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PDB Afternoon Bulletin | May 13th, 2025: Mayoral Candidate Gunned Down During Live Stream In Mexico & Starmer Declares UK's 'Open Borders Experiment' A Failure
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Mike Baker
It's Tuesday the 13th of May. Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, Mexico is suffering through another violent election season. The latest victim was a mayoral candidate in the Mexican state of Veracruz who was gunned down on Sunday along with three of her supporters during a live broadcast of a campaign rally. We'll have those details later in the show. British Prime Minister Keir starmer unveils the UK's most sweeping immigration overhaul in decades, declaring that the country's open borders experiment has failed. Yeah, open borders. Who would have thought that? It's a terrible concept. But first, today's afternoon spotlight. We'll begin today in Mexico, where political violence is once again gripping the nation as voters prepare to head to the polls for local elections on 1 June. On Sunday, during a live broadcast of a campaign rally, a mayoral candidate from Mexico's governing party in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz was murdered by gunmen marking the second assassination of a political candidate in the state ahead of the June 1 election. Candidate Yesenia Lara Gutierrez, a member of the Morena Party of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, was seen greeting residents in the streets of Texistepec, now flanked by a group of supporters, before some 20 gunshots rang out, sending bystanders scrambling for cover. That's according to a report from cnn. Gutierrez, her daughter and three of her supporters were killed in the attack, which also left three others injured. Subsequent reports said that two federal agents were later killed in connection with the incident in another part of Veracruz. President Scheinbaum confirmed the attack during her morning press conference on Monday, but said they had no information yet on the gunman or their motive. The governor of Veracruz issued a statement vowing justice, saying, quote, no position or office is worth a person's life. Will find those responsible for this cowardly murder. All of the state's power will be present in coming days so that the elections are free and democratic. Gutierrez became the second mayoral candidate killed in Veracruz during the campaign. Her tragic death comes after candidate Herman Valencia, also a member of Sheinbaum's Morena Party, was killed at his campaign headquarters on 29 April, the governor of Veracruz said that some 57 local candidates had requested security offered by the state and federal government following that first assassination, though it's unclear if Gutierrez had such protection. It's a large election for Veracruz, with voting set to take place across the state's 212 municipalities on 1 June. Locals described a climate of terror, saying that the violence is so bad that residents are reluctant to publicly voice their support out of fear of retribution. Now, Mexico is no stranger to widespread political violence during election seasons. Last spring's presidential and local elections were the bloodiest in Mexican history. Outside of the presidential election, there were races then for both houses of Congress, gubernatorial elections in nine of the country's 32 states, and thousands of mayoral races. In total, roughly 20,000 congressional and local positions were, were up for grabs, making it the largest election in the country's history. Some 30 candidates, that's 3, 0. Thirty candidates were murdered during that 2024 campaign season, while another 11 were kidnapped, and nearly 80 candidates faced significant death threats. The violence was not limited to the candidates themselves, with local groups estimating that there were at least 27 other killings of family members, political organizers, and community leaders linked to political candidates during the election cycle. The focus for cartels tends to be on local elections, particularly candidates for mayor or the state legislature, where they can more easily exert their influence. In some areas of Mexico, the cartels, as you might suspect, wield almost total control. While the Mexican government has done more to bolster the security of local candidates over the past year, Gutierrez's death shows just how little control federal authorities still have over their electoral process, particularly in cartel strongholds. One supporter of Gutierrez told NBC News, quote, we can't continue with the insecurity. We're tired of all of this. This is terrorism, end quote. Well, they're not wrong. All right, coming up next, British Prime Minister Keir starmer unveils the UK's most sweeping immigration overhaul in decades. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here. Now, this July, there's going to be a global summit of what's known as the BRICS nations, and it'll be held in Rio de Janeiro. Have you heard about this? Yeah. The block, it's made up of emerging superpowers, including China and Russia, India and Iran. Well, they're meeting in Rio with the goal of displacing the US dollar as the global currency and they're calling it the Rio Reset. That's a catchy name. As BRICS nations push forward with their plans, demand for US dollars, well could decrease, bringing down of course, the value of the dollar. And while the transition won't happen overnight, the real reset does mark a pivotal moment when BRICS objectives move from possibility toward reality. So you ask yourself, how do you protect your hard earned dollar savings? Well, one way is to check in with Birch Gold Group. Now Birch Gold Group can help you move your hard earned savings into a tax sheltered IRA in precious metals. Claim your free information kit on gold by texting PDB to 989-898 with an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau and tens of thousands of happy customers. Let Birch Gold arm you with a free information kit on owning gold before July. And that Rio reset just text PDB to 989-898 today. Mike Baker here. Let's, let's take a few seconds to talk about eating smart, right? About eating healthy. Now, a big part of that effort is knowing where your food comes from, right? That just makes sense, knowing how your food was raised and handled. After all, if you don't take control of your food supply, well, someone else will and it will likely be some large faceless corporation. Now if you're a fan of beef like I am, well then I've got just a place for you. It's a great business called Tritails Beef. Now Tritails is a fifth generation Texas ranch. It's run by real ranchers. There's no corporate nonsense, there's no middlemen, no mystery, just pasture, raised grain, finished Black Angus beef that delivers tenderness, rich marbling and great taste in every cut. This grilling season, stock up before it's too late. And right now, when you order over $349, you get a free choice. New York strip. Just go to tribe.com PDB Grill. That's tribe.com PDB Grill. Your family, your friends and frankly, your grill will thank you.
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Mike Slater
My name is Mike Slater. I have a podcast called Politics by Faith. I was just talking to a friend of mine who said he hasn't been able to follow the news lately. It's been too much, it's too crazy. It's driving him crazy and he's just checked out. If you feel that way sometimes too, I think you'll really like our podcast Politics by Faith. We take the main story of the day and we run it through the Bible. What does the Bible say about this? It's amazing, but it's all there. And then God tells us what to do. We don't even have to figure it out. The answers are right there. He gives us the answers. Politics by Faith. Please join us over there. You can listen to it wherever you're listening to this podcast right now. Politics by Faith.
- [09:32]
Mike Baker
Welcome back to the afternoon bulletin. After years of record breaking migration and broken political promises to rein it in, British Prime Minister Keira Starmer has unveiled the UK's most sweeping immigration overhaul in decades, promising that net migration will fall significantly over the next four years. The reforms mark the sharpest break yet from past policies spanning all major legal entry routes, including work study and families. Starmer insists the measures will restore control and fairness, telling reporters, quote, we decide who comes to this country. The Home Office estimates the package, based on just 8 of its quantifiable policies, could reduce immigration by around 100,000 people annually by 2029. But ministers acknowledge the true scale will depend on how quickly employers, universities and entire industries adapt to the new rules. To understand the scope of the shift, it's worth recalling the numbers. Net migration peaked at a record 900,000 in June of 2023 and stood at 728,000 last year, despite repeated pledges from successive governments to bring that figure down. Starmer blamed those governments for presiding over what he described as, quote, open borders experiments, now declaring that era officially over. At the center of the reform package is the scrapping of a Boris Johnson era visa scheme that allowed companies to freely recruit health and Social care workers from abroad. Under the new rules, employers must instead prioritize British workers or extend contracts for existing foreign staff already inside the country. The Home Office projects that this change alone will eliminate 7,000 to 8,000 annual arrivals. But the cuts do go much deeper. The skilled worker route, long a gateway for foreign labor, will now require degree level qualifications, reversing temporary pandemic era relaxations. An estimated 180 occupations will be stripped from the eligibility list. Meanwhile, English language proficiency requirements will rise, and applicants seeking permanent residency will need to reside in the UK twice as long as before 10 years instead of five. Costs are also climbing sharply. The immigration skills charge is set to increase by 32%, bringing employer costs to more than $3,000 per foreign worker for small firms and nearly $9,000 for larger businesses. For the higher education sector, the pressure is a potential new tax on international students and stricter accountability rules requiring 95% to begin their courses and 90% to complete them. Revenue from the tax would be funneled into domestic skills training programs. Ministers are also moving to reinterpret Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to a family life. The government says the clause has been applied too broadly in immigration cases, and they're now pushing Parliament to vote on a narrower application, a move that could significantly limit family reunification rights. The humanitarian pathways, meanwhile, remain effectively frozen. No new refugee routes will be created, and only a limited pool of UN recognized refugees will be allowed to apply under existing skilled workers schemes. Starmer has insisted the moves are grounded in principle, not political pressure, saying, quote, I'm doing this because it is right, because it is fair, and because it is what I believe in. The language he used was unambiguous. British businesses, Starmer warned, had grown, quote, almost addicted to importing cheap labor rather than training domestic talent. And unless that pattern changes, he cautioned, the country risks becoming an island of strangers. Look, border policies really shouldn't be that difficult to comprehend. We've said this before on the pdb. If you don't have secure borders, if you don't know who's coming and going from your country, if you have essentially an open border policy, then really you're not a country. You're just a spot on the map. Every nation's first responsibility is to its citizens, to provide for and safeguard the security of its citizens, the economic and physical security. If you don't have border security and immigration policies that prioritize your own citizens, then as a nation, you're failing in your primary responsibility. That's not rocket science. And. And that, my friends, is the PDB afternoon bulletin for Tuesday 13th May. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at pdb@the first tv.com of course, as you've likely seen on billboards all over town, to listen to the show ad free, 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 tomorrow. 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