them. And these were Russian special forces or internal security carrying these things that could protect the parade and the president from any kind of incoming drones. So Russia is certainly learning. I think they are getting better at it because you get better or you die. You get better where your factory gets destroyed.

So in a lot of ways, both sides have a motivation to get a lot better at this. No, that makes sense. Now, how successful? because, I mean, obviously, throughout this entire war, right, Putin's invasion, we've only just kind of dealt with the fact that the numbers are always a little bit, nah, you write, fungible, right? So Ukraine will give casually figures, Russia will give casualty figures. Ukraine will talk about success rates in terms of hitting particular targets and Russia will give it. In terms of how they're doing now, how do you assess the effectiveness of Ukraine's drone campaign to strike out at the Russian energy? infrastructure. I think they're doing very well. I think they're doing very, very well, especially for what they have. They've created a lot of internal weapons systems, medium range drones and long range drones. And the big key here is Crimea, where Crimea used to be a prize for Russia. They can say, come to Crimea, vacation here. It's safe. And now Russia is trying to figure out how to get gas.

to people in Crimea because Ukraine keeps destroying their fuel. Now Crimea is almost like a millstone. So Ukraine has had a lot of success with medium-range drones and with long-range drones like the Flamingo that are hitting targets deep inside of Russia where they never thought they'd be hit before. And Russia is playing whack-a-mole because they only have a finite number of counter-dron systems. and with these individual companies being shoulder the responsibility of performing counterdrome

with anti-aircraft systems, now you have that lag time because you have to hire people, you have to train them, and you have to buy the equipment. So Ukraine is doing very well with this. And the other thing it does is it reduces the tax burden or the tax revenue that Russia can collect to help fund the war. Russia tax oil twice. One when it comes out of the ground, they're getting their cut. Just like Tony Sepada, they get their cut as soon as it comes out of the ground.

Then they get taxed again when the oil is refined into whatever petroleum distillate product that they're selling and shipped overseas. We're getting to the point where Russia might actually have to import some gasoline, which is something I never ever thought I would see, especially in a country as resource rich as Russia. Yeah, that is an amazing statement right there if that actually happens. And look, to your point about a finite number of resources, Putin has made some comments just recently about the need for the Russian industrial base to pull together and start producing more air defense systems. So he's admitted that they have an issue there. I mean, he didn't go overboard. You're never going to get Putin to be particularly transparent.

Sparrett, but he did reference, which I think is a very interesting tell. Ryan, if you'll stay right there, don't go anywhere. I mean, unless you have to go out and get a Mai Tai there in Hawaii. Other than that, you stay put. And we'll be right back with more from Ryan McBeth there on the PDB situation report. Stick around. Hey, Mike Baker here with an important message for homeowners. Now, think about the last time, right?

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Joining us once again is a good friend of the show, the esteemed Ryan Macbeth. You can check out his YouTube channel at Ryan Macbeth programming. And on that substack thing, and I will one day figure out what substack is, just go to substack.com slash at Ryan Macbeth. Ryan joins us today from Honolulu, where he's giving Hulah, lessons to foreign sailors at RIMPAC. Well done you. You're a patriot. I will do what my country calls me to do to improve relations with our allies. You're a selfless individual. So, Ryan, we were talking about the success of the Ukraine campaign

in the previous segment targeting energy infrastructure in Russia. I want to take a little bit have a turn, have you heard anything regarding a possible mobilization by Putin and their current efforts to maintain personnel numbers? So that keeps popping up, especially in open circles. And I think it is wishful thinking from the Putin is done crowd, which are people who, oh, Putin's hand was shaking when he was sitting at this table. Putin is done. And that's not true. Now, there has always been this deal that Russia's had with its elites. And the deal is do whatever you want with the country. You can make us the pariah on the

world stage, but don't touch our kids. And the second you have a mass mobilization, a general mobilization, you are starting to touch the shoulder of the people in Moscow and St. Petersburg and they are not going to stand for that. And even autocracies have a constituency. I mean, there are elections in Russia.

Yeah. But sometimes that election, the results of election mean you end up hanging upside down outside of a gas station. You get the Chowcchescu special or your whole family gets shot in a basement. So the

The whole idea. Nice reference, by the way. Nice reference to Jalgescu. He doesn't get enough shoutouts these days. So the whole idea if you're an autocrat, rule number one of being an autocrat is to stay in power. And as much as people would like to think, oh, we can go get, the Russia might call up reservists or do a general mobilization. And Putin is done. It's just easier to get a bunch of North Koreans, which you can get. for pennies on the dollar. And North Korea is more than I'd be. Get rid of them. They're also recruiting from, well, they were

recruiting from Cuba and then the flight stopped. I mean, it's kind of, I can't really put them on a boat. Sub-South American countries, African countries, Colombia, you have Colombians serving in Ukraine and serving in Russia. These guys, they just like to fight.

And they're really good at it. Some of the best light inventory in the world is Colombian. So it's just a lot easier to go get foreign soldiers and pay him a contract rate, especially when those contract soldiers come from North Korea. So you don't see a large-scale mobilization coming down to pike anytime? I don't. I think it's just too politically dangerous for Putin. And rule number one is stay in power because there's very few retirement plans available when you are an autocrat.

either you die in office or you die like Chalcchescu up against a wall. And ideally, you want the former, not the latter. Yeah. Well, yeah, I could see one day Putin living in an assisted living facility with Bashar Assad maybe and some other, you know, deposed dictators. It'd be a great TV series, by the way. It would be. You know, if Maduro was only smart, he could have been playing Fortnite with Assad inside of

Russia and the guy had to be obstinate. Yeah. So tell us about RIMPAC. I am curious to see what you're seeing there. What's impressed you the most, what's surprised you the most, you know, give it a go. You know, what's kind of surprised me is seeing countries you wouldn't normally think about have advanced weapon systems. Canada, I was recently on a frigate called the, a... HM-C-S-Rigina. I have to remember that. You always have to slow down before you say Regina.

Yeah. And that's how they pronounce it. That's what I'm going to call. They're, I mean, Regina is in Queen, right? The Queen said. I have a Fred who lives in Regina. I've been there as well to brief the Mounties. And this system almost has like a mini-ages system on it.

and when incoming missiles or drones are heading toward the ship, this system can identify track, work with other frigates, and take down those drones, all automated, almost like an ages system. And he uses something called Link 16, which is a networking protocol that allows this ship to talk to other allied ships and air assets as well. It's also kind of fascinating is that the United States kind of, we didn't give up our anti-submarine warfare capability,

but we emphasized it less after the end of the Cold War. And Canada never stopped that mission, mainly because Russia is directly on their mortar, they're right across the Arctic Circle. So Canada has always been concerned about Russian submarines. They never gave up that anti-submarine warfare expertise. And now Canada, as an ally, provides an incredible

skill when it comes to finding enemy submarines. And there's also... I'm sorry, and I'll be interrupted you. I apologize, but why did the U.S. back off of that? Was it a cost issue primarily? Well, money, right?

When you think about it, it's the end of the Cold War, and then the global war on terror comes along. And so now you have all these old Oliver Hazard-Perry class frigates. And you're like, you know what? We don't really need these things anymore because Russia doesn't really have a lot of submarines. And we need to spend money fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. So let's get rid of the frigates.

We don't have to worry about that anymore. And that's when the Navy kind of developed this thing called the littoral combat ship, which was a really good idea. But the problem is that because of modern day drugs, it can't littoral and because it doesn't have a lot of weapons it can't really combat so it's it's one of the it was a good idea that was kind of the whole idea was you park a littoral combat ship off the coast it has a really shallow draft and then the the gun on the littoral combat ship uh can help support marines ashore uh and it just never really worked out because you you couldn't really get this thing

closed because of the drone threat and several of all the reasons. The ship had problems with... You know, that makes me answer to this question, Ryan. I know this is off topic, but, you know, bear with me. From your perspective, what's the biggest folly that the U.S. military

is engaged in in terms of a program, right, a defense program? What would you consider the biggest, whether you call it a waste of money or just a pursuit, you know, what would you say? So it would probably be a toss-up between the Sergeant York system, which was an anti-aircraft system, was kind of developed in the 80s that used a laser for ranging and targeting. And during a battlefield condition, smoke would essentially blind the laser.

And maybe the M10 Booker, the M10 Booker, which. was one of those things where it was a it was not a light tank it was essentially an assault gun and it was one of those things that sounded like a good idea that everyone wanted to make happen even though we're seeing tank turrets getting tossed in the air due to drones in Ukraine so it'd probably be a toss up between those two systems at least for the army all right staying somewhat on the same topic what do you think about the 810 people keep trying to mothball the 810 what do you think about that So the A10 is a fantastic aircraft for coin or counterinsurgency.

It can put a lot of lead on target. We keep fighting new roles for it in the sense of we're using A10s for maritime patrol in the Strait of Hormuz. Now, the disadvantage of the A10 is that it's not a survivable aircraft and it actually never was. Now, survivable in the sense of it can take a lot of ground fire, yes, absolutely. but survivable in a modern contested environment, that's really questionable. And it's questionable whether the A-10 would have been survivable in the 1970s, 1980s in Europe,

when every single airfield would have been turned into a lake of nuclear fire. Maybe you would have gotten one sortie off, but maybe you would have landed on a runway or on a highway and been refueled and rearmed. And that'll work until he essentially run out of, fuel and spare parts. But the big question is, does the A-10 accelerate change? And if the answer to that is no, then we need to rethink our priorities.

And when you take a look at an aircraft like the F-35, which has sensor fusion, it can talk with various aircraft and ships, and even Patriot missile units, you can have an F-35 tell a ship, fire a missile, I will guide that missile toward an enemy incoming missile and you don't have to turn your radars on to guide it. I mean, that's an incredible capability. I think the A10 is a good aircraft for a very limited role, but it's certainly something that we might be able to replicate with something like Super 2 Canal, which I believe the Air Force has bought a couple of those aircraft as close air support for special forces. Okay.

Well, last question now. Do you think, I'm just jumping all over the place, aren't I? Do you think that we're going to let Turkey back into the F-35 program? I do. I do. I think that the president's certainly going to push for it. Congress is going to want some concessions. There are people in Congress who are very,

who are very afraid of Turkey's rhetoric toward Israel. There's also other people who are afraid of kind of upsetting the balance of power in the region because Turkey hasn't always been friendly with Greece, nor have they been friendly with Israel. However, there is a financial component to this. I like money, and I like the idea of the F-35 per unit cost being reduced, because there's more in the pipeline. The more aircraft we make, the less that aircraft is going to cost. And having F-35s on NATO's southeastern flank,

I think is a greater advantage than allowing Turkey to develop their con-stealth fighter, which isn't going to be even remotely as good. And the whole idea is you want to give your adversary dilemmas-not-profit, problems, right? A problem is one solution. A dilemma has multiple solutions, each of which are equally bad. And having turkey, giving turkey, not giving, selling, we are selling these fighters. And there is a non-zero cost to that and only benefits us. Selling these fighters to Turkey gives them capabilities to put them on par with the rest of NATO.

it makes them another front and if a war with Russia would ever break out now you have a hundred stealth fighters based in Turkey that can be used against targets in Russia. That's not something to take lately.

So I think that people in Congress will eventually to come around to it. Just Turkey has to eliminate their S-400 missile systems. There's a couple of ways they can do that. And once those Russian systems, are demilitarized, then I see nothing wrong with allowing them to take delivery of the F-35.

Yeah. I think it was probably the finest example of talking out of both sides of your mouth when Turkey got into the F-35 program and then started buying air defense systems from Russia. I think it was this. Wow. I mean, so it's one of those things that they live in a bad neighborhood, right? And we just weren't giving them a good price on the Patriot. And they said, fine, we'll buy it from Russia.

And also, I think the Airdawan might have wanted to be, for lack of a better term, a dick. And that's the best way of putting it. You know, I'm going to do this to show you, you should have sold us a Patriot at a lower price. And, you know, now it's going to be a lot harder for us to get them the Patriot when it's probably the most in-demand weapon system on the planet right now. but with Ukraine, hopefully getting licensing to manufacture the Patriot system, maybe per unit cost will come down and maybe Turkey can buy out of that and we can kind of backfill with Patriots until they do. I think it's going to be fascinating to see how efficient the Ukrainian industrial base can

be in terms of manufacturing Patriots. Because again, they've demonstrated an amazing ability for field expediency and production of weapons, obviously out of necessity. But it will be interesting to see whether there's any change between how long it takes the U.S. to produce and how long it may take Ukraine to produce if they get the licensing. I have no doubt that Ukraine would probably have something within six months to a year. I mean, they're really that good. I mean, they have to be.

They have to be. And they'll probably figure out a way to make it cheaper and simultaneously. This is what I would do. I would come out with the Ukraine. version that maybe has less range and less ability, but you can use as a cheaper option for things like drones. So they paint a pretty like the Flamingo. No.

They could. I mean, do you know why that was done? It was the paint that I had. Yeah. Yeah. You used to paint the air. You ain't on time to run down to that paint store. Hey, listen, Ryan, you know, as always, right, as always, it's been, you know, an average performance.

But, you know, we're working on. it. So I want you to have a free time. Well, you're right. Where that guy used to brief. Well, it's about enjoying your time at Rimpack. And so it's not like Coachella. It's not like a bunch of bands and everything like that. I misread what the event was all about. Let's see. I'm here in a South Korean punk rock band and they sounded pretty much like an American punk rock band. So I guess I guess we really are all the same. Yeah. I'll listen to you, Mr. Glasshouse. full. All right, Ryan. Have a great time, man. I look forward to seeing him the next time. Thank you for inviting me. Take care. What a great guy. Ryan Macbeth. Remember, you can check

them out on YouTube and you can check them out on substack. That's all the time we have for the PDB situation report. If you have any questions or comments, well, please reach out to be at pdb at thefirsttv.com. You know what we do? Once a month, members of the PDB rapid response team parachute into our secret secure compound located underneath a dormant volcano. I can't tell you exactly where, but they sit around and sip expensive scotch and read through viewer questions. And so it's quite the do, right? It's very posh. Then during a process it follows long-established parliamentary rules, I believe, they select a number of your questions for inclusion in our monthly award-winning, Ask Me Anything episodes. This, in fact, is a time-honored tradition

dating back, I think, to the Roman times. I may have that wrong. I'm not sure. So listen to this podcast, ad-free. You can do that, become a premium member of the president's daily brief by visiting BDBPremium.com. I'm Mike Baker. And until next time, you know the drill. Stay informed. Stay safe.

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