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The President's Daily Brief
May 28th, 2026: Iran Is In Far Worse Shape Than It Admits & Israel’s Drops Another Hamas Commander
00:23:49
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It's Thursday, the 28th of May. Welcome to the President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. And yes, thank you for noticing. I, I am on the road. All right, let's get briefed. First up, Iran continues projecting strength. But new reporting suggests the regime may be under enor internal pressure as economic turmoil, fuel rationing and the fallout from an 88 day Internet blackout take their toll. Later in the show, Israel says it's killed Hamas new military chief less than two weeks after taking out his predecessor as the campaign to decapitate the terror group's leadership continues inside Gaza. Plus, Ukraine may be losing backing for a key ammunition procurement effort as support for a Czech led coalition now begins to crack. And in today's back of the Brief, the Russian bankers may soon have a new job description and that would be drone defense. Moscow has now authorized parts of its financial system to engage incoming UAVs, so the bankers have to be excited about that opportunity. But first, in today's PDB spotlight, Iran's leadership insists that the country is standing strong. The regime continues issuing threats. Revolutionary Guard commanders are denouncing diplomacy as weakness. And Tehran is still publicly refusing to surrender its nuclear ambitions. But behind the scenes, a very different reality may be taking shape because according to a growing body of reporting from outlets including Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and others, there are increasing signs that the state of Iran may be far worse than the regime is letting on. And perhaps the clearest indication of that came earlier this week when Iran partially restored Internet access for some citizens after nearly three months of blackout conditions. Now, Internet access inside Iran remains unstable and heavily restricted. Platforms like WhatsApp and Instagram are still blocked in many areas without VPN access. But even the limited restoration may reveal something important. The blackout was becoming economically unsustainable. The shutdown reportedly lasted 88 days, making it one of the longest nationwide Internet blackouts ever recorded. And the economic consequences appear to have been enormous. Reuters reports that Iranian businesses relying on online commerce were effectively cut off from customers, of course, for months. The Associated Press cites estimates that the blackout may have cost the Iranian economy up to $80 million per day. And this wasn't happening in a healthy economy to begin with. Iran entered this year already dealing with soaring inflation, a collapsing currency subsidy, protests, and growing public anger over the cost of basic goods. Reuters reported back in January that the protests posed one of the biggest internal challenges to IR Iran's clerical rulers in years, driven in large part by economic hardship. At the same time. The country has also been absorbing the economic effects of war sanctions and strikes on energy infrastructure and disruptions tied to the fighting in the Strait of Hormuz. The Wall Street Journal reports that Iranian officials are now aggressively pursuing access to frozen foreign assets and relief from economic pressure, with mediators discussing the possible phased release of billions of dollars in Iranian funds currently frozen. Ab and according to Reuters, Iranian officials reportedly fear that unless sanctions are eased, the country could face another major wave of unrest. That may explain why Tehran has remained at the negotiating table even after recent military clashes with US Forces. It may also explain why the regime reportedly delayed publicly announcing casualties from recent strikes in order to avoid derailing ongoing talks. Because right now, Iran appears to be trying to balance two competing realities simultaneously. On one hand, the regime still wants to project strength. It wants to appear defiant. It wants to show both domestic audiences and foreign adversaries that it remains firmly in control. But on the other hand, there are increasing signs that the leadership may understand that the country's economic trajectory is becoming increasingly threatening to the only thing that really matters to the regime leadership. And that, of course, would be maintaining their grip on control and power. Fuel rationing has already reportedly emerged in parts of the country following strikes on energy infrastructure. Inflation remains severe. Food prices have surged. Reuters reported earlier this year that the Iranian rial lost roughly half its value over the previous year. And while the partial return of Internet access may offer some short term relief for businesses and ordinary Iranians, the damage from an 88 day shutdown will not be easily reversed. Entire sectors of the economy were disrupted. Small businesses lost customers, Freelancers and digital workers lost income. Supply chains and financial transactions were interrupted. And perhaps most importantly for the regime, millions of Iranians were reminded just how fragile the country's economic situation has become. None of this, of course, means that the Iranian regime is on the verge of collapse. Tehran has survived periods of unrest before. The security apparatus remains powerful. And nationalism generated by the conflict may still be temporarily insulating the leadership from some public anger. But taken together, these developments increasingly suggest that Iran may not be negotiating from a position of confidence. It may be negotiating meeting because the leadership believes the current path is becoming unsustainable. All right, coming up next, Israel claims another top Hamas commander is dead after a strike in Gaza. And cracks may be emerging in a major European effort to keep Ukraine supplied with artillery ammunition. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here. Now, I've spent a career thinking about how to protect what matters. The threats change, of course, but the response, well, the response doesn't it's always stay aware and stay prepared. And did you know that last month the US treasury froze $344 million in crypto wallets linked to Iran. The adversaries are trying to do essentially an end run around the US dollar and Washington is seizing the proof. But here's the twist. The same government freezing Iran's crypto is now stockpiling its own over 300,000 bitcoin held as a strategic reserve. The executive order calls it, quote, digital gold. Now, if Washington treats it as a reserve asset, you have to ask, is any of it inside your retirement account? That's where block trust comes in. It's an AI managed crypto, ira, institutional custody tax advantaged, built for people who take retirement seriously. And here's the part for PDB listeners. $2,500 in free Bitcoin when you open an account. That's right, all you got to do is go to mikebakercrypto.com to claim your $2,500 in free Bitcoin. That's MikeBaker crypto do. And as you know, past performance is no guarantee of future performance.
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Hey, this is Mike Slater. I have a podcast called Politics by Faith. I would love for you to listen. We take the news of the day and we run it through the Bible. What does the Bible have to say about this? Because there's nothing new under the sun. You read the headlines, everything's all crazy, world's coming to an end. It's all in the Bible. And after every episode, hopefully you leave with a proper perspective and a biblical piece. Please join us wherever you listen to podcasts and we also have a YouTube page as well. YouTube.com politicsbyfaith
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welcome back to the PDB. Israel has now announced the killing of Hamas's newest military chief just 11 days after his predecessor was eliminated. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced Wednesday that an Israeli airstrike killed Mohammed Oday the previous day in Gaza City. So who exactly was Oday, besides now claiming the title for shortest tenure by a Hamas military chief? According to officials in Jerusalem, Oday, much like other Hamas military leaders, was not just a field commander. Israeli military officials viewed him as part of Hamas's remaining senior operational leadership inside Gaza and allegedly involved in planning aspects of the 7 October 2023 attacks. Hamas is now losing senior commanders so quickly that replacement leaders are barely settling into their jobs before Israeli intelligence locates and targets them as well. And even with a White House brokered ceasefire still technically in place, Israel is continuing a long term campaign aimed at dismantling Hamas's leadership structure inside Gaza. The goal is not just the elimination of individual commanders. Israeli officials say current operations are part of a campaign targeting anyone tied to those 7 October attacks or hostage taking operations ranging from senior leaders to lower ranking militants. Israel increasingly appears determined to ensure Hamas cannot regenerate as either a military force or a governing authority inside Gaza once the war eventually ends. So while the ceasefire may have reduced the intensity of the ground campaign, Israel's decapitation strategy against Hamas leadership appears very much alive now. Hamas immediately confirmed Oday's death, saying he was killed alongside his wife and two children after an Israeli strike hit a residential building in Gaza City's Ramal neighborhood. Witnesses described to the Wall Street Journal multiple explosions in the crowded commercial district Tuesday night as residents gathered after breaking their fast ahead of Ida Lada celebrations. Even after the strikes, residents said Israeli drones continued circling overhead for nearly an hour as emergency crews and civilians rushed toward the blast site. Videos circulating online show ambulances pushing through debris filled streets while civilians carried wounded victims away from damaged buildings and destroyed vehicles. Some footage also appeared to show limp victims in the street. According to the Israel Defense Forces, this was not an opportunistic strike carried out in the fog of war. The military says the operation followed months of tracking Oday's movements across central Gaza. Israeli officials also claim several of the targeted buildings were being used as Hamas hideouts, while another nearby apartment allegedly belonged to a militant who directly participated in those 7 October attacks. So from Israel's perspective, this remains fundamentally a war tied directly back to the 7th of October. Israeli Defense Minister Katz made that explicit, stating we pledged to eliminate everyone who led the October 7th massacres and so we shall do, end quote. And that creates a growing problem for the ceasefire framework. On paper, the Trump brokered agreement was supposed to create a pathway toward a more stable post war environment inside Gaza. But several of the core pillars needed to make that happen still have not materialized. Hamas resists all demands to disarm. The proposed international stabilization force intended to help secure Gaza has yet to fully take shape, and the technocratic governing committee meant to oversee daily administration inside the enclave still has not entered Gaza. So what we're left with instead is increasingly something that looks more like an unstable operational pause layered over a conflict that neither side appears fully prepared to end. I want to turn now to Europe, where half of the countries that have been backing an important Czech led ammunition initiative for Ukraine have actually stopped contributing financially and to really understand why this matters, you have to understand what this program was originally supposed to represent. Back in 2024, a Czech initiative was held up as one of Europe's clearest answers to a growing problem. Inside the war, Ukraine was burning through artillery shells faster than the west could produce them. European leaders spent months publicly insisting that they would stand with Kyiv for as long as it takes. Still behind the scenes, Europe's defense industry simply was not prepared for a prolonged industrial scale war against Russia. At the time, Western factories were producing roughly 1.3 million artillery shells a year. Russia was estimated to be producing closer to 4.5 million annually and at a fraction of the cost. That imbalance was becoming catastrophic for Ukraine. Russian artillery crews were at times carrying out as many as five times more fire missions than Ukrainian forces, while Kyiv's then Defense Minister Rustem Umarov warned about what he described as shell hunger. So the Czech led coalition emerged as something of an emergency workaround. Instead of waiting for Europe's own factories to catch up, Prague would help source ammunition globally while allied governments pooled the funding together to keep the shells flowing into Ukraine. And for a while, the initiative actually became one of the most important ammunition pipelines sustaining Kyiv's war effort. Czech President Petropavel now says the program delivered up to 50% of Ukraine's large caliber ammunition at certain points during the but here's the problem that Europe is increasingly confronting. The coalition itself is no longer holding together the way that it once was. According to Pavel, only about nine countries are still financially contributing to the initiative, down from the original 18 that signed on when the program was started. Pavel declined to publicly identify which countries stopped contributing financially, although anonymous Western officials told the Financial Times that Germany and several Nordic countries do remain involved. Many of the same European governments that spent years presenting a united front on Ukraine now appear far less eager to discuss who's still paying to sustain that effort and who's quietly stepping back from it. According to NATO officials cited by Reuters, the coalition raised only around $1.5 billion as of February, far below the nearly 6 billion that Pavel originally hoped that participating governments would actually contribute. And increasingly, the war itself is changing faster than many of these aid programs were designed for. By late 2025, Ukrainian forces were relying far more heavily on one way attack drones across the front, while Russian military analysts were acknowledging that drones were beginning to displace traditional artillery in many battlefield situations. At the same time, political support for the initiative weakened inside the Czech Republic. Since taking office, Czech Prime Minister Andrei Babis has questioned the program's transparency audited the initiative and suspended the use of Czech state funds for the effort altogether. Importantly, Prague has not shut the initiative down entirely. The Czech government still acts as an intermediary, helping coordinate purchases and transfers. But even that has begun to create discomfort among some allied governments. As one Western official told the Financial Times, some countries now find it increasingly strange to keep funding a program that the lead country's own political leadership no longer fully supports. And ultimately, that may be the clearest sign yet of where Europe's Ukraine strategy is heading. Because the challenge for Europe is no longer simply producing enough weapons. The much harder challenge is sustaining political, financial and industrial commitment to a grinding, long war that's becoming more expensive, more technologically fluid, and increasingly more difficult to justify domestically. All right, coming up in the back of the brief, Ukraine's drone campaign is now forcing Russia to militarize parts of its financial sector with banks newly authorized to operate anti drone systems. 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In today's Back of the Brief Putin's war with Ukraine has taken another strange turn. Moscow has just passed a law allowing the country's central bank and several major financial institutions to operate their own anti drone defense systems. As Ukrainian UAV attacks continue penetrating deeper into Russian territory. Under the new legislation, institutions like Russia's Central bank, the state owned banking giant Sberbank, Armored cash transport Services, and even the government courier agency responsible for handling classified state documents will now be authorized to defend themselves against drone attacks. According to Russian media reports, designated employees will be allowed to jam drone signals, interfere with navigation systems, and in some cases, physically shoot drones down. Certain staff may also now be armed while protecting those facilities. And perhaps the most remarkable part of all of this, the institutions are reportedly expected to pay for the systems. So if you're wondering who covers the bill for anti drone defenses around a Russian bank branch these days, according to lawmakers in Moscow, the answer is the bank. Now, on the surface, this story sounds bizarre, or at least as bizarre as anything can sound during 2026. But underneath it is something much more serious. Ukraine's long range drone campaign inside Russia has become a persistent problem for the Kremlin. Ukrainian drones are now regularly striking oil depots, military airfields, industrial sites, logistics hubs, and infrastructure targets located hundreds of miles from the battlefield. Russia is still intercepting many of those drones, of course, but the sheer scale of Russian territory makes defending every possible target increasingly difficult. And that appears to be exactly why this law was passed. The Kremlin seems to be acknowledging that the military and traditional security services alone can no longer fully protect critical infrastructure across the country. So now the Kremlin is effectively privatizing some responsibility for homeland defense. Not long ago, the idea of financial institutions operating anti aircraft systems would have sounded ridiculous, but inexpensive drones have fundamentally changed the equation. Suddenly, facilities that once existed far from the battlefield now have to think about aerial defense as part of daily operations. The lesson here is that wars increasingly don't stay confined to the front lines. And that, my friends, is the President's Daily brief for Thursday, 28 May. Now, if you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at pdb@the firsttv.com and if you're wondering what it would be like to have an ad free PDB experience, well, wonder no more. Just become a premium Member by visit 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.