Latest / The President's Daily Brief / September 1st, 2026: U.S. Military Leaders Sound Alarm Over Iran & China Courts America’s Rivals

Transcript

September 1st, 2026: U.S. Military Leaders Sound Alarm Over Iran & China Courts America’s Rivals · The President's Daily Brief

• 0:13
  It's Tuesday,
• 0:14
  the first of September.
• 0:15
  Well,
• 0:16
  how about that?
• 0:17
  Welcome to the President's Daily Brief.
• 0:19
  I'm Mike Baker,
• 0:20
  your eyes and ears on the world stage.
• 0:22
  All right,
• 0:23
  let's get briefed.
• 0:24
  First up,
• 0:25
  top US military leaders are pushing back
• 0:28
  on extended Iran deployments,
• 0:30
  warning the Secretary of Defense,
• 0:32
  or war,
• 0:33
  whichever,
• 0:34
  that the strain is spreading across the military force.
• 0:37
  I'll have the details.
• 0:39
  Later in the show,
• 0:40
  Russia and Iran rally with China and India at a
• 0:43
  major summit aimed at pushing back against US global influence.
• 0:47
  Plus,
• 0:48
  Israel lands a record 3.5 billion with a B defense deal
• 0:52
  to build Greece,
• 0:53
  a massive shield against missile and aerial attacks.
• 0:57
  And in today's Back of the Brief,
• 0:58
  nearly a week after Nepal's deadly flood,
• 1:01
  rescue crews are now racing to reach hundreds of workers
• 1:05
  believed to be trapped deep inside mountain tunnels.
• 1:08
  But first,
• 1:09
  today's PDB spotlight.
• 1:11
  Six months into the war with Iran,
• 1:13
  some of America's most senior military commanders are warning
• 1:16
  that the conflict is beginning to take a
• 1:18
  serious toll on US readiness around the world.
• 1:22
  According to new reporting from The Washington Post,
• 1:24
  those concerns were laid out in a classified
• 1:26
  Pentagon assessment that was prepared earlier this month
• 1:29
  for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
• 1:32
  The document reportedly includes input from the leaders of the Army,
• 1:36
  Navy,
• 1:36
  and Air Force,
• 1:38
  along with the four-star commanders responsible for US operations in Europe.
• 1:41
  The Pacific and Latin America.
• 1:44
  Several of them formally objected to plans to
• 1:46
  keep supplying forces to the Middle East.
• 1:48
  The Pentagon term is quote nonconcur.
• 1:52
  Now that does not mean
• 1:53
  that the commanders are refusing the order.
• 1:55
  It means
• 1:56
  they're putting their objections on the record before carrying out the orders.
• 2:00
  And according to one person familiar with the assessment,
• 2:03
  the overall message from military leadership is that the Iran operation has become
• 2:08
  too much for too long.
• 2:10
  More than 50,000 American troops remain on alert across the Middle East
• 2:14
  as President Trump continues pressing the Iranian
• 2:16
  regime to reopen the Strait of Hormuz
• 2:19
  and accept Washington's conditions for ending the conflict.
• 2:22
  Some deployments are now being extended through the fall,
• 2:25
  while others could stretch into 2027.
• 2:28
  The problem is that many of the
• 2:30
  ships and aircraft and weapons supporting that mission
• 2:33
  were pulled from somewhere else,
• 2:36
  and the Navy
• 2:37
  appears to be feeling the strain most acutely.
• 2:39
  It's supplied dozens of vessels since the fighting began,
• 2:42
  first for strikes against Iran and defense against Iranian retaliation,
• 2:46
  and later to enforce the blockade of Iranian ports.
• 2:50
  Some crews have now spent months longer at sea than originally planned.
• 2:54
  Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Darryl Caudle reportedly warned Hegseth
• 2:59
  that the navy cannot sustain the current pace indefinitely,
• 3:03
  particularly when there's no clear end date for the operation.
• 3:06
  According to the post,
• 3:07
  barely one quarter of the navy's destroyer fleet is currently ready to deploy.
• 3:13
  That number matters because
• 3:14
  maintenance delayed today
• 3:16
  becomes a readiness problem tomorrow.
• 3:18
  Ships kept at sea longer require more time in port later.
• 3:22
  Crews need to recover.
• 3:23
  Equipment needs repairs,
• 3:24
  and
• 3:25
  the pool of vessels available for the next emergency,
• 3:28
  well,
• 3:28
  that gets smaller.
• 3:29
  And it's already creating friction in the Pacific.
• 3:32
  Admiral Samuel Paparro,
• 3:33
  commander of US forces in the region,
• 3:36
  reportedly objected to the continued transfer of naval forces to the Middle East,
• 3:39
  including a carrier strike group and destroyers.
• 3:43
  The Navy's only permanently forward deployed carrier in the Pacific
• 3:46
  was sent toward the Middle East
• 3:48
  to relieve another carrier that had already been deployed for more than 300 days.
• 3:53
  For years,
• 3:54
  the Pentagon leadership has described China
• 3:56
  as America's primary military challenge,
• 3:58
  and
• 3:58
  they've built much of their strategy around deterring Beijing
• 4:02
  from moving against Taiwan or threatening US allies in the region.
• 4:06
  But deterrence depends in part
• 4:08
  on having ships and aircraft and missiles positioned
• 4:11
  where an adversary expects them to be.
• 4:14
  And the strain extends well beyond the fleet.
• 4:17
  The Iran war has consumed large numbers
• 4:19
  of Patriot and THAAD air defense interceptors
• 4:21
  along with Tomahawk cruise missiles.
• 4:24
  The Post reports that roughly 25% of the Pentagon's Reaper drone fleet
• 4:28
  has been lost during the conflict.
• 4:31
  And patriot units are of course facing longer deployments.
• 4:35
  Some soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division
• 4:37
  could remain overseas for a full year,
• 4:39
  and Air Force units sent to conduct
• 4:41
  bombing missions and other round the clock operations
• 4:44
  may stay in the region
• 4:46
  into 2027.
• 4:48
  Commanders responsible for Europe and Latin America are also warning
• 4:52
  that sending ships and surveillance aircraft to Central Command
• 4:55
  has reduced their ability to perform other missions,
• 4:58
  and some of those missions
• 5:00
  involve homeland defense.
• 5:02
  Now,
• 5:02
  none of this means that the Pentagon is somehow unable to fight.
• 5:06
  It means that commanders are increasingly worried about how
• 5:09
  much risk is accumulating outside the Middle East,
• 5:12
  while so much American combat power remains tied to Iran.
• 5:16
  And Iran
• 5:17
  has every reason to pay attention to this.
• 5:20
  Every month that the standoff continues,
• 5:22
  well,
• 5:22
  it forces Washington to spend more money,
• 5:24
  consume more interceptors,
• 5:26
  extend more deployments,
• 5:27
  and postpone more maintenance.
• 5:29
  Meanwhile,
• 5:30
  the US,
• 5:30
  of course,
• 5:31
  still has commitments in Europe and Asia and around the world,
• 5:34
  and that gives Tehran
• 5:36
  an incentive to drag things out.
• 5:38
  President Trump is trying to maintain enough
• 5:40
  military pressure to force Iran into concessions
• 5:43
  without committing the US to a larger war.
• 5:46
  But the longer the situation lasts,
• 5:48
  the more difficult that balance becomes.
• 5:51
  Pulling forces back would ease pressure on the military,
• 5:54
  but it could also ease pressure on Tehran,
• 5:56
  and keeping them in place
• 5:58
  preserves leverage against Iran while steadily increasing the
• 6:01
  risks that commanders are warning about elsewhere.
• 6:04
  And after six months of war,
• 6:06
  well,
• 6:06
  those warnings
• 6:07
  are becoming harder for the White House to ignore.
• 6:10
  All right.
• 6:11
  Coming up next,
• 6:12
  Russia and Iran deepen ties with China and India,
• 6:16
  and Greece turns to Israel
• 6:18
  for a $3.5 billion missile shield,
• 6:21
  give or take a few million.
• 6:23
  I'll be right back.
• 6:26
  Hey,
• 6:26
  Mike Baker here.
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  America's biggest geopolitical rivals are rallying in Central Asia,
• 7:34
  with the presidents of Russia and Iran
• 7:36
  meeting up with the leaders of China and India,
• 7:38
  all in an attempt to show Washington that years of pressure have failed to
• 7:42
  isolate them.
• 7:44
  Russian President Vladimir Putin
• 7:46
  and Iranian President Massoud Bazeshkin
• 7:48
  arrived in Kyrgyzstan Monday for a two-day
• 7:51
  summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,
• 7:53
  and you say to yourself,
• 7:55
  I'll bet there's an acronym for that,
• 7:56
  and you're right,
• 7:57
  it's SCO.
• 7:59
  Now they're joining China's Xi Jinping,
• 8:01
  India's Narendra Modi,
• 8:02
  and leaders from across Central Asia.
• 8:05
  It's quite the cabal.
• 8:06
  And just looking around that room tells you a bit about what this summit has become.
• 8:10
  The SCO is a 10 nation political and security group
• 8:14
  that started with Russia,
• 8:16
  China,
• 8:16
  and 4 Central Asian countries
• 8:18
  before expanding to include India,
• 8:20
  Pakistan,
• 8:21
  Iran,
• 8:21
  and Belarus.
• 8:23
  In the process,
• 8:24
  it's grown into what members hope is a counterweight to Western-led institutions.
• 8:29
  The SCO,
• 8:29
  heavily influenced by Beijing,
• 8:31
  offers countries like Russia and Iran
• 8:34
  a place to turn outside the American-led international order.
• 8:38
  Now that's especially useful for Putin and Poseskin,
• 8:41
  whose regimes Washington has,
• 8:43
  of course,
• 8:43
  spent years trying to squeeze economically.
• 8:46
  Both have withstood that pressure longer than some Western officials expected,
• 8:50
  and a big reason why
• 8:52
  is sitting in the room with them during the course of this SCO.
• 8:55
  That would be,
• 8:56
  of course,
• 8:57
  China.
• 8:57
  China has done more than any other country to
• 8:59
  sustain the Russian and Iranian economies through their wars,
• 9:03
  despite the CCP's protestations.
• 9:05
  That China loves nothing more
• 9:08
  than peace and neutrality.
• 9:10
  Beijing is the biggest importer of Russian and Iranian crude oil,
• 9:13
  while also supplying Moscow with everything from consumer goods
• 9:16
  to critical electronic components that the Russian military needs
• 9:20
  to produce drones and other weapons.
• 9:23
  Not long after Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022,
• 9:26
  Iran,
• 9:26
  of course,
• 9:27
  began supplying Russia with Shahad attack drones
• 9:30
  and later helped Moscow establish facilities
• 9:32
  to produce them domestically.
• 9:34
  And other countries attending the SCO festivities have
• 9:38
  provided additional lifelines for Russia and Iran.
• 9:41
  Central Asian nations have become critical routes for Russia to import goods
• 9:45
  and move payments around sanctions,
• 9:47
  while Iran
• 9:48
  has turned to the region as an alternative import route under the US blockade.
• 9:53
  India meanwhile became one of the world's biggest
• 9:55
  buyers of Russian oil after the invasion.
• 9:59
  Those purchases dropped under pressure from President Trump and new US sanctions,
• 10:03
  but the war with Iran disrupted global oil markets
• 10:06
  and pushed Indian buyers back toward Russian crude.
• 10:11
  Yet China remains the most important player.
• 10:14
  Last month,
• 10:15
  Xi brushed aside Trump's threat of a economic
• 10:18
  D-Day against countries providing Iran an economic lifeline,
• 10:22
  while Beijing continues buying Iranian crude.
• 10:26
  Western sanctions have also made Putin increasingly dependent
• 10:29
  on China,
• 10:30
  while giving Beijing access to discounted Russian oil.
• 10:34
  You can see that changing balance just by
• 10:36
  looking at where this summit is taking place.
• 10:39
  Kyrgyzstan was once part of the Soviet Union and remained
• 10:42
  firmly inside Moscow's sphere of influence after its collapse.
• 10:47
  Now,
• 10:47
  as Russia has become increasingly isolated and dependent on Beijing,
• 10:51
  China has steadily expanded its influence across Central Asia.
• 10:56
  It's important to note that the SCO is
• 10:58
  not some unified anti-American version of NATO.
• 11:02
  They're not quite unified.
• 11:03
  India and Pakistan are bitter rivals.
• 11:06
  India and China have long-standing tensions,
• 11:08
  and the countries gathered in Kyrgyzstan have very different interests.
• 11:12
  As an example,
• 11:13
  Putin met separately with India's Modi,
• 11:15
  who told him that India supports efforts to end the war in Ukraine,
• 11:19
  saying,
• 11:20
  quote,
• 11:20
  We need to move from endless war to the end of the war,
• 11:23
  to the end of hostilities,
• 11:25
  end quote.
• 11:26
  But Russia and Iran don't necessarily need everyone there to agree with them.
• 11:31
  Simply having the leaders in the same room helps Putin and Posseskia demonstrate
• 11:35
  that Western pressure has not left them alone.
• 11:38
  And for Xi,
• 11:39
  the gathering allows him to cast China as the leader of a non-Western alternative
• 11:44
  to institutions like the G7.
• 11:46
  As a reminder,
• 11:47
  in less than a month,
• 11:48
  Xi is expected to travel to Washington
• 11:51
  to meet with Trump
• 11:52
  as the US and China try to extend a fragile economic truce.
• 11:57
  All right,
• 11:58
  I want to shift now
• 11:59
  to a massive new defense deal in Europe
• 12:01
  because one NATO member,
• 12:03
  that would be Greece,
• 12:04
  is spending $3.5 billion to build its own
• 12:07
  version of Israel's battle-tested missile defense network.
• 12:11
  Now Athens and Jerusalem announced the agreement on Monday,
• 12:13
  and Israel
• 12:14
  is essentially being hired to build Greece
• 12:17
  an entirely new multi-layered air defense network
• 12:20
  known as the Achilles shield.
• 12:22
  It's the largest defense agreement that the two countries have ever signed,
• 12:26
  and according to Israel's defense ministry,
• 12:28
  one of the largest export deals in the Jewish state's history.
• 12:33
  But I think the more interesting part of this story
• 12:34
  is what Greece is actually getting for all that money,
• 12:38
  because Athens isn't simply buying a few Israeli missile
• 12:41
  systems and plugging them into its existing defenses.
• 12:44
  For the first time,
• 12:45
  Israel says it's exporting what it calls a
• 12:48
  complete defense array
• 12:49
  against a wide range of threats
• 12:52
  that includes David Sling and Spider,
• 12:54
  both made by Raphael,
• 12:55
  along with Israel Aerospace Industries,
• 12:58
  but the missiles are only one part of it.
• 13:00
  Israel is also providing radars to spot and track incoming threats
• 13:04
  and a command and control network.
• 13:06
  Throughout Israel's years of various multi-front wars,
• 13:09
  its military has repeatedly relied on layered air defenses
• 13:14
  against drones and missiles launched by Iran and its regional proxies,
• 13:19
  and countries around the world,
• 13:20
  of course,
• 13:20
  have been watching.
• 13:21
  I've discussed how the US and Ukraine and others
• 13:24
  have already expressed interest in emulating
• 13:26
  parts of Israel's missile defense network.
• 13:29
  Greece is
• 13:30
  now taking advantage
• 13:31
  of Israel's experience and buying a battle-tested and proven
• 13:35
  layered defense system,
• 13:36
  but Israel's battlefield experience
• 13:39
  only explains why Greece wants Israeli technology.
• 13:42
  To understand why Athens is prepared to spend $3.5 billion on it.
• 13:46
  You also have to look at who sits next door,
• 13:48
  and that of course would be Turkey.
• 13:50
  For those of you unfamiliar,
• 13:51
  Greece and Turkey are both NATO allies,
• 13:54
  but they've spent decades at odds over territorial and maritime disputes in the
• 13:59
  Aegean Sea and eastern Mediterranean.
• 14:02
  Greece now spends over 3% of its economy on defense.
• 14:05
  And lately,
• 14:06
  its long-standing rivalry with Turkey has started
• 14:09
  to overlap with Israel's own concerns about Ankara
• 14:12
  as it expands its regional influence,
• 14:14
  particularly in Syria.
• 14:17
  Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz appeared
• 14:19
  to acknowledge that shared concern,
• 14:21
  saying Israel and Greece face quote shared regional challenges
• 14:25
  as actors with hegemonic ambitions try to expand their influence
• 14:29
  and undermine stability in the region,
• 14:31
  end quote.
• 14:32
  Now,
• 14:32
  to be fair,
• 14:33
  Kats didn't say Turkey by name,
• 14:35
  but the reference was fairly clear.
• 14:38
  Israel and Greece already operate a joint air training center on Greek territory,
• 14:43
  hold annual military exercises,
• 14:44
  and cooperate on
• 14:46
  anti-drone systems and cybersecurity.
• 14:49
  Just last year,
• 14:50
  Athens bought Israeli-made rocket artillery systems for roughly $740 million.
• 14:56
  Now,
• 14:56
  the relationship,
• 14:57
  of course,
• 14:58
  is getting substantially deeper.
• 14:59
  That's what happens when you give somebody $3.5 billion.
• 15:03
  You get an improved relationship.
• 15:05
  Israel's defense ministry director
• 15:07
  described growing Israeli defense exports as a key driver of IDF force buildup,
• 15:13
  Israel's foreign policy influence,
• 15:14
  and the strength of the country's defense industry and economy.
• 15:18
  In other words,
• 15:19
  Israel can take systems refined through years of real world combat,
• 15:23
  sell them to allies abroad,
• 15:24
  and use those deals
• 15:26
  to strengthen both its own military and its strategic relationships.
• 15:30
  All right.
• 15:31
  Coming up in the back of the brief,
• 15:32
  rescuers in Nepal are blasting through collapsed hydropower tunnels
• 15:37
  in a desperate search for hundreds of workers
• 15:39
  still missing after last week's catastrophic flood.
• 15:42
  More on that
• 15:44
  when we come back.
• 15:46
  Hey,
• 15:47
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• 17:46
  In today's back of the brief,
• 17:48
  I wanted to give an update on the catastrophic flooding in Nepal and Tibet
• 17:52
  that we've been tracking here on the PDB.
• 17:54
  Rescue crews are now racing to reach hundreds of workers who
• 17:57
  may still be trapped deep underground.
• 18:00
  The disaster,
• 18:01
  of course,
• 18:01
  struck last Wednesday after a massive collapse high in the Himalayas sent ice,
• 18:06
  rock,
• 18:06
  and debris
• 18:07
  crashing into the river system below.
• 18:09
  According to the Associated Press,
• 18:11
  more than 950 people are now confirmed dead across Nepal and Tibet.
• 18:16
  While more than 4400 others remain missing.
• 18:20
  But some of the most intense rescue efforts
• 18:21
  are now focused on Nepal's hydropower facilities.
• 18:25
  At least 900 workers remain unaccounted for
• 18:28
  across roughly a dozen hydroelectric projects,
• 18:31
  and authorities believe around 500 of those workers
• 18:34
  may be trapped inside massive water controlled tunnels beneath the mountains.
• 18:39
  Now these aren't small passageways.
• 18:41
  Some are large enough to accommodate trucks and heavy equipment.
• 18:44
  When the flood hit,
• 18:45
  enormous amounts of mud,
• 18:46
  rock,
• 18:46
  and debris poured into the hydropower sites,
• 18:49
  blocking tunnel entrances and potentially trapping
• 18:52
  workers hundreds of feet inside.
• 18:54
  There was initially some reason for hope.
• 18:57
  Officials say some of the missing workers were able
• 18:59
  to make phone calls after the flooding began,
• 19:02
  suggesting
• 19:03
  that they had survived the initial disaster.
• 19:06
  But days have now passed without confirmed contact with many of them.
• 19:09
  Nepalese army engineers are using excavators and pumps
• 19:12
  and search equipment to clear the entrances.
• 19:15
  At some locations they're using controlled explosions
• 19:18
  to blast through the debris.
• 19:20
  Teams from China,
• 19:21
  India,
• 19:21
  and South Korea are also assisting with the effort.
• 19:24
  Reuters reports that at the Upper Trishui 3A project,
• 19:28
  engineers have been trying to penetrate a tunnel
• 19:30
  buried beneath roughly 50 ft of debris.
• 19:33
  The clock obviously is
• 19:35
  working against them.
• 19:36
  And we're also learning more about just how extraordinary the event itself was.
• 19:40
  Scientists believe part of the bedrock beneath a Himalayan glacier
• 19:44
  suddenly collapsed,
• 19:46
  bringing an enormous section of ice down with it.
• 19:48
  That collapse was so violent that seismic equipment
• 19:51
  initially registered what looked like an earthquake.
• 19:54
  The US Geological Survey
• 19:56
  later determined the event generated seismic energy
• 19:59
  roughly equivalent to a magnitude 5.2 earthquake.
• 20:03
  That enormous mass of rock and ice then slammed into the river system,
• 20:07
  creating a wall of water and debris that tore through valleys downstream.
• 20:12
  At one monitoring station,
• 20:13
  the Trishui River reportedly rose by roughly 27 ft
• 20:17
  in about 30 minutes.
• 20:19
  Bridges disappeared.
• 20:20
  Roads were washed away.
• 20:21
  Hydropower facilities were buried.
• 20:23
  Entire communities were overwhelmed
• 20:25
  before many people had time to react.
• 20:28
  And there are also some remarkable stories of survival.
• 20:31
  At one school in Bordour,
• 20:33
  a principal received a warning that the flood was coming and had
• 20:36
  about 14 minutes to evacuate more than 900 students and faculty members.
• 20:41
  The last school bus made it across a bridge
• 20:43
  just before the flood arrived.
• 20:45
  That bridge later collapsed,
• 20:47
  and the school itself was destroyed.
• 20:50
  So nearly a week after this disaster began,
• 20:52
  the rescue operation is far from over.
• 20:55
  Thousands remain missing
• 20:56
  and hundreds
• 20:57
  may still be trapped underground.
• 21:00
  And that,
• 21:00
  my friends,
• 21:01
  is the President's Daily Brief for Tuesday,
• 21:03
  the 1st of September.
• 21:04
  If you have any questions or comments,
• 21:06
  please reach out to me at PDB@hefirsttv.com.
• 21:09
  And finally,
• 21:10
  if you love the PDB and how could you not,
• 21:12
  well,
• 21:13
  hopefully how could you not,
• 21:14
  but are thinking you'd like to try an ad-free version,
• 21:17
  well,
• 21:17
  we can make that happen.
• 21:18
  Just become a premium member of the PDB
• 21:21
  by simply visiting PDBpremium.com.
• 21:24
  Easy peasy,
• 21:25
  as the kids say.
• 21:27
  Actually,
• 21:27
  I,
• 21:27
  I don't know if the kids
• 21:28
  may have stopped saying that back in the 1950s.
• 21:31
  Anyway,
• 21:32
  I'm Mike Baker and I'll be back later today with the PDB
• 21:35
  afternoon bulletin.
• 21:36
  Until then,
• 21:37
  stay informed,
• 21:38
  stay safe,
• 21:39
  stay cool.