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The President's Daily Brief
November 14th, 2025: Why Iran is One Spark Away From Chaos & Russia’s Oil Bottleneck
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Looking to diversify and protect your hard earned assets. Well, schedule a free consultation with the Birch Cold Group. They're the precious metals specialists. Just text PDB to the number 989898 and you'll receive a free no obligation information kit. Then you'll learn how to convert an existing IRA or a 401k into a gold IRA. Again, text PDB to 989898. Foreign It's Friday, the 14th of November. Would you look at that. We made it to the end of another week. Well done. Welcome to the President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right. Let's get briefed. First up, pressure is building inside Iran as political repression, public defiance and a deepening water crisis all collide. I'll explain why these forces are feeding off one another and creating one of the most volatile moments that the Iranian regime has faced in decades. Later in the show, more bad news for Russia's chief export. Nearly a third of Moscow's seaborne oil is now stuck in tankers thanks to US Sanctions, leaving millions of barrels backed up at sea. Plus, the US Levies new sanctions against firms helping supply parts for Iran's shahed drones, including Ukrainian companies. And in today's Back of the Brief, China says it will tighten controls on chemicals used to make fentanyl following a visit from FBI Director Kash Patel. It's a rare moment of cooperation, well, if it actually happens, as the US Opioid crisis continues to deepen. But first, today's PDB Spotlight. We'll start things off today in Iran, which is entering one of its most volatile periods in decades, not because of a foreign enemy or a battlefield setback, but because of the pressures building at home, pressures that the regime can't fully control, let alone contain. Three forces are converging right now. A sweeping political crackdown, a wave of unexpected public defiance and a worsening water crisis that's starting to affect daily life for millions. Any one of these would be hard for a government to manage. All three at once creates a potentially combustible moment that Tehran's leadership is struggling to control. Lets start with the political crackdown. According to human rights groups and activists inside the country, Iran is carrying out political executions at the fastest pace since 1989, averaging about four per day. This year, that's four political executions per day. Now that's only the confirmed cases. Thousands of journalists, students, lawyers and activists have been interrogated, threatened or detained. Several new laws passed in the last few months expand the Death penalty, accelerate trials and criminalize online posts deemed quote, false information. Now, in a somewhat ironic twist, this new wave of repression is coming alongside a relaxation of social restrictions. In recent months, authorities have increasingly allowed women to walk unveiled. Ooh, how generous of them. Permitted mixed gender gatherings. Oh, very daring. And even tolerated Western music. Not you, Nickelback. While at the same time tightening their grip on anything that resembles political opposition. One analyst called it a quote, release valve on appearance paired with a hard ceiling on dissent. In other words, the regime knows frustration is building. It's easing rules that people can see while cracking down brutally on the things that threaten its power. But despite the crackdown, signs of public defiance are still breaking through. Earlier this week, a video went viral across Persian language social media. Two men dressed in military uniforms stood inside a busy metro station in central Tehran. They raised Iran's pre revolutionary flag, the old lion and sun emblem, a symbol of resistance among many in the diaspora, and declared war against the criminal regime. Commuters stood frozen around them, watching. One bystander tried half heartedly to pull the flag down, then gave up. Metro Police later arrested the two men and state media claimed their uniforms were fake. But that wasn't the point. The point was where it happened and how bold it was. A political protest in the heart of Tehran inside a government run metro station. Men dressed as soldiers calling for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic 10 years ago. That kind of act was unthinkable two years ago. Well, still unlikely today. It reflects something deeper, a population that doesn't appear to fear the state the way that it once did. And it's not an isolated moment. Since the June war with Israel, Iranians, especially in Tehran, have largely abandoned the compulsory hijab. Security forces try to enforce it in some neighborhoods and then pull back in others. Videos of unveiled women dancing in street concerts circulate widely. The regime arrests some protesters, threatens others, but the overall trend is unmistakable. Compliance is fading. And that brings us to the third factor, and possibly the most dangerous one, because it hits every household, regardless of ideology. As we've reported here on the PDB in recent weeks, Iran is now facing its worst water crisis in history, what experts are calling water bankruptcy. Decades of mismanagement and corruption, coupled with the worst drought in 60 years have left major cities with reservoirs at critically low levels. Tehran, which is home to some 10 million people, has begun nightly water shutoffs. Officials are warning that parts of the capital may need to be evacuated if rains don't arrive soon. One of Iran's top water experts says the government is Actually understating the danger, worried that honest messaging could spark panic. In Mashad, Iran's second largest city, some reservoirs have fallen below 3% capacity. 19 major dams across the country have run completely dry. Now, this isn't a distant theoretical crisis. This is now affecting drinking water, household use and the stability of infrastructure in a country where temperatures can hit extreme highs. Water shortages have already triggered protests in recent years, particularly in Khuzestan province. Those demonstrations were met with a harsh crackdown. Now imagine that scenario repeating, but this time in Tehran, a city 20 times larger and already simmering with frust. Each of these factors might be manageable, perhaps on their own. A government can survive a political crackdown. It can survive pockets of public defiance. It can even survive a water shortage. But taken together, they show an Iran entering a combustible moment. Because each one is intensifying the other. The crackdown fuels anger. That anger drives people to push back. That defiance now collides with a daily life emergency that affects every household. And that emergency in turn, well, that pressures the regime to squeeze even harder. It's a feedback loop that the government can't easily break. And it's creating a level of internal volatility that Iran hasn't seen in years. Now, I'm not suggesting that Iran is on the edge of a revolution. I'm cynical, frankly, when it comes to the possibility of change from within in Iran. And we've seen internal flare ups there before. The security apparatus is still strong and the regime has survived plenty of turbulence in the past. But this time the pressure isn't isolated. It's hitting the system from every angle at the same time. And that's a far more dangerous place for the leadership to be. As an aside, check out this weekend's episode of our PDP Situation Report. We'll be talking about this water crisis with Shaheen Gobadi, a member of Iran's parliament in exile and spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran. He'll give us a look at what's happening inside the country and what may come next. You can catch it tonight at 10pm on the first TV, as well as over the weekend on our YouTube channel, at President's Daily Brief, and of course on podcast platforms all over podcast land. Alright, coming up next, Russia's seaborne oil runs into another bottleneck and the US moves to sanction companies, including a Ukrainian firm tied to Iran's shahed drones. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here. Well, it is that time of year. That's right. It's the one time of year that Birch Gold Group gives away free gold with every qualifying purchase for Black Friday. When you convert an existing IRA or a 401k into a tax sheltered IRA and gold, birch Gold will send you free gold just to your home for every $20,000 purchased. Look, gold started this year around $2,600 an ounce and by October it was over $4,000 an ounce. And you say why? Well, in a NutShell, Global Uncertainty 2025 has been defined by trade wars and real wars and general unease. And central banks are pulling from the US Dollar as the global reserve currency. The truth is, gold thrives in times of uncertainty like these. So if you're looking to diversify your savings, Birch gold can help. Plus now through November 30th, you can get free gold with a qualifying purchase. Just text PDB to 989898 to claim your eligibility. And for information kit on gold, there's no obligation. It's just very useful information. Your opportunity for free gold with purchased ends on November 30th, so don't wait. Text PDB to the number 989898 for all the details. Hey, Mike Baker here. Now, we've all seen those scary ads about owing money to the irs. You know what I'm talking about. Trying to basically frighten you into calling. But let me tell you about a different kind of company. They're called Tax Relief Advocates. Now, if you owe the IRS, whether it's 5,000 or 50,000 or 500,000, TRA tax relief advocates has solutions to help you resolve your tax problems. The good news is that you can get help anytime. Simply by visiting tra.com they could reduce or even eliminate what you owe. Tra's team is passionate about helping individuals and businesses fix IRS issues. And they have over a thousand five star reviews on Google, plus an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau. Look, you no longer need to be afraid of the irs. Generous programs are available to give you a fresh start. End your tax troubles today by visiting tra.com again. That's tra.com tax relief advocates. Real solutions for real people. Welcome back to the pdb. Sanctions continue to impact Russia's energy exports. Tankers carrying close to a third of Russia's seaborne oil exports are idling with no buyers willing to touch them under new US Sanctions. Now, you may remember how this started. President Trump hit Rosneft and Luke Oil with direct sanctions just last month. And the Treasury Department gave the world until the 21st of November to walk away from both oil giants or risk US compliance. And the impact was almost immediate. Tankers that once traveled straight to customers are now slowing, stalling, or circling as buyers quietly reassess whether any discount is worth the political bruises that come with sanct Russian crude. JP Morgan's analysts put a number to what we're seeing roughly 1.4 million barrels per day now riding in limbo, a floating reminder of how sensitive Russia's oil machine is to even a modest shift in Western pressure. I want to point out that buying sanctioned Russian crude isn't just a paperwork headache. It carries the risk of being cut off from the US Financial system. And that's a penalty serious enough that most shippers, refiners and insurers want to steer clear of sanctions busting. Take India and China, the two main buyers keeping Moscow's wartime budget alive through their purchases of discounted Russian crude. Both countries have already pulled back on December purchases, not because they've suddenly stopped needing oil, but because the math no Longer works when U.S. sanctions are in the equation. The result is a growing fleet of vessels with nowhere to unload, racking up storage costs while their cargo loses value. The financial hit is already showing up in the books, and the International Energy Agency says Russia pulled in just $13 billion from crude and refined products in October. That's more than $2 billion less than a year ago. The agency attributes the drop not only to discounted prices, but to falling export volumes and ongoing Ukrainian drone strikes that continue to damage Russia's refineries and pipelines. As a result, crude exports fell by another 110,000 barrels per day just last month. Still, the Kremlin is trying to improvise its way through. The IEA says three new shipping companies, all created since May, manage to move about 1 million barrels per day of Russian crude in October. They're the latest additions to Russia's shadow fleet. It's a patchwork of tankers that we've been tracking here on the PDB that the Kremlin uses in an attempt to dodge Western overs. But even that fleet has limits. It can move barrels, that's for sure. What it can't do is conjure up buyers willing to risk taking on sanctioned crude. And that's their chief problem. Russia's oil is technically still flowing, but the path to buyers is narrowing. Slower deliveries, deeper discounts, fewer customers, and more tankers sitting offshore, waiting for a port call that may not come. Okay, shifting gears, Washington is ratcheting up its pressure campaign on Tehran again, this time rolling out sanctions aimed at choking off the mullah's missile and drone programs. But tucked inside the new sanctions list is a surreal twist. Included on the list are Ukrainian firms allegedly supplying parts for shahed drones that are then purchased by Russia and used to strike at Ukraine. Can't make that up, A Wednesday readout from the Treasury Department reveals the latest sanctions sweep up 32 individuals and entities across eight countries, a patchwork of front companies, procurement agents and shadow networks that allow the Islamic regime to rebuild its missile and drone capabilities even as Washington keeps tightening the screws. And in the Trump administration's view, that's the core of the problem. No matter how many channels get shut down, another seems to pop up somewhere else, often in corners of the global market most capitals wouldn't think to check. Which brings us to the most jarring revelation on the list. Two of the targeted companies, Ecofera and Imperative Ukraine, operate out of a country that's been living under the flight path of Iranian made shahed drones for more than two years. Ukraine knows this threat better than anyone. Yet according to American officials, these firms on the sanctions list help move attitude indicators and magnetometers straight into the supply chain of Hessa, which is the Iranian aerospace manufacturer behind those drones that are used against Ukraine. For those unfamiliar, NASA has been under American sanctions since 2008, but its products continue to show up wherever the regime's influence reaches, including Russia's battlefields. To Washington, the Ukrainian connections say less about Kyiv's intentions and more about how deeply Tehran's procurement networks have seeped into Europe's commercial landscape. The company imperative Ukraine's own paperwork did little to hide its roots, listing its owner, Bahram Tabibi, as an Iranian citizen. And while no Ukrainian firm officially registered as Ekofera exists, a company with that name sits just over the border in northern Slovakia. That's a detail Treasury Department officials say fit the pattern of Iranian shell companies slipping through the cracks of Europe's smaller states. From the Treasury's vantage point, none of this is accidental, john Hurley, the undersecretary of the treasury overseeing terrorism and financial intelligence, said across the globe, Iran exploits financial systems to launder funds, procure components for its nuclear and conventional weapons programs and support its terrorist proxies. These networks, he warned, endanger American personnel in the Middle east and commercial shipping in the Red Sea. And that's before factoring in how they bolster Moscow's drone fleet. The new sanctions block all transactions between American citizens and the designated entities and open the door to secondary sanctions on foreign firms that continue to deal with them. In practical terms, it means anyone who continues doing business with these networks risks being walled off from the American financial system. Wednesday's move also marks the Treasury's second major non proliferation sanctions since the US Pushed the reimposition of UN sanctions on the mullahs in September. That was after the regime continued breaching its nuclear commitments, enriching uranium far beyond the levels of civilian use. The goal now, the Trump administration says, is to stop Tehran from reconstituting the missile capabilities that were destroyed during the 12 Day War, cutting off everything from electronics to missile propellant before they reach the mullahs assembly lines. Still, Kyiv maintains tough wartime export controls on dual use goods. But Western capitals have long cautioned that sanctions of Asian channels still funnel Western made electronics and components into Russian and Iranian weapons systems through intermediaries scattered across Europe, including, as sadly ironic as it is in this case, Ukraine. All right, coming up in the back of the brief, China pledges new controls on fentanyl precursor chemicals. We'll see if that happens. More on that when we come back. Hey, Mike Baker here. Well, you may have noticed, I'm sure you have. It's now November. So that means, of course, Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Now, the great thing about Thanksgiving is it's one of the few times of the year when we can all slow down just a bit, right? Gather as families and remind ourselves of what we're thankful for. And remember, don't talk about politics or religion around the Thanksgiving table. Do yourself a favor. It's all about gratitude. Not just for the past, but for the future. 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In today's Back of the Brief Beijing is signaling a rare shift in the finger pointing war over America's opioid crisis. After a visit by FBI Director Kash Patel to Beijing last week, Chinese authorities agreed to impose tougher restrictions on key fentanyl precursors and bring certain chemical manufacturers under tighter export control. The move follows months of pressure from Washington over China's role in the flow of synthetic opioids that are fueling the ongoing US overdose epidemic. Specifically, the CCP placed 13 precursor chemicals on a restricted list and flagged seven manufacturing firms for heightened regulatory oversight. Shipments of fentanyl precursors to the U.S. canada and Mexico from these chemical subsidiaries will now require licenses, and exporters may face criminal liability when shipping to certain, quote, high risk countries without proper authorization. The Chinese Commerce Ministry confirmed the changes this week, just days after Patel wrapped up talks with his counterparts in Beijing. It was a significant trip, marking the first time in a decade that an FBI director has ventured to China to discuss the fentanyl crisis. Patel hailed the agreement in exclusive statement to Fox News on Wednesday, calling it, quote, a victory that will ultimately crush fentanyl traffickers and save so many American lives for generations to come. He added, quote, we are dismantling the infrastructure that fuels this crisis at its source. By targeting these flows and dismantling supply chains before they ever reach our hemisphere, we're saving American lives. End quote. Indeed, on its surface, this looks like a major breakthrough for Washington. For years, U.S. officials have accused Beijing of being too slow or unwilling to rein in chemicals that end up in Mexican drug labs and ultimately implicated in overdose deaths in America. Now, with China publicly committing to take action, America could have the largest source nation of the deadly opioid aligned in principle with a key domestic priority. But there are still major questions to consider, namely enforcement. Listing chemicals and companies is one thing, but monitoring tens of thousands of shipments is another. American officials caution that change will likely take time to show results, and smugglers will inevitably look for alternate routes. Second, the deal is closely tied to broader US China negotiations on trade involving tariff reductions, rare earth minerals and semiconductor carve outs. Some analysts say that China's commitment on fentanyl might be more of a symbolic gesture than a genuine disruption, a move to placate the US as deeper negotiations on trade continue. It's also worth noting that Chinese officials continue to say the US Is politicizing the opioid issue. Ultimately, we'll have to wait and see how the agreement impacts the bleak reality of opioid addiction across the U.S. drug overdoses continue to plague U.S. communities, claiming the lives of more than 100,000Americans in both 2022 and 2023, with 70% of those deaths involving opioids like fentanyl. Opioid related overdose deaths declined slightly in 2024, and US Attorney General Pam Bondi recently said seizures of fentanyl at the southern border have significantly decreased, signaling the border crackdown is disrupting the efforts of narco traffickers. But drug overdoses still remain the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 44, and a CDC report from June warned that the national downward trend has begun to reverse in some states. And that, my friends, is the President's Daily brief for Friday 14th November. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at pdb@thefirsttv.com and don't forget, if you'd like to listen to the show ad free, you can do that and it's very simple. Just become a premium member of the PDB 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.