Latest / The President's Daily Brief / September 15th, 2026: Iran’s Government Is Splintering Over the War & China Fears the AI Revolution

Transcript

September 15th, 2026: Iran’s Government Is Splintering Over the War & China Fears the AI Revolution · The President's Daily Brief

0:12
It's Tuesday,
0:13
the 15th of September.
0:14
Oh,
0:15
look at that.
0:15
We are officially halfway through the month.
0:18
Is it,
0:19
uh,
0:19
is it time to start humming holiday tunes yet?
0:22
Well,
0:22
soon.
0:23
Welcome to the President's Daily Brief.
0:25
I'm Mike Baker,
0:26
your eyes and ears on the world stage.
0:28
All right,
0:29
let's get briefed.
0:31
First up,
0:31
new reporting says Iranian hardliners deliberately
0:34
sabotaged a peace deal with Washington.
0:37
By attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz,
0:40
exposing an
0:41
ongoing power struggle inside the regime
0:43
over,
0:44
well,
0:44
who's actually in charge.
0:46
Later in the show,
0:48
China's top spy chief is warning that artificial intelligence
0:51
could become a direct threat to Communist Party rule
0:54
as Beijing confronts the political risks.
0:57
Of increasingly powerful AI
0:59
plus
1:00
NATO is responding after Russian drone attacks near Poland,
1:04
including
1:04
a strike that hit a rail station shortly after
1:07
a group of senior foreign officials had passed through.
1:10
And in today's Back of the Brief,
1:12
a former CIA officer caught with hundreds of gold bars stashed at his home
1:17
and millions in cash is now negotiating a plea deal
1:21
with federal prosecutors.
1:23
But first,
1:24
today's PDB spotlight.
1:26
Iran's war with the US may be influenced in part
1:30
by a war within the regime over who's actually calling the shots.
1:34
New reporting from The New York Times says hardline
1:36
figures or any other kind within Iran's security establishment
1:40
deliberately undermined a memorandum of understanding or a temporary
1:44
ceasefire or whatever we decided to call it back then
1:47
reached with Washington in July
1:49
by orchestrating attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
1:53
And according to Iranian officials who spoke to The Times,
1:55
President Massoud Poshkian didn't know the attack was coming.
1:59
Neither apparently did some of Iran's most senior military officials.
2:03
The episode unfolded in early July.
2:06
Poseskian was in neighboring Iraq
2:08
attending funeral ceremonies for Iran's former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
2:12
At the time,
2:14
according to the reporting,
2:15
Poseskian had reason to be optimistic.
2:17
Iran and the US had just
2:19
negotiated an agreement aimed at ending the fighting.
2:23
Then Iranian forces suddenly opened fire on 3
2:26
commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
2:29
A Qatari liquefied natural gas tanker was set ablaze.
2:32
Other vessels were damaged,
2:33
and
2:34
whatever momentum existed toward ending the war disappeared almost immediately.
2:39
According to the Times,
2:40
Poseskian was furious.
2:42
He called General Ahmad Vahidi.
2:44
The commander in chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,
2:47
the IRGC,
2:48
demanding to know what had happened.
2:50
Vahidi reportedly anyway told him that he had not authorized the attack
2:55
and,
2:55
more surprisingly,
2:56
again,
2:57
according to Vahidi,
2:58
he hadn't known about it beforehand.
3:00
Iran's Supreme National Security Council,
3:02
which supposedly plays a central role in
3:05
both the war and negotiations with Washington,
3:07
was also reportedly unaware.
3:10
Poseskian returned to Tehran,
3:11
and by the following morning,
3:13
the US had responded with air strikes,
3:15
and the two countries
3:16
were back at war.
3:18
What followed inside Iran,
3:19
according to officials interviewed by the Times anyway,
3:22
was one of the most serious confrontations
3:23
among the country's leadership in years.
3:26
There were shouting matches.
3:27
Two senior generals reportedly threatened to resign,
3:30
and officials accused one another
3:32
of betrayal and treason.
3:34
An internal investigation eventually pointed toward one of
3:37
the most powerful figures in Iran's security establishment,
3:40
Hossein Tayeb.
3:41
Tayeb is a cleric and longtime intelligence operative
3:45
who spent more than two decades leading
3:47
intelligence operations for the Revolutionary Guard,
3:50
again the IRGC.
3:51
He was removed from that position in 2022
3:54
following a series of embarrassing.
3:56
Security failures including
3:58
Israeli penetration of Iranian networks.
4:00
But after Ali Khamenei was killed,
4:02
Tayeb returned to prominence.
4:04
Iranian officials
4:05
say he played an important role in helping Khamenei's son Mushtaba,
4:09
wherever he may be,
4:10
become the new Supreme Leader.
4:12
Tayeb also strongly opposed
4:14
the ceasefire agreement or memorandum of understanding with Washington.
4:18
According to 3 Iranian officials cited by The Times,
4:22
government and security inquiries trace the decision to
4:24
attack those commercial ships back to Tayeb.
4:27
One former Iranian official described the objective very plainly
4:31
destroy the agreement with President Trump
4:33
and make another round of negotiations far more difficult.
4:37
When Posseskian demanded answers,
4:39
he was reportedly told that commanders in the field
4:42
had acted under standing orders
4:44
allowing them to attack ships that they believed violated Iran's control of
4:48
the Strait of Hormuz
4:49
without first seeking approval from Tehran.
4:52
But the internal dispute exposed a much bigger problem for the regime.
4:57
Normally Iran's Supreme Leader would settle a fight like this,
5:01
except as we know,
5:02
Iran's new Supreme Leader
5:04
is nowhere to be seen.
5:05
Mustafa Khamenei has not appeared publicly since taking the position,
5:08
and his voice has not been heard publicly.
5:11
Even members of his own family.
5:13
have said they have little or no contact with him
5:16
because supposedly of extraordinary security measures.
5:19
According to the Times,
5:20
some Iranian officials,
5:21
including Poseskin,
5:22
have also questioned whether statements attributed to
5:25
Khamenei are actually coming from him.
5:28
One reported encounter is particularly strange.
5:31
Earlier this year,
5:33
Poseskian said he had met with the Supreme Leader,
5:35
but officials familiar with the meeting
5:37
told the Times that Poseskian was driven
5:40
around in an ambulance with blacked out windows
5:43
while a secure video connection was established.
5:45
And then a man appeared on the screen claiming
5:48
to relay messages between the president and Khamenei.
5:52
Poshkin reportedly later told an ally that he
5:54
wasn't certain that he had actually been communicating
5:57
with the Supreme Leader at all.
5:59
You think?
6:00
And without someone reliable at the top of the chain of command,
6:03
well,
6:04
Iran's leadership is now divided over what comes next.
6:07
One faction
6:08
wants to return to negotiations.
6:10
Supposedly
6:11
Iran's economy is deteriorating.
6:13
Its currency is falling.
6:14
Inflation is soaring at a
6:16
US naval blockade has crippled trade and
6:19
reduced Iranian oil exports to virtually nothing.
6:22
Pokian and other officials argue that continued escalation could push the country
6:27
even deeper into crisis,
6:28
and of course what they're really worried about
6:30
potentially lead to massive civil unrest.
6:34
But hardline commanders are pushing in the opposite direction.
6:37
According to the Times,
6:38
they've developed a broader war plan
6:41
built around increasing the cost of the conflict for the US and its allies.
6:45
That includes attacking American naval vessels,
6:48
potentially killing US troops,
6:50
activating Iran-backed militias in Iraq,
6:53
expanding Houthi attacks from Yemen,
6:55
striking regional oil infrastructure,
6:57
and driving global energy prices higher.
7:00
And if you've been following our reporting here on the PDB,
7:03
that is exactly the direction that the conflict has been heading.
7:07
We've been covering Iranian attacks on American vessels,
7:10
strikes launched from Iraq against Saudi energy infrastructure,
7:14
and the Houthis expanding their territorial offensive
7:17
while launching missiles and drones towards Saudi Arabia.
7:20
According to the Times,
7:21
those developments are unfolding
7:23
as the faction advocating greater escalation gains influence inside the regime.
7:29
Iran is fighting the US
7:31
while its own leadership is supposedly fighting each other.
7:34
Its president reportedly supported a ceasefire agreement.
7:37
Powerful security figures allegedly worked to destroy it,
7:41
and the Supreme Leader,
7:42
well,
7:43
who's supposed to settle internal regime disputes,
7:46
he's still the invisible man.
7:48
All right.
7:48
Coming up next,
7:49
Iran-backed Houthis sees a strategic Red Sea island
7:53
and
7:54
a Russian drone strikes a train near the Polish
7:57
border on a route used by foreign leaders.
8:00
I'll be right back.
8:02
Hey,
8:03
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Welcome back to the PDB.
9:14
The Chinese Communist Party,
9:16
the CCP has spent decades trying to eliminate threats to its grip on power.
9:21
Now China's top spy chief.
9:23
is warning that artificial intelligence could create an entirely new threat.
9:28
China's Minister of State Security
9:30
Chen Yi-xin is warning that capabilities already emerging from AI
9:35
could eventually be turned against
9:37
the CCP.
9:39
In a new article published in the state-run magazine China Cyberspace.
9:43
Chen lays out the most comprehensive
9:45
warning yet from China's powerful security apparatus
9:49
about the risks posed by artificial intelligence,
9:52
but unlike much of the AI debate that we've
9:54
heard in the US and elsewhere across the West,
9:57
Chen isn't focused on some uncertain future
10:00
where increasingly powerful systems escape human control.
10:04
He's worried
10:05
about what people can already do with AI,
10:07
and of course
10:08
he's worried about the CCP
10:10
losing its grip on power.
10:12
His first concern tells us quite a bit about Beijing's priorities,
10:15
and
10:16
that is,
10:16
of course,
10:17
protecting the Communist Party.
10:19
Chen warns that people with what he calls ulterior motives
10:23
could use AI to generate fake videos and audio to wage a
10:27
propaganda war against China.
10:30
Some of you see versions of this on social media every day,
10:33
with AI generated videos making
10:35
celebrities or other public figures appear to say or do things that never happened.
10:40
Now apply that to China's tightly controlled political system.
10:44
A fabricated announcement from Chinese President Xi Jinping,
10:47
for example,
10:47
if convincing enough and spread quickly enough,
10:50
could create confusion,
10:51
even military or political instability,
10:54
before Beijing contains it.
10:56
But here's where Chen's warning becomes particularly revealing.
11:00
Beijing is presenting the CCP as a potential victim
11:04
of AI-enabled propaganda,
11:05
surveillance,
11:06
and intelligence operations.
11:08
China's own security apparatus,
11:10
however,
11:10
is already trying to harness some of those same capabilities,
11:14
says China-based actors linked to public and state security organs.
11:18
Have used Quad to monitor political sentiment,
11:21
track dissidents and activists,
11:23
and support what Beijing calls quote
11:25
stability maintenance.
11:27
So that's a good one,
11:27
stability maintenance.
11:29
How,
11:29
how very Mao of them.
11:31
So Beijing isn't objecting to the power that AI gives
11:34
an intelligence service to monitor people or collect information.
11:37
It's worried
11:38
about what happens when that power belongs to somebody else,
11:41
which of course
11:42
is always the fear of a communist regime or dictators.
11:46
That fear extends directly into cybersecurity.
11:48
Chen warns that
11:49
AI is lowering the technical and
11:52
financial barriers to sophisticated cyber attacks.
11:55
He specifically points to American AI models including Claude Mithos and
11:59
GPT 5.5 cyber as
12:01
emerging cybersecurity threats and warns that foreign intelligence services
12:06
could use AI for large scale espionage.
12:10
And if anybody knows large scale espionage,
12:13
it's China's Minister of State Security.
12:16
Now sensitive information doesn't necessarily have to be stolen.
12:19
Anthropic says
12:20
the Chinese AI company Moonshot
12:22
routed some user queries through cloud,
12:25
including queries containing surveillance material
12:27
linked to the Chinese military and
12:29
proprietary information.
12:31
Belonging to major Chinese technology companies.
12:34
In other words,
12:35
Chinese users themselves could put sensitive information
12:38
into an American AI system.
12:40
And then there's the military dimension.
12:43
Chen in the state media article says AI is fundamentally changing warfare,
12:49
pointing to the American military's use of the technology
12:51
during the US war with Iran.
12:53
He argues that militaries capable of using
12:56
algorithms for more precise sensing and targeting
12:59
will gain
13:00
the initiative on the battlefield.
13:02
And that is the dilemma for Beijing.
13:05
China can't simply clamp down on AI
13:08
because Xi Jinping's government considers it essential
13:11
to competing economically and militarily with the US
13:14
Beijing wants more powerful AI.
13:17
It just doesn't want that power
13:19
in the hands of anyone except the Communist Party.
13:22
The timing here is interesting because American and
13:24
Chinese officials are expected to discuss AI safety
13:28
ahead of President Trump's meeting with Xi Jinping in Washington
13:32
on the 24th of September.
13:34
OK.
13:35
Turning now to the war in Ukraine,
13:37
where NATO is promising more support for Kiev
13:40
after a Russian drone barrage came within 1 mile of Polish territory.
13:45
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte says the strikes
13:48
near Poland show Russia is becoming increasingly reckless
13:51
and that rather than frightening Ukraine's allies into backing away,
13:54
they're having the opposite effect.
13:57
As we discussed on yesterday's PDB,
13:59
one of those drones struck a train near the Yahodin border crossing
14:02
along a railway corridor often used by
14:04
foreign officials traveling between Ukraine and Poland.
14:08
Rutte called the attacks a sign of Russian President Putin's desperation
14:13
and his desire to sow fear and terror
14:15
when it comes to the alliance's eastern front,
14:18
and he had a clear message for Putin,
14:20
quote,
14:20
He thinks that he can stop us from supporting Ukraine
14:23
and that he can undermine our unity.
14:25
He is wrong,
14:26
end quote.
14:27
Rutta says NATO will instead increase support
14:29
for Ukraine and strengthen its eastern defenses.
14:33
And we're now learning that another prominent Western figure was
14:36
caught up in that attack on a separate train.
14:39
Former CIA Director and retired Army General David Petraeus
14:42
was aboard a civilian train at Yehodin
14:44
when he heard Russian drones roaring overhead.
14:47
According to The New York Times,
14:48
Petraeus and the other passengers were quickly evacuated.
14:51
Not long afterward,
14:53
he heard a massive explosion as a jet-powered Russian drone
14:56
struck the locomotive of another train sitting next to his.
15:00
Petraeus called it the act of a truly barbaric leader
15:03
trying to terrorize Ukrainian civilians.
15:06
Now,
15:07
as I previously discussed,
15:08
a separate diplomatic train carrying former
15:10
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson,
15:12
former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt,
15:14
and officials from several NATO and European Union countries
15:17
had already passed through the area and crossed into Poland.
15:21
Ukraine's state railway says Johnson's train could have been the intended target
15:25
because it left earlier than scheduled,
15:27
although there is no evidence Russia deliberately targeted those officials.
15:32
Poland is now warning that Russia could
15:34
intensify attacks along Ukraine's European borders.
15:37
Officials say intelligence,
15:39
including a CIA briefing last week,
15:41
indicated that Moscow could begin targeting border
15:44
points and stepping up sabotage inside Europe.
15:47
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk says Poland cannot rule out escalation,
15:51
reaching its own territory either directly or indirectly.
15:55
When asked specifically about the train strike,
15:58
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov,
16:00
you remember him,
16:01
told reporters that Russian forces are operating across Ukraine
16:04
and will continue to do so.
16:07
Meanwhile,
16:08
President Trump,
16:09
well,
16:09
he's sending a very different kind of message to Kiev,
16:13
and it concerns one of Ukraine's most effective campaigns against Putin
16:16
and Putin's wartime economy.
16:18
Trump is urging Ukrainian President Zelensky to
16:22
stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia.
16:26
Trump argues that those attacks are what's
16:28
contributing to the global diesel shortage.
16:30
Well,
16:30
to be fair,
16:31
the shortages and increased prices might also have something
16:34
to do with the general instability and confusion.
16:37
Surrounding the Strait of Hormuz and the US conflict with Iran,
16:41
diesel prices in the US climbed above $6 a gallon
16:44
on average last week for the first time ever.
16:48
Now,
16:48
as we've been tracking here on the PDB,
16:49
Ukraine
16:50
targets those refineries because
16:52
Russia's oil industry is what feeds Putin's war machine.
16:57
The strikes have reduced refining capacity,
16:59
contributed to Russian fuel shortages,
17:01
and helped force Moscow
17:03
to restrict diesel exports.
17:05
Kiev's strikes on Russia's energy infrastructure have done more
17:09
to bring Putin's war home to the Russian people
17:11
than any other Ukrainian military effort,
17:14
and making the Russian population directly feel the effects of Putin's invasion,
17:19
increasing their dissatisfaction with Putin's choices,
17:22
well,
17:22
that may be the most effective way
17:24
to actually bring about an end to the conflict.
17:27
Moscow unsurprisingly welcomed Trump's message,
17:31
with Peskov saying
17:32
any call for Kiev to stop attacking its infrastructure
17:36
can only be welcomed.
17:39
Coming up in the back of the brief,
17:41
the case of the CIA officer and the gold bars,
17:44
cash and luxury watches stash.
17:47
To be fair,
17:48
who doesn't have hundreds of gold bars just safely stored at home?
17:52
I'll be right back.
17:55
Hey,
17:55
Mike Baker here.
17:56
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Hey,
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20:32
In today's Back of the Brief,
20:33
we're checking back in on
20:35
one of the stranger stories that we first told you about earlier this year.
20:39
Former CIA officer David Rush was arrested back in May after the FBI accused him
20:45
of stealing public money.
20:47
According to investigators,
20:48
Rush claimed 744 hours of military leave
20:52
after he had already been honorably discharged from the Navy
20:56
in 2015.
20:57
That allegedly added up to roughly $77,000 in
21:01
compensation that he was not entitled to.
21:04
Investigators also accused Rush of
21:06
providing false information about his education
21:09
and military service on his government application.
21:11
Now perhaps now you could argue.
21:14
Something
21:14
like that could have been discovered while he was
21:17
being vetted through a background check prior to employment,
21:20
but perhaps I'm just being churlish.
21:22
But all of that was quickly overshadowed by what agents found
21:25
when they searched his home in Virginia.
21:27
I wonder if Gold Bar Bob Menendez is listening.
21:30
The FBI says agents recovered 303 gold bars worth more than $40 million
21:36
roughly $2 million in cash,
21:38
and 35 luxury watches.
21:40
That's a lot of luxury watches,
21:42
many of them Rolexes.
21:44
Well,
21:44
how about that?
21:45
According to the FBI,
21:46
Rush had made multiple requests through the government.
21:49
For large amounts of foreign currency and tens
21:52
of millions of dollars in gold bars supposedly
21:55
for work-related expenses,
21:57
and
21:58
well,
21:59
those requests were granted,
22:01
but the complaint says Russia's employer,
22:02
that would be the CIA,
22:04
was unable to identify the intended use for those funds.
22:07
That discovery immediately turned what looked
22:09
like a relatively straightforward fraud case
22:12
into something much stranger.
22:14
A federal judge later ordered Rush to remain in custody,
22:17
concluding that he posed a serious flight risk.
22:19
You think?
22:20
Now,
22:21
several months later,
22:22
the case appears to be moving toward a resolution.
22:24
The Justice Department and Rush's attorney
22:27
told a federal judge Friday that they have reached
22:29
what they described as a plea agreement in principle.
22:32
They're asking the court to extend the deadline for filing an indictment
22:36
until the 8th of October while they work to finalize the agreement.
22:40
The filing does not say what charges Rush would be pleading guilty to.
22:44
The reality is,
22:45
look,
22:46
Rush allegedly,
22:47
I'll keep using the word allegedly,
22:48
allegedly fabricated information on his resume.
22:51
He allegedly lied about his military service.
22:54
He allegedly cheated on his payroll.
22:57
These are the actions of a fraudster,
22:59
right?
22:59
And the first time you see a fraud is never the first time,
23:01
uh,
23:02
that fraud's been committed.
23:03
Once inside the CIA,
23:05
he likely identified opportunities
23:07
within the finance and expenses system.
23:10
And he used his position to create a fabricated
23:13
secret operation
23:14
that needed significant operating expenses,
23:18
right?
23:18
Once a fraudster,
23:20
always a fraudster,
23:21
allegedly.
23:22
But
23:23
the filing does include one interesting explanation for why
23:26
both sides may want to avoid a trial.
23:29
According to the filing,
23:30
taking the case through indictment
23:31
and trial could require significant litigation
23:34
involving classified material.
23:36
Now,
23:37
exactly what that classified material involves is not explained,
23:39
but it's likely that the defense,
23:41
seeing an opportunity,
23:42
would simply spend a great deal of time and
23:44
government resources demanding access to Russia's employment activities,
23:48
knowing.
23:49
That request for classified information,
23:51
whether relevant or not,
23:53
would tie the case up in court
23:55
for a very long time.
23:57
So for now,
23:58
a case that started with allegations of fraudulent military leave
24:01
led agents to more than $40 million in gold bars,
24:04
millions in cash,
24:05
and a collection of luxury watches
24:07
may ultimately
24:08
end in a plea deal
24:09
before some of its strangest details
24:12
are ever aired in open court.
24:14
And that,
24:15
my friends,
24:15
is the president's daily brief for Tuesday,
24:18
the 15th of September.
24:19
If you have any questions or comments,
24:20
I hope you'll just reach out to me at PDB@thefirstv.com.
24:25
And if you find yourself thinking,
24:26
I wonder what an ad-free PDB sounds like,
24:30
well,
24:30
we We have got you covered.
24:31
Just become a premium member of the President's Daily Brief
24:34
by visiting PDBpremium.com.
24:37
I'm Mike Baker and I'll be back later today with the PDB
24:40
afternoon bulletin.
24:41
Until then,
24:42
stay informed,
24:43
stay safe,
24:44
stay cool.