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The President's Daily Brief
July 31st, 2025: What Happens If Israel Annexes Gaza? & China Exploits U.S. Weakness
00:27:20
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Mike Baker
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Later in the show, one of America's top former spies is sounding the alarm. China apparently sees the cracks in our defenses and is moving fast to exploit them. That's shocking. Plus, President Trump is turning up the heat on India, threatening tariffs and penalties over its ties to Russia. As an aside, India, through its support of Russia's energy industry, along with China, Iran and North Korea have been the chief enablers of Putin's war effort in Ukraine. And in today's back of the Brief, the New York Times used a haunting photo of a child to paint a picture of a starving Gaza. Perhaps you saw that in their papers and other papers, but left out a key fact about the boy's health. Now, once again, they've had to issue a correction. Fact checking apparently, is a lost art at the New York Times. But first, today's pdb. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is expected to present what's likely to be an extremely controversial proposal to his security cabinet in the coming days, one that would fundamentally alter the future of Gaza. And when I say it's likely to be controversial, I mean it's definitely going to be controversial. According to details leaked to Israeli media, Netanyahu's plan would see Israel officially annex large swaths of the Gaza Strip. And when was the last time you heard anybody use the word swath? Well, I just did. The proposal reportedly begins with a public ultimatum, with Hamas being given several days to agree to a ceasefire. If they refuse, Israel will begin annexing territory, starting with the called buffer zone along the border, followed by areas in the northern strip adjacent to Israeli communities like Sderot and Ashkelon. Now, that's a major departure from Israel's current policy. Annexation isn't just about holding ground militarily. It means permanently extending Israeli sovereignty over the land, integrating it under Israeli law, and effectively erasing any future Palestinian claim to it. The plan envisions a gradual process that ultimately leads to the annexation of the entire Gaza Strip. Netanyahu has reportedly told ministers that the plan already has the blessing of the Trump administration. Oh, really? A detail that would, if confirmed, carry significant weight. Still, many observers see this as more political maneuvering than policy. Netanyahu has been under growing pressure from his right flank, especially from his ultra conservative finance minister and his religious Zionist party, who have blasted his government for allowing increased humanitarian aid into Gaza. Well, that doesn't sound very religious. With Netanyahu's coalition looking shaky, this annexation proposal may be more about survival than strategy. Meanwhile, as we've been reporting here on the pdb, the diplomatic winds in Europe appear to be blowing in the opposite direction. The United Kingdom has announced that it will recognize a Palestinian state by September unless Israel commits to a peace deal. Other European nations are expected to follow, and Canada appears to be moving in that direction as well. Still, even if this plan is unlikely to unfold as proposed, the fact that it's even being seriously discussed means that it does deserve attention. And while we don't usually do speculation here on the pdb, in this case, we frankly don't have to speculate all that much as to what could happen next. There are multiple historical examples of Israel annexing territory once it's under military control. And those precedents offer a revealing guide to what might follow if Israel moves to annex parts of Gaza. The most relevant examples are East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, both captured during the 1967 Six Day War. In both cases, Israel didn't just occupy the land. It unilaterally extended Israeli law and governance over the areas, effectively annexing them in East Jerusalem. That move was codified in 1980 with the Jerusalem law declaring the city Israel's complete and united Capital. Now, the international backlash was swift and nearly universal. The UN passed a resolution calling the law null and void, and not a single country recognized the annexation at the time. Now, that held for decades until the Trump administration officially moved the US embassy to Jerusalem in 2018, recognizing it as Israel's capital. The Golan Heights followed a similar path. Israel passed a law in 1981 applying Israeli jurisdiction to the territory, drawing another UN resolution rejecting the move. Again, no major country recognized the annexation until once again, the Trump administration did so in 2019. But here's the key point. Israel never gave either territory back. Despite international condemnation, despite decades of diplomatic pressure, Israel held firm. And over time, its control became a political and geographic reality, even if not a legally recognized one. Of course, Gaza isn't the Golan Heights or East Jerusalem. It's densely populated with nearly 2 million Palestinians, most of whom are not citizens and would likely not be offered citizenship. Annexing that kind of territory raises a different set of long term challenges, obviously ones that Israel's government has yet to address. So if Israel were to annex all or part of Gaza, say the southern border corridor or strategic buffer zones, the immediate outcome would almost certainly be international outrage, UN resolutions, and a flurry of diplomatic statements. But if Israel believes a territory is essential to its security and the political winds at home favor it, it is possible that annexation could happen. Regardless, the historical pattern is clear. While the annexation might not be recognized by the international community, nothing is really done to reverse it. Once the bulldozers move in and the maps are redrawn, very little ever gets undone. Alright. After the break, a former NSA chief warns China is exploiting U.S. vulnerabilities. Shocking. And President Trump targets India with tariffs over its ties to Russia. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here. Let me ask you a question about your personal finances. Look, what if you could delay your next two mortgage payments, right? I mean, imagine this. You can put those two payments in your pocket and you'll finally get a little breathing room. Now that's possible when you call American Financing today. If you're feeling stretched by everyday expenses, you know what I'm talking about. Gas bills, grocery bills, utility bills, various bills piling up. Well, you're not alone. Many Americans are actually putting those expenses on their credit cards. 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Mike Baker
Welcome back to the PDB the former head of the NSA and US Cyber Command is sounding the alarm over China's unrelenting efforts to undermine America's national security interests from within. General Timothy hall, who was forced out of his position heading the NSA back in April of this year, is warning that the communist regime sees major gaps in US defenses, which they are working tirelessly to exploit. The CCP's primary vectors of attack are cyber infiltrations and online influence operations, which prioritize collecting sensitive intelligence, stealing intellectual property from American institutions and companies, and sowing political discord among the public. That's according to an exclusive interview that hall gave to the New York Times. The retired general noted that while cybersecurity and cloud computing firms have taken steps in recent years to bolster their defenses, China's sophisticated cyber operations remain one step ahead, regularly identifying vulnerabilities that allow for often devastating hacking attacks. The former NSA director said American tech companies in Congress have been slow to move on the issue, leaving the public exposed to China's malign activities. It's difficult to overstate the urgency of his warning. Just last week, for example, we learned that Chinese state sponsored hackers recently breached the agency responsible for guarding America's nuclear secrets and stockpiles. They gained entry by exploiting security vulnerabilities in Microsoft's SharePoint document sharing servers, which are widely used in both the public and private sectors. In addition to accessing the US National Nuclear Security Administration servers, the hackers infiltrated some 400 other agencies, businesses and groups globally, including the US Department of Education, Florida's Department of Revenue and government servers across Europe and the Middle East. Microsoft identified the cyber actors as belonging to two Chinese based hacking collectives known as Lenin Typhoon and Violet Typhoon, which both have deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party. If the Typhoon branding sounds familiar, it's because two cousins of these organizations, known as Vault Typhoon and Salt Typhoon, have been behind numerous cyber breaches targeting telecommunications firms and critical US Infrastructure in recent years. Last fall, the Salt typhoon Group targeted US telecom giants including Verizon, AT&T and Lumen, creating backdoors into the company's systems that exposed the data of millions to agents of the ccp. The hackers cast a sweeping net, collecting not only metadata related to call records, but also live phone calls related to specific targets such as high profile American political leaders leaders. It was regarded as one of the worst hacks in American history. Volt Typhoon, meanwhile, has been pursuing a years long cyber campaign that has hacked into computer networks at US Naval ports, water treatment plants, airports and other strategic targets. Retired General Ha warned that these attacks will continue to worsen and expand in scale unless US Leaders start taking the threat more seriously. Ha told the Times, this is a bipartisan issue. Cybersecurity and the security of our nation. Now he's particularly concerned with how the CCP is leveraging rapidly advancing artificial intelligence tools for their hacking and influence operations. The communist regime has increasingly turned to AI to generate what is known as synthetic media to aid in propaganda campaigns. Now this can include deepfake videos, AI generated images and fake news stories, which they often work to amplify across social media using bot farms and unwitting online influencers. I'm looking at you, all you TikTok watchers. Ha said. The challenge is, quote, how do you identify synthetic media? How do you ensure that we understand the source of what we are looking at? End quote. Now he noted that there's a lot of work to be done by the tech industry to overcome these next generation threats. But he added that advancements in AI also offer America new tools to defend against this type of asymmetrical warfare. Ha recently joined Ballistic Ventures. That's a company that funds and advises cybersecurity startups. And he's focusing his efforts on how we think about implementing new technologies in ways that make us more secure as a nation. But despite the recent breaches by groups like Salt Typhoon and Volt Typhoon, other national security experts say the Chinese cyber threat is still not properly understood by private sector companies, lawmakers and the general public. Yeah, I think that's a fair statement. Glenn Gerstel, the former general counsel for the nsa, told the Times, quote, the way China approaches cyber offense is so wildly different from the way we do with massive investments in personnel, with massive amounts of money in computer power. Americans, including policymakers, he said, don't understand that the threat is overwhelming and pervasive, end quote. Well, I can't spot the lie. In his statement, Gestel called for greater transparency from the US Intelligence community on what it knows about China's offensive capabilities, arguing if it caused us to focus more on the threat, well, the trade off could be well worth it. Okay Turning to trade talks, President Trump is threatening India with a 25% tariff plus a separate so called Russia penalty. Now the dual threats come as relations with New Delhi sour over sustained purchases of sanctioned oil from Moscow days before the Aug. 1 deadline to reach a deal. In a pair of truth social posts Wednesday, Trump tore into India's trade practices, accusing the country of maintaining the most strenuous and obnoxious non monetary trade barriers of any country. Now he also railed against New Delhi's continued reliance on Russian energy and military hardware purchases, describing the behavior as, quote, all things not good. Oh, and he put it in all caps so you know he was serious. At a time when Washington is pushing the world to isolate Moscow over its war in Ukraine, Trump went on to post, quote, remember, while India is our friend, we have over the years done relatively little business with them because their tariffs are far too high, adding that New Delhi is Russia's largest buyer of energy along with China. Now the parallel warning underscores just how far talks with India have unraveled in recent days. As we've previously discussed, Trump struck deals with Japan and the European Union that set tariffs between 15 and 20% in exchange for greater market access and foreign investment pledges. Those successes appear to have emboldened the president to take a harder line with New Delhi. One source familiar with the negotiations said India is willing to go part of the way. But the president isn't in a part of the way mood. Now President Trump is increasingly tying trade policy to geopolitical loyalty, threatening secondary penalties against nations that keep buying sanctioned Russian oil. And few countries are more exposed on this than India, which now sources roughly 35% of its oil from Moscow, of course at a discounted price. That's a dramatic jump since the start of the Ukraine war. For reference, in the year Prior to Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, India imported just 2% of its total crude oil from the Kremlin Trump administration officials say the Russia penalty could kick in as early as 8 August, when his self imposed ceasefire deadline for Moscow expires. It's unclear whether India will receive formal notice and what the Russia penalty will look like. But according to one senior official, the president has made it clear behind closed doors that steeper tariffs are on the table. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant, speaking this week from Stockholm, said he personally warned his Chinese counterparts during trade talks. I think anyone who buys sanctioned Russian oil should be ready for penalties. Washington National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett defended the administration's stance, calling the tariff a necessary step to correct what he described as a fundamentally skewed trading relationship. Now, Hassett said, quote, I think President Trump's frustrated with the progress we've made with India, but feels that a 25% tariff will address and remedy the situation in a way that's good for the American people, end quote. The hope is that the combined pressure could push Indian firms to either shift production to the US or open their domestic market further to American exports. For India, the twin threats represent a sharp turn from earlier optimism. Now whether New Delhi chooses to make concessions or risk looming tariffs in the coming days. Well, we'll know that in the next few coming days. Alright. Up next, in the back of the brief, the New York Times quietly admits that the so called starving child in Gaza on its front page had a pre existing condition. Critics say the damage obviously was already done. Stay with us. Hey, Mike Baker here. Let me take just a brief moment of your time to talk about ways to protect your hard earned savings. Now one of the smartest ways to protect those savings is through diversification. And one way to diversify is with gold from the Birch Gold Group. Look, gold is up some 40% in the past year and central banks where they're buying up gold in record amounts in part due to global instability. Birch Gold Group makes it easy to own physical gold either in your IRA or like a lot of folks, just stored safely at home. Text PDB to the number 989-898 and Birchgold will send you a free information kit on gold. There's no obligation. It's just useful information with an A rating. 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Mike Baker
In today's Back of the Brief, the media once again has demonstrated their apparent inability to fact check, in part due to coverage bias in politics and in part because, well, some of them are just lazy hacks. The New York Times was forced to issue a correction earlier this week after publishing a front page story that used the image of an emaciated child named Mohammed to illustrate the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Now, the image provoked widespread outrage over Israel's ongoing military operations across Gaza and came amid surging reports of mass hunger, malnutrition and an increasing number of civilian deaths. The image was quickly picked up by Sky News, the Guardian, the Daily Mail, the Times of London, and the UK's Daily Express. The Daily Express dedicated their entire front page to the image with a caption reading quote for pity's sake, stop this now. The suffering of little Muhammad clinging on to life in Gaza shames us all. End quote. The problem? Well, the problem is that in their initial article, the Times failed to disclose that Muhammad suffers from pre existing conditions that impact the child's brain and muscle development. Don't let facts get in the way. David Collier, a freelance investigative reporter, found a May 2025 medical report from Gazan health authorities saying that Mohammed was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and suffers from a genetic disorder. He also noted that pictures of Muhammad's family showed his mother and older brother to be of normal weight. In their correction, the Times said children in Gaza are malnourished and starving, as New York Times reporters and others have documented, but added, we have since learned new information, including from the hospital that treated him and his medical records, and have updated our story to add context about his pre existing health problems. This additional detail gives readers a greater understanding of his situation, end quote. So actually not an apology? No, that hardly qualifies. We should note the correction. Is it a correction? It's neither a correction nor an apology, but whatever it is, let's call it a statement. We should note that the statement was published to the New York Times public relations account on X, which has just 89,000 followers, rather than to their main X account, which is followed by 55 million. So that's called, in journalistic terms, burying the lead. In an updated article, the Times said Muhammad, according to his doctor, had pre existing health problems affecting his brain and his muscle development. But his health deteriorated rapidly in recent months as it became increasingly difficult to find food and medical care, the New York Times continued, and the medical clinic that treated him said he suffers from severe malnutrition. Now, as the Times notes, the fact that he has pre existing health problems doesn't mean that the war isn't exasperating the state of his condition. Of course it is. Collier acknowledged that Muhammad has needed specialist medical supplements since birth and is likely suffering further due to the limited aid flowing into Gaza. Yes, that's all true, but the point is that Mohammed's tragic plight is a much more nuanced situation than the New York Times first implied. Nuance, like fact checking, not to mention like objectivity, seems to be difficult for some members of the media. Instead of properly vetting their story, they rush to leverage the image to push a specific narrative. Meanwhile, as international outrage mounts, Israel announced on Sunday that they've initiated tactical pauses in military operations across several zones in the Gaza Strip to allow UN aid convoys to move safely into Gaza through newly established humanitarian corridors. The pause runs daily from 10am to 8pm and according to the IDF, will remain in effect until further notice. And that, my friends, is the President's Daily brief for Thursday, 31st July. Now, if you have any questions or comments, and I hope you do, please reach out to me@pdbhefirsttv.com and of course to listen to the show ad free. Which you can do. And you can do that simply. 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.