Latest / The President's Daily Brief / PDB Afternoon Bulletin | September 11th, 2026: Strikes Are Spreading Across Iran & Anthropic Warns of AI Bioweapon Risks

Transcript

PDB Afternoon Bulletin | September 11th, 2026: Strikes Are Spreading Across Iran & Anthropic Warns of AI Bioweapon Risks · The President's Daily Brief

• 0:12
  It's Friday,
• 0:12
  the 11th of September,
• 0:14
  25 years on from 9/11.
• 0:17
  Now,
• 0:17
  if you care to remind yourself what that feeling was like in the
• 0:20
  wake of that terrible day,
• 0:22
  or maybe you're trying to explain it to a young person,
• 0:25
  might I suggest watching the U2 tribute from the Super
• 0:29
  Bowl halftime show back on the 3rd of February 2002.
• 0:33
  Just a thought.
• 0:35
  Welcome to the PDB
• 0:36
  afternoon bulletin.
• 0:37
  I'm Mike Baker,
• 0:38
  your eyes and ears
• 0:39
  on the world stage.
• 0:41
  All right.
• 0:42
  Let's get briefed.
• 0:43
  First up,
• 0:44
  labor unrest is spreading across Iran,
• 0:47
  with truckers,
• 0:48
  taxi drivers,
• 0:49
  and rideshare workers striking as fuel shortages and
• 0:52
  soaring costs continue to squeeze ordinary Iranians.
• 0:56
  Later in the show,
• 0:57
  we'll look at a new warning
• 0:58
  from Anthropic that
• 1:00
  people are already trying to use advanced AI for
• 1:03
  cyber attacks,
• 1:04
  weapons development,
• 1:05
  and potentially dangerous biological research.
• 1:09
  But first,
• 1:10
  today's afternoon spotlight.
• 1:11
  We've been watching the economic pressure build inside Iran for some time now.
• 1:15
  That includes the country's shrinking oil revenues,
• 1:18
  the collapse of the rial,
• 1:20
  the rising inflation,
• 1:21
  and
• 1:22
  more recently growing fuel shortages and higher prices at the pump.
• 1:26
  Now those problems are creating the biggest threat to the regime's grip on power,
• 1:30
  mounting frustration among ordinary Iranians,
• 1:33
  and a growing wave of labor unrest across the country.
• 1:37
  According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal,
• 1:39
  Iran is struggling with long lines at gas stations,
• 1:42
  fuel shortages,
• 1:43
  and
• 1:43
  now strikes and protests by truckers and taxi drivers and rideshare workers.
• 1:48
  The immediate trigger is a new round of fuel price increases.
• 1:52
  This week,
• 1:52
  the
• 1:53
  Iranian government doubled the price of some gasoline once drivers exhaust their
• 1:57
  cheap monthly fuel allotment.
• 2:00
  By American standards,
• 2:01
  gasoline in Iran is still extraordinarily cheap.
• 2:04
  The higher rate works out to roughly 4 cents per liter,
• 2:08
  but that number looks very different inside an economy where
• 2:11
  many Iranians earn little more than the equivalent of $100 a month.
• 2:16
  Filling up after the cheapest government subsidized fuel runs out
• 2:20
  can now cost roughly $2 for a car and $5 for a truck.
• 2:24
  At the same time,
• 2:25
  Tehran has already reduced the amount of
• 2:27
  subsidized fuel available to some drivers,
• 2:30
  and in parts of the country there simply isn't enough fuel to go around.
• 2:34
  The Journal reports that some gas stations ran dry as drivers
• 2:37
  rushed to fill their tanks before the new prices took effect.
• 2:41
  The shortages are increasingly affecting people who depend
• 2:43
  on their vehicles to earn a living.
• 2:45
  And that's where this economic story becomes a labor story.
• 2:49
  The frustration is no longer limited to complaints
• 2:51
  about prices or long lines at gas stations.
• 2:54
  In several parts of the country,
• 2:55
  workers are now protesting,
• 2:57
  staging strikes,
• 2:58
  and threatening to stop moving goods altogether.
• 3:01
  On Thursday,
• 3:02
  120 taxi drivers in Kerman province
• 3:05
  protested cuts to their subsidized fuel allocation,
• 3:08
  saying they now run out of their allotted supply
• 3:10
  well before the month ends.
• 3:13
  Drivers for Snap,
• 3:14
  that's,
• 3:14
  uh,
• 3:14
  Iran's version of Uber,
• 3:16
  have also gone on strike in several cities.
• 3:18
  The company is one of Iran's largest private employers
• 3:21
  with roughly 3 million drivers.
• 3:24
  In the industrial city of Arak,
• 3:26
  dozens gathered outside the governor's office this week,
• 3:29
  saying they could no longer make ends meet.
• 3:31
  In Semnan east of Tehran,
• 3:33
  rideshare drivers reportedly drove through the city in protest over the weekend,
• 3:37
  blocking traffic.
• 3:39
  In one video cited by the journal,
• 3:41
  a driver declared that everyone had stopped working.
• 3:44
  Truck drivers are also warning that the situation is becoming untenable.
• 3:48
  Truckers at the Mehran crossing along Iran's border with Iraq
• 3:51
  staged a one-day strike late last month over fuel shortages.
• 3:56
  That crossing plays an important role in
• 3:58
  bringing food and other staples into the country,
• 4:01
  and on Tuesday,
• 4:01
  truckers in Bandar Abbas,
• 4:03
  the port that handles most of Iran's container traffic,
• 4:06
  warned that they could walk off the job as well.
• 4:09
  In a statement,
• 4:10
  they said drivers and their families
• 4:12
  were being forced to absorb the rising cost of
• 4:14
  fuel and could no longer bear the pressure.
• 4:17
  That is particularly significant because these aren't workers
• 4:20
  on the margins of the Iran economy.
• 4:23
  They are responsible for moving people,
• 4:25
  food,
• 4:26
  commercial goods,
• 4:27
  and other essentials around the country.
• 4:29
  And according to one Iranian trucking official,
• 4:31
  the shortages drivers are facing now
• 4:33
  are worse than what they experienced during the first month of the war.
• 4:37
  He said the truckers kept cargo moving even under missile attacks and
• 4:41
  did not stop the flow of goods.
• 4:43
  Today those same drivers
• 4:44
  are spending hours waiting in line just to refuel.
• 4:48
  The broader economic picture is just as grim.
• 4:51
  Food inflation reportedly hit 128% in August.
• 4:55
  The Iranian rial fell to another record low this week,
• 4:58
  crossing 2.3 million riyal to the dollar,
• 5:02
  and businesses are adapting to a population that increasingly
• 5:05
  can't afford basic expenses.
• 5:08
  The blockade and the war are restricting Iran's
• 5:10
  ability to export oil and bring in revenue.
• 5:13
  Damage to refineries is making it harder to produce enough gasoline at home,
• 5:18
  and the government is increasingly being forced to
• 5:20
  reduce the subsidies that it's used for years
• 5:23
  to cushion ordinary Iranians from the country's economic problems.
• 5:27
  The protests that erupted at the beginning of this year in Iran
• 5:30
  started in the markets.
• 5:31
  Frustration over the economy and daily hardships facing ordinary Iranians.
• 5:36
  Of course,
• 5:37
  the
• 5:37
  IRGC and the Basij militia
• 5:40
  managed to kill their way out of the moment of civil unrest earlier in the year.
• 5:44
  Thousands of Iranians lost their lives as the regime
• 5:47
  once again demonstrated their desire to
• 5:50
  hold on to power at any cost,
• 5:52
  and the regime continues to detain and execute anyone that they view as a threat.
• 5:56
  The question is,
• 5:58
  will the brutal methods of the regime keep
• 6:00
  the people off the streets this time around?
• 6:03
  You can guarantee that the mullahs,
• 6:04
  the IRGC leadership,
• 6:06
  the Basieged militia commanders,
• 6:07
  and
• 6:08
  other elites
• 6:09
  are not waiting in line for gas or rationing
• 6:12
  their food in order to feed their families.
• 6:15
  That economic pain
• 6:16
  is being pushed down to the population.
• 6:19
  A population that
• 6:20
  fully understands
• 6:22
  the costs of taking to the streets.
• 6:25
  Alright,
• 6:25
  coming up next,
• 6:26
  Anthropic says some of the darkest fears surrounding artificial intelligence
• 6:30
  are starting to show up in the real world,
• 6:33
  from cyber attacks to weapons and bioweapons research.
• 6:37
  I'll be right back.
• 6:39
  Hey,
• 6:39
  Mike Baker here with a tip on how to jumpstart your day.
• 6:42
  Now,
• 6:43
  personally,
• 6:43
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• 6:46
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• 6:49
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• 6:51
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• 7:14
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• 7:34
  Hey,
• 7:34
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• 7:35
  Now if you're a PDB regular,
• 7:37
  and I hope you are,
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  right?
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• 7:42
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• 7:43
  Recording the podcast from countless airport lounges,
• 7:46
  hotels,
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  and the occasional secret lair.
• 7:48
  And all that travel means I always need to keep the phones and laptop charged,
• 7:52
  and that's why I'm a huge fan of the Ridge 5 in 1 Travel Power Bank.
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  If you don't mind,
• 8:41
  do me a favor,
• 8:42
  tell them the PDB sent you.
• 8:45
  Welcome back to the PDB
• 8:47
  afternoon bulletin.
• 8:48
  Anthropic,
• 8:49
  the company behind Cloud,
• 8:51
  says it's seeing troubling examples of how advanced artificial
• 8:55
  intelligence is being used in the real world.
• 8:57
  In a new threat report released Thursday,
• 9:00
  the company says it disrupted activity involving cyber attacks,
• 9:03
  surveillance,
• 9:04
  propaganda,
• 9:05
  weapons development,
• 9:06
  and potentially dangerous biological research.
• 9:09
  The bioweapons cases are probably the most alarming.
• 9:12
  Anthropic says it identified 5 instances in
• 9:15
  which users employed its models for work that
• 9:18
  could potentially support biological weapons development.
• 9:22
  In one case,
• 9:23
  virologists working under a state sponsored grant
• 9:26
  were pursuing gain of function research,
• 9:28
  oh good,
• 9:29
  I don't see how that goes wrong,
• 9:30
  involving what's called the
• 9:32
  chikungunya virus.
• 9:33
  I didn't make up that name.
• 9:34
  Let's try that one again,
• 9:35
  the chikungunya virus.
• 9:37
  Who came up with that?
• 9:38
  Anthropic says a reseller helped them get around regional restrictions and
• 9:42
  when Claude refused certain requests,
• 9:44
  routed some of those prompts to models with weaker safeguards.
• 9:49
  In another case,
• 9:50
  a researcher spent weeks using cloud to
• 9:52
  help plan experiments involving avian influenza
• 9:55
  and its ability to adapt to mammals.
• 9:58
  Now,
• 9:59
  Anthropic is not saying anyone successfully created
• 10:01
  a biological weapon using its technology.
• 10:04
  In fact,
• 10:04
  the company says there's still no demonstrated real world case
• 10:08
  showing that an AI model enabled someone to do that.
• 10:12
  But the concern is that the technology
• 10:15
  is getting closer to the point where it could provide meaningful assistance.
• 10:18
  Anthropic says older models were clearly below that threshold.
• 10:22
  With today's more capable systems,
• 10:24
  the company says it can no longer make that same assurance.
• 10:27
  That's prompted stronger restrictions around biological research activities.
• 10:32
  They could have both legitimate
• 10:34
  but also dangerous applications.
• 10:36
  Anthropic says it's also disrupted users,
• 10:38
  employing Cloud for cyber operations,
• 10:41
  surveillance,
• 10:41
  and influence campaigns.
• 10:43
  Separate testing released by the company.
• 10:45
  Found that advanced AI models can now
• 10:48
  perform some military and intelligence tasks that
• 10:51
  historically required highly trained specialists,
• 10:54
  including
• 10:54
  piecing together fragmentary information to locate potential targets
• 10:58
  and helping improve weapons such as drones.
• 11:01
  Anthropic says it's responded by banning accounts,
• 11:04
  strengthening safeguards,
• 11:05
  and sharing information with authorities
• 11:08
  and other companies when appropriate.
• 11:10
  But the larger point is that some
• 11:12
  of the national security risks surrounding artificial intelligence
• 11:16
  are no longer hypothetical,
• 11:17
  and as the models become more capable,
• 11:20
  the question is whether the safeguards around them can
• 11:23
  improve fast enough to keep pace with the people
• 11:26
  trying to get around those safeguards.
• 11:29
  And that my friends,
• 11:30
  on that cheery note,
• 11:31
  is the PDB
• 11:32
  afternoon bulletin for Friday,
• 11:34
  the 11th of September.
• 11:35
  Now,
• 11:35
  if you have any questions or comments,
• 11:37
  please reach out to me at PDB@thefirstv.com.
• 11:41
  Now,
• 11:41
  as a wise man once said,
• 11:43
  every Friday we launch a brand new episode of our extended weekend show,
• 11:47
  The PDB Situation Report.
• 11:49
  This week's guests include Steve Yates from the Heritage Foundation
• 11:52
  and Benham Bentaleblu,
• 11:53
  head of the Iran program
• 11:55
  for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
• 11:58
  You can catch it this evening at 10:00 p.m.
• 11:59
  on the first TV and as always on our YouTube channel.
• 12:03
  Just
• 12:03
  head on over to YouTube and search up at President's Daily Brief
• 12:07
  or wherever you get your podcasts.
• 12:09
  I'm Mike Baker and I'll be back over the weekend with the PDB situation report.
• 12:14
  Until then,
• 12:15
  stay informed,
• 12:16
  stay safe,
• 12:17
  stay cool.