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The President's Daily Brief
February 5th, 2025: Guantanamo Opens For Business & Trump Restores ‘Maximum Pressure’ on Iran
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It's Wednesday, 5 February. Welcome to the president's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage this morning. Coming to you from an undisclosed location, apparently in an airport lounge somewhere on my way out to the Middle East. It's back to playing Where's Waldo. All right, let's get briefed. We start things off today with America's ongoing crackdown on illegal migrants as the first deportation flights to Guantanamo Bay begin. And El Salvador's president offers to house US Deportees, no matter their citizenship, in his nation's notorious mega prison. Later in the show, President Trump is gearing up for a showdown with Iran, reportedly set to sign a memorandum restoring his maximum pressure campaign against the Islamic nation. Plus, more fallout from Trump's suggestion of emptying Gaza, with Arab nations publishing a joint letter. Well, that should do it. Expressing opposition to any efforts to relocate Palestinians. And in today's Back of the brief, the new administration continues to slash the federal US workforce as over 20,000 employees take a buyout deal, with more resignations expected in the coming days. But first, today's PDB spotlight. The first flights have taken off. Illegal migrants detained in President Trump's latest crackdown are now being sent to Guantanamo Bay. According to the Wall Street Journal, two planes have already made the trip this week, with one departing from Fort Bliss, Texas, and carrying about a dozen people. But this isn't just a one off move. Trump has long considered Guantanamo as a major holding site for those caught crossing the border illegally. He said the facility could hold as many as 30,000 people, and that number could climb if the administration moves forward with expansion plans. Over the weekend, US Service members arrived at the base in southeast Cuba working to prepare for the expected influx of detainees. And while Guantanamo is a military installation, it's not the Pentagon running this operation. It's Homeland Security that's leading the effort. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth gave some insight into the administration's thinking in an interview with Fox News. Calling Guantanamo a key element of expulsions and mass deportations, he explained that if an illegal immigrant can't be sent back to their home country right away or even to an interim destination, they'll be held at Guantanamo as a transit hub. As we mentioned before on the PDB, this is not the first time that the US has used Guantanamo this way. Back in the early 1990s, the Clinton administration detained thousands of Haitian migrants there. At its peak, the facility housed over 45,000 people. It's also worth noting that during the Biden administration, there were reports that officials had considered using Guantanamo as a migrant holding site back in 2022. But Gitmo isn't the only place that the Trump administration is looking at for large scale migrant detention. May I present to you El Salvador. That's right, the country El Salvador. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who's currently on a diplomatic visit to Central America, just revealed that El Salvador's President, Nayib Bukele has made a surprising offer. Bukele says he's willing to house criminals deported from the US in his country's prisons, and not just Salvadorans. According to Rubio, that includes criminals of any nationality, even American citizens. Correct. Bukele is offering to take in dangerous criminals who are U.S. citizens and legal residents, holding them in El Salvador's massive high security facilities. Now, Rubio correctly called the offer extraordinary and unprecedented. Bukele later clarified that he's only talking about convicted criminals and that El Salvador would house them in exchange for a fee. Oh, well, there you go. Essentially outsourcing part of the U.S. prison system. And there's no doubt that his country has the infrastructure to do it. Under Bukele's leadership, El Salvador has built one of the largest mega prisons in Latin America, the Terrorism Confinement center, which can house 40,000 inmates. Of course, there are some major legal and constitutional hurdles when it comes to sending U.S. citizens to foreign prisons. Yeah, you might suspect that's the case. But whether this is just a diplomatic gesture or a serious policy discussion, it's another sign of just how aggressively Trump is moving to reshape America's approach to illegal immigration. All right, coming up after the break, President Trump revives his maximum pressure campaign on Iran and faces backlash from Arab nations over his suggestion to empty Gaza. I'll be right back. The White House has made it official. The maximum pressure campaign on Iran is back. On Tuesday, Trump signed a presidential memorandum reinstating the aggressive policy aimed at stopping Tehran from Getting a nuclear weapon and cutting off its main source of cash, which of course would be oil exports. The goal is to drive Iranian crude sales down to zero. This move comes as Trump prepares to hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. No coincidence there. Netanyahu was one of the biggest backers of Trump's original maximum pressure strategy. And now with the policy returning, the White House is making clear that things will be very different from the past four years. Under President Biden, Iranian oil exports surged to their highest level in years. With the previous administration taking a more hands off approach, Tehran was able to rebuild some of its economy and continue funding its proxies across the Middle East. That's all changing now, as you might suspect. A White House official told Reuters that Trump's directive orders the US Treasury Secretary to impose maximum economic pressure, which means tougher sanctions, tighter enforcement, and an all out effort to choke off Iran's finances. And if history is any guide, well, the Iranian regime is in for a rough ride. During Trump's first term, his pressure campaign hit Iran very hard. The US unleashed over 26 rounds of sanctions targeting more than 970 Iranian individuals and entities. The goal was to cripple Iran's economy, cut its oil revenue and block its access to international banking. And it worked. Iran's economy tanked, inflation soared, and even the Iranian regime's ability to fund terror proxies such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, well, that took a serious hit. One of the biggest moves back then, Trump officially designated Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the irgc, as a foreign terrorist organization. That's the first time that the US Ever slapped that label on a state run military force. That designation made it easier to go after Iran's financial networks and disrupted their ability to operate internationally. And of course, the IRGC has its fingers in every corner of the Iranian economy. But if the White House is expecting Tehran to just roll over this time, well, they might be in for a fight. Iranian state controlled media wasted no time in responding, calling Trump's move futile and insisting that sanctions cannot bring the country to its knees, nor will they be able to do so in the future. End quote. Okay. Sticking with the Middle east, the new US Administration is doubling down on the suggestion that Palestinians living in Gaza should be relocated to more stable countries in the region while the enclave is rebuilt, prompting significant pushback from Arab nations. Trump reportedly believes that even if the current ceasefire between Israel and Hamas holds, reconstruction in the battered enclave will take far longer than the three to five year period envisioned by the previous Biden administration. Trump believes that realistically, the Gaza Strip will remain a wasteland for at least the next 10 to 15 years, and that an alternative plan for the strip's people is needed. That's according to administration officials who spoke with the New York Post. With that in mind, Trump is looking to temporarily relocate residents in a way that would allow them to live relatively normal lives while international partners work to make Gaza habitable again. President Trump first floated the plan just days after being sworn back into office, and White House officials said Tuesday that that his position has not wavered. An anonymous White House official told the Post, quote, president Trump looks at the Gaza Strip and sees it as a demolition site. He sees it as impractical for it to be rebuilt within three to five years and thinks it's inhumane to force people to live in a land such as that, with unexploded ordnance and rubble, end quote. The White House argues that temporarily relocating Gazans will, quote, provide dignity for the Palestinian people, and said Trump is reaching out to Arab partners and Israel to come up with creative solutions to address the challenge. During his first week back in office, Trump suggested that Jordan and Egypt take in some of Gaza's more than 2 million residents, though he didn't elaborate on how the process would work at the time. But Arab nations are not thrilled with the proposal, to say the least, Citing concerns about long term demographic changes in the region. The foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE sent a joint letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this week, strongly opposing any plans to displace Palestinians from the enclave. The letter said, in part, reconstruction in Gaza should be through direct engagement with and participation of the people of Gaza. Palestinians will live in their land and help rebuild it, and they should not be stripped of their agency during reconstruction, as they must take ownership of the process with the support of the international community. They also see Trump's plan as playing into the hands of far right leaders in Israel like Omar Ben gvir, who recently resigned his position as minister of national security over his opposition to the Israel Hamas ceasefire deal. Ben GVIR and other allies have long advocated for permanently transferring Gaza's Palestinian population to other Arab countries, with an eye on folding the Gaza Strip into Israel to prevent Hamas from reconstituting their forces. Arab officials note that while Trump has said relocation from Gaza would be temporary, he has not made it clear whether Gazans would be guaranteed a right to return to the strip at a later date. For now, details about Trump's strategy for Gaza remain sparse, and they hinge, of course, on Israel and Hamas reaching the proposed third phase of their fragile ceasefire agreement, which calls for launching a comprehensive reconstruction plan for Gaza overseen by the United Nations. Alright, coming up in the Back of the Brief the Trump administration continues to cut down the federal workforce in the US as over 20,000 employees take a buyout, with more departures expected in the coming days. I'll be right back. In today's Back of the Brief, President Trump's campaign to slash the federal workforce is now in full swing, with a major deadline looming for government employees to voluntarily leave their positions in exchange for eight months of severance pay. As you'll recall, last Tuesday, the Trump administration proposed a buyout offer for all federal employees who don't want to return to in person work, something that was mandated by one of the many executive orders signed by Trump during his first week back in office. The White House offered full pay and benefits through September 30th to any employees who opted in, provided that they accept the deal by 6 February. According to senior administration officials who spoke with Axios On Tuesday, roughly 20,000 federal workers have already accepted the offer. That's a number that represents roughly 1% of the total federal workforce. But the Trump administration is hoping that by the deadline on Thursday, some 5 to 10% of those on the federal payroll will choose to accept the exit package. One White House official told the New York Post. We expect more to come, I can tell you. The 20,000 number isn't current. The number of deferred resignations is rapidly growing, and we're expecting the largest spike 24 to 48 hours before the deadline. The buyout is available to at least 2.3 million federal employees, and if the White House can hit their targets, they believe the reduction in force could save taxpayers close to $100 billion. But legal questions, of course, remain, with critics of the buyouts arguing that while they're illegal, lacking proper congressional authorization, public sector unions have strongly opposed the offer and advised their members against accepting the buyout, warning that there's no real guarantee that people will receive their promised payout. It's also important to note that the annual attrition rate for federal workers is around 6%, meaning it's not yet clear how many individuals who ultimately accept the offer had already planned on leaving. And that, my friends, is the President's Daily brief for Wednesday, 5 February. If you have any questions or comments, suggestions, polite ones of course, or humorous anecdotes, please reach out to me@pdbhefirsttv.com and in case you're thinking to yourself, you know I love the PDB but would prefer an ad free experience. Well, simply become a premium member of the President's Daily brief by visiting pdbpremium.com I'm Mike Baker and I'll be back later today with the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. Until then, from the road, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool.