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The President's Daily Brief
November 25th, 2025: U.S. & Ukraine Agree to Ceasefire Deal & UK–Russia Naval Clash
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Looking to diversify and protect your hard earned assets. Well, schedule a free consultation with the Birch Gold Group. They're the precious metals specialists. Just text PDB to the number 989898 and you'll receive a free no obligation information kit. And you'll learn how to convert an existing IRA or a 401k into a gold IRA. Again, text PDB to the number 989898. Foreign 25th November 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, Washington and Keef reportedly have hammered out a new 19 point peace plan in Geneva. And if my math is correct, that's 9 points less than President Trump's reported 28 point peace plan. Hmm. We'll break down what's in the draft. Apparently nine fewer points and why several key points are still unresolved. Later in the show, another confrontation in UK waters as the Royal Navy shadows and intercepts a Russian corvette and tanker moving through the English Channel. Plus, President Trump announces plans to label the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization, citing concerns over the group's radicalism. And in today's Back of the Brief, a major win for James Comey and a major setback for Trump's Department of Justice as a federal judge throws out the DOJ's indictment against the former FBI director. But first, today's PDB spotlight. We're starting things off today with the latest plan to end the war in Ukraine. When we last checked in Washington was pushing a 28 point peace framework that European capitals saw as a one sided ultimatum. Now, after a stretch of talks in Geneva, that document has been whittled down to 19 points, more favorable to Kyiv and far less like the deal that Moscow thought it might be offered. As we previously discussed, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Envoy Steve Witkoff sat down with a Ukrainian delegation led by Kyiv's presidential chief of staff, Andrei Yermak to reopen the text line by line over the weekend. By Monday, the document shrunk by nine points. Ukraine's deputy foreign minister, who was involved in the talks, said very few things are left from the original Trump plan. And while the current draft stands at 19 points, negotiators stress the final number isn't yet agreed upon. Oleksandr Bevs, an advisor to Yermak who was in the room, described the sessions as tense and tough, but ultimately productive and even. He acknowledged the shift. The deal, he said, has been reshaped enough that it can now, quote, be considered, whereas before it was an ultimatum. In practice that means many of the provisions that triggered the loudest backlash in Kyiv have either been softened, rewritten or removed entirely. Both sides agreed to remove clauses about U. S Russian engagement that didn't directly involve Ukraine, preventing President Zelensky from being pulled into unrelated Washington Moscow discussions. As for issues touching Europe, they were put on a separate track and Ukraine pushed successfully for its NATO aspirations to be governed strictly by NATO's own rules, effectively killing the earlier draft idea of giving Russia de facto veto over Kyiv's future into the alliance. As we mentioned, the deadline is no longer the ticking clock that it once was. What began as a thanksgiving or else moment continues to look more like a desired target than a hard stop. Bevs said. The priority is to finish the text, not force Kyiv into signing an unfinished document. That shift diluted the earlier pressure campaign considerably, especially after previous reporting that the US had warned of cutting intelligence and military support if Ukraine flat out refused to engage. But for all the edits, the hardest piece hasn't moved much at all. And that would be territory. Zelenskyy has not authorized anyone but himself to discuss land swaps or withdrawals, which meant negotiators made little progress on the original suggestion that Ukrainian troops retreat from parts of the Donetsk region. Ukrainian officials made clear that if there are ever talks on borders, they want them to start from the current line of contact, not from a Russian wish list about the rest of the Donbass. American envoys, according to Bevs, signaled they understood exactly how combustible this part of the plan is to Ukraine. Any perceived sellout on territory could of course spark protests or even military backlash in Ukraine. It now appears that Washington is not willing to risk forcing Kyiv into that corner, leaving one of Moscow's core demands parked off to one side unresolved. As for Trump and Zelenskyy, well, they're expected to take up those political third rails themselves in a meeting or phone call that hasn't yet been scheduled. Trump hinted at the progress on Truth Social after the Geneva round, posting, quote, don't believe it until you see it, but something good just may be happening. Europe, meanwhile, is watching this largely from outside the room. As we mentioned in Monday's bdb, EU leaders were blindsided by the first draft and rushed to pull together their own edits. They chose not to introduce a competing plan, instead working from Washington's 28 point framework, raising the cap on Ukraine's peacetime military, insisting that territorial negotiations begin at the front line and calling for US security guarantees that more closely resemble NATO's Article 5. Their draft also pushes back on returning frozen Russian assets, arguing that they should be used to fund Ukraine's reconstruction until Moscow pays damages for the war. But timing wasn't on Europe's side. While European leaders were in Angola for a summit, Washington and Kyiv were already rewriting the plan. The Trump administration didn't ignore Europe, but they didn't wait for Europe either. Their priority was getting a viable draft on the table, something sturdy enough to survive a Trump Zelensky conversation. And then there's Russia. Remember them well? Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia has not received any official text of the, quote, updated and refined peace framework that's emerging from Geneva, though he stressed that Moscow is closely monitoring the situation and remains open to negotiations. And I'd like to point out a notable shift as a Russian presidential aide claimed that there have been certain signals from the US about the possibility of setting up a meeting to discuss the proposal, another indication that Washington and Moscow may soon test whether any of this new text is actually workable. Russian President Putin has already said that the earlier 28.2 plan could serve as the basis for a final peace settlement. That was a clear hint that the Kremlin saw that initial plan as, of course, favorable to Russia, which it was. So we've gone from a 28.0American ultimatum that alarmed Kyiv and Brussels to a 19 point US Ukrainian deal that better reflects Ukraine's red lines but may be a harder sell to Moscow and that Europe still fears as being finalized without their input. All right, coming up next, the Royal Navy intercepts a Russian Corvette and tanker in the English Channel. And President Trump moves to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here. Now, PDB regulars know this. They know that I'm on the road constantly. So I want to take a moment to talk about something that I feel like I know a lot about. And that would be luggage. And specifically about a company out there designing and making great luggage. And that would be Noble Travel. That's N O B, Noble Travel. 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A 10 year warranty. Choose your Cozy Earth products. Bedding, sleepwear, robes, whatever. And if you don't love what you they've got a hassle free return policy. But trust me, you won't want to return anything. Give the gift of comfort that lasts beyond the holidays. This weekend only, from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday. Get 40% off. That's 40% off@cozy earth.com using the code PDB. That's code PDB for 40% off. And if you get a post purchase survey, which you might be sure to mention, you heard about Cozy Earth right here on the pdb. Wrap the ones you love in luxury with Cozy Earth. Welcome back to the pdb. The English Channel appears to be the setting for some old fashioned cold war action. A Royal Navy patrol ship intercepted a Russian Corvette warship and tanker after tracking them through UK waters Another reminder that Moscow, despite being bogged down in their Ukraine invasion, is also busy elsewhere. The UK's Ministry of Defense said Sunday that Russian movements around UK waters have climbed by 30% over the past two years, a shift that Defense defense officials say is now impossible to dismiss as routine. Within the past two weeks, HMS Severn tracked the Russian corvette Stoiki and the tanker Yelnya as they moved through one of the world's busiest maritime corridors. By the time Severn pulled alongside the pair, the episode already felt familiar. Britain has been watching more of these unannounced Russian transits slip through the channel, each one treated less like an isolated curiosity and more like a recurring pattern. And when the Russian ships finally peeled off toward Brittany, the handoff to a NATO ally wasn't just a pattern. It was a quiet reminder of how much the alliance now shares the burden of keeping tabs on Moscow's fleet. London is leaning hard on that wider network. The Ministry of Defense confirmed that Britain deployed three Poseidon surveillance aircraft to Iceland as part of a NATO mission tracking Russian submarine and intelligence vessel movements across the North Atlantic and Arctic waters, where Moscow has become noticeably busier. British defense officials talk about these deployments with a steady subtext. None of these sightings are coincidences, and none of them are happening in a vacuum. And that point came into sharper focus in our recent coverage here on the pdb. Defense Secretary John Healy disclosed that the Russian ship Yantar aimed lasers at the pilots of British surveillance aircraft monitoring its activity off Scotland's coast in a move that London condemned as, quote, reckless and dangerous. And then came the latest discovery. Off the Welsh coast, volunteer divers clearing litter from a marine conservation zone surfaced with what defense analysts now believe is a Russian hydroacoustic tracking device. As we reported yesterday, the four foot metal cylinder was quickly identified as a Russian sonobuoy, the kind deployed by the Kremlin's Tu142M maritime patrol aircraft to monitor submarines. That find added a new layer to Britain's concern of a broader Russian campaign that extends from the surface to the seabed. But Moscow still insists that the west is overreacting. The Russian Embassy in London accused Britain of, quote, whipping up militaristic hysteria and claimed Moscow has zero interest in undermining UK security. Of course they have zero interest. Nothing to see here, comrades. And by the way, you want to talk about whipping up militaristic hysteria, try invading Ukraine. In an effort to further thwart Russian activity near the coastline, Healey has threatened to push for increased military spending ahead of Next week's budget talks. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has pledged to bolster defenses in the face of mounting threats from Russia, China, and Iran. But with a multi billion pound fiscal shortfall looming, ministers are weighing tax hikes and spending cuts even as Russian activity grows more assertive, forcing London to make tougher choices about how quickly it can ramp up its defenses. Okay. Moving now to Washington, D.C. president Trump says he's preparing to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization. He told reporters this will be done in the strongest and most powerful terms, with final documents already being drafted. It's a major announcement, and depending on how the administration implements it, this could be one of the most consequential counterterrorism decisions of Trump's second term. But to understand why, well, you have to understand what the Muslim Brotherhood is and what it isn't. The Brotherhood isn't a single organization. It's a movement almost a century old, founded in Egypt in 1928 by an Islamic scholar named Hassan Al Banna. His idea was simple but ambitious, to revive the Muslim world through political Islam, social activism, missionary outreach, and, when necessary, militant resistance. Over time, the Brotherhood became the most influential Islamist movement on earth, spawning chapters and affiliates and ideological offshoots across the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and the U.S. now, here's where it gets complicated. Not every branch of the Muslim Brotherhood is violent. Some countries treat their local Brotherhood chapter like a political party. Others treat it like a subversive threat. Still others ban it outright. But the central movement has absolutely produced extremist organizations, the most well known being Hamas, explicitly identified in its original charter as the Brotherhood's Palestinian branch. Other Brotherhood aligned groups have been tied to political violence, assassinations, and insurgencies across the region for decades. That mix social movement, political network, and ideological parent of violent offshoots is what has made the Brotherhood so difficult for US Policymakers to classify. For years, national security officials have wrestled with the question, do you treat the Brotherhood as a monolithic organization or a loose family tree with some branches engaged in terrorism and others not countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates? Well, they've already answered that question. They classify the entire movement as a terrorist organization, full stop. And they've been pressuring the US to do the same for years. For decades, Washington resisted. Some administrations argued the Brotherhood was a political organization with ugly ideas but legitimate electoral support in places like Egypt and Jordan. Others feared that treating the entire movement as a terrorist group could drive millions of supporters into the arms of more radical factions. Intelligence agencies warned that the Brotherhood's diffuse structure makes it difficult to draw a clean and forcible legal line. And US Diplomats worried about complicating relationships with countries where Brotherhood aligned parties still sat in parliament. But the flip side of that argument is the Brotherhood's documented role in seeding, supporting, or inspiring militant Islamist groups around the world. Critics say the organization has spent decades presenting one face to the west, moderate, political, respectable, while nurturing a hardline anti Western ideology behind the scenes. They point to the Brotherhood's writings, its spokespeople, its youth wings, and its long list of affiliates as proof that the organization is not simply a political party with religious overtones, but the intellectual wellspring of modern Islamist extremism. And that's the argument that the Trump administration is now leaning on. Officials say the US can't keep treating the Brotherhood like just another political movement while its offshoots are firing rockets into Israel or fomenting unrest across the Middle East. They also note that many Western security services already monitor Brotherhood linked groups as potential gateways to radicalization. So what happens next? I'm glad you asked. Once a designation is official, the US can pursue the Brotherhood's financial networks, restrict travel, sanction its leaders, pressure member states, and prosecute anyone providing material support. It can also affect domestic organizations accused fairly or unfairly of ideological alignment with the Brotherhood. But this moment has been building for a long time. Republican lawmakers have pushed for this designation for more than a decade. Middle Eastern allies have repeatedly pushed for the designation, and national security hawks have warned about the Brotherhood's influence for years. Okay, coming up in the back of the brief, good news for former FBI Director James Comey after a federal judge tosses out the DOJ's case against him. I'll have that when we come back. Hey, Mike Baker here with a message from my friends over at Tritails Beef. All right, here's the deal. Tritails Premium Beef, a terrific fifth generation Texas ranching family is running their biggest Black Friday event of the year. Look, you gotta check out Tri Tails. They're all about raising cattle the right way and delivering delicious beef right to your door. I'm serious about this. I love their steaks and roasts. This stuff is amazing. So here's the deal. With every qualifying purchase, you're going to get a gift added to your order. No gimmicks, no runar. Just spend and get rewarded. It's about putting the best tasting beef you've ever had on the table. Ribeyes, fillets, roasts, steaks. And getting something extra While you're at it, if you've been waiting to stock up, well, now's the time. 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In Today's Back of the Brief the former FBI Director James Comey is breathing a sigh of relief today. A federal judge has just thrown out the indictment against him, not because of the facts of the case, but because the person who brought the charges had no legal authority to do it. The decision comes from US District Judge Cameron Curry. In her ruling, she dismissed the charges against Comey after finding that Lindsey Halligan, the attorney who presented the case to the grand jury, was never properly appointed as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. According to the judge, that invalid appointment contaminated the entire process from start to finish. And this wasn't a small technical slip. Judge Curry noted that Halligan was the only person handling the case. No career prosecutors from the Eastern District, no supervisors from the Justice Department, Allegan alone walked the grand jury through the allegations, signed the charging documents, and pushed the indictment forward. The judge said that without a lawful appointment, none of that work had any legal grounding whatsoever. She warned that allowing the indictment to stand would create a precedent where, in her words, quote, the government could send any private citizen into the grand jury room. That cannot be the law. In other words, if the prosecutor isn't actually a prosecutor, the indictment is dead on arrival. Now the dismissal is without prejudice, which means the Justice Department could refile the charges, but only under a properly appointed U.S. attorney. The DOJ also has the option to appeal the ruling. After addressing Comey's case, the judge applied the same logic to another high profile figure, and that would be New York Attorney General Letitia James. Her indictment, which stemmed from alleged bank fraud issues tied to the Trump civil litigation, was dismissed for the same reason. Halligan signed it, and Halligan wasn't legally empowered to act as a federal prosecutor. There's also the timing factor. Prosecutors are racing the statute of limitations in both cases, especially in Comey's, where the clock was within days of running out. This ruling resets everything, but it also means the DOJ may have to move quickly if they move at all. So for now, James Comey walks away from the indictment, not because the court weighed the evidence, but because of basic procedural mistakes. And that, my friends, is the President's Daily brief for Tuesday, 25th November. Now, if you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me@pdbhefirsttv.com and remember to take a moment out of your busy day, if you can, to wander over to YouTube and find and subscribe to our channel, just search at President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, and I'll be back later today with the PDB afternoon Bulletin. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool.