Latest / The President's Daily Brief / October 15th, 2026: Iran's Regime Is Preparing for a War That Could Break It & Ukrainian Officer Faces Trial

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October 15th, 2026: Iran's Regime Is Preparing for a War That Could Break It & Ukrainian Officer Faces Trial · The President's Daily Brief

0:13
It's Thursday,
0:14
the 15th of October.
0:15
Look at that.
0:16
We are halfway through the month.
0:18
Welcome to the President's Daily Brief.
0:20
I'm Mike Baker,
0:21
your eyes and ears on the world stage,
0:23
and what a world stage it is.
0:26
All right,
0:27
let's get briefed.
0:28
First up,
0:28
Iran is fortifying its nuclear facilities,
0:32
mobilizing civilians,
0:33
and preparing for another round of fighting with the US.
0:36
But with its military badly weakened and its economy under enormous pressure,
0:41
what exactly is the Islamic Republic's calculus here?
0:45
Later in the show,
0:46
a Ukrainian special forces veteran goes on trial in Germany,
0:50
accused of leading the covert operation that destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines.
0:55
Plus,
0:56
the US conducts an underground experiment in Nevada
0:59
designed to detect secret nuclear explosions
1:02
as Washington accuses China of conducting clandestine nuclear tests.
1:07
You know,
1:07
the thing I like about 2026
1:09
is that it's just been so peaceful and devoid of conflict.
1:14
And in today's back in the brief,
1:15
the FBI arrests an open AI employee
1:18
after a listening device is discovered inside an executive
1:22
conference room at the company's San Francisco offices.
1:26
Well,
1:26
that is pretty much how industrial espionage works.
1:29
But first,
1:30
today's PDB spotlight.
1:32
Iran is preparing for another round of fighting with the US,
1:36
and according to new reporting from the Wall Street Journal,
1:38
those preparations now extend well beyond the country's military installations.
1:43
Satellite imagery shows Iran is strengthening
1:45
defenses around sensitive nuclear facilities,
1:48
including Natanz and the underground complex known as Pickaxe Mountain.
1:53
The regime has constructed earthen barriers around
1:55
most of the entrances apparently designed to
1:57
make it more difficult for American forces
2:00
to carry out potential ground operations.
2:03
Iranian officials say the country's airports,
2:05
ports,
2:05
and power plants
2:07
are also preparing for wartime conditions,
2:09
installing shelters and emergency supplies.
2:13
Meanwhile,
2:13
Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps,
2:15
the IRGC,
2:16
It's working to mobilize the population.
2:19
Why,
2:20
it seemed like just earlier this year that the IRGC and Basij militia
2:24
demobilized thousands of their population,
2:27
slaughtering them for daring to protest in the streets.
2:31
Billboards in Tehran advertised civilian training courses
2:34
involving sniper rifles and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles.
2:38
Well,
2:38
one can only hope
2:40
that they issue rifles and shoulder-fired
2:43
anti-aircraft missiles to the civilians.
2:45
That could be a very positive development here.
2:48
In addition,
2:49
the guard has publicized the training of female commando units
2:52
while paramilitary personnel have visited kindergartens to tell children
2:57
stories about the war.
2:59
Good news,
2:59
kids,
3:00
we're having some fairly radical paramilitary commandos coming in to
3:04
talk to you about war.
3:06
It's gonna be great.
3:07
And Iranian leaders are threatening a much more
3:09
aggressive response if President Trump resumes military operations
3:13
after the November midterm elections.
3:16
According to the journal,
3:17
Tehran has warned regional governments that another American
3:21
attack could trigger strikes against Saudi oil facilities,
3:24
American warships,
3:25
and critical infrastructure throughout the Gulf.
3:28
Some officials have even raised the possibility of
3:30
sending Iranian ground forces into neighboring countries.
3:34
It sounds like
3:35
the regime's medications need to be adjusted.
3:38
Regardless,
3:39
the message Tehran is trying to send does seem somewhat clear.
3:43
Another war won't be limited to Iran,
3:45
and the consequences could be considerably more severe
3:48
than the last round of fighting.
3:50
But there's an obvious problem
3:52
with their threat.
3:53
Iran has already suffered enormous military losses.
3:56
Its economy is under extraordinary pressure.
3:58
Its conventional forces have been badly weakened,
4:01
and it remains dramatically outmatched by the US and regional allies,
4:05
which raises an interesting question.
4:08
Is Iran preparing to fight a war that it can't win?
4:10
Well,
4:10
it is the Islamic Republic,
4:12
and
4:13
they do tend to not be on the same logic train.
4:16
Well,
4:16
to answer that,
4:17
you have to first consider what Iran has left.
4:20
Since the war began in February,
4:22
American and Israeli forces have struck thousands of Iranian military targets,
4:26
damaging air defenses,
4:28
missile installations,
4:29
naval assets,
4:30
and command facilities.
4:31
Iran's ability to challenge American
4:33
forces in a conventional military engagement
4:35
has been severely diminished.
4:37
Its air force obviously cannot compete with American aircraft.
4:41
The US would have
4:42
air superiority,
4:43
and its navy would face overwhelming disadvantages in a direct confrontation,
4:48
to say the least.
4:49
But that does not mean that Iran is defenseless as they've
4:53
shown with their continuing disruptions of the Strait of Hormuz.
4:56
The regime still possesses missiles,
4:58
drones,
4:59
and other weapons capable of threatening American bases and
5:02
the waterway and regional allies and commercial infrastructure.
5:06
And while its military has taken significant losses,
5:08
the full extent of its remaining capabilities
5:11
has been difficult to establish specifically.
5:15
Tehran may instead be calculating that it can make another war so expensive,
5:19
disruptive,
5:19
and politically complicated
5:21
that Washington eventually decides the costs outweigh the benefits.
5:26
Consider the targets that Iran is threatening
5:28
American military installations across the Gulf,
5:31
Saudi oil facilities,
5:32
commercial shipping,
5:34
and now,
5:34
according to Iranian officials,
5:36
data centers and undersea communications infrastructure.
5:39
In other words,
5:40
Iran's strategy isn't to defeat the US,
5:43
but to expand the conflict until Washington decides it's had enough.
5:48
Now every escalation of course risks provoking a stronger American response,
5:52
and attacking neighboring countries could push their
5:55
governments into closer military cooperation with Washington.
5:59
There's also the question of what's happening inside Iran.
6:02
The Journal's reporting about civilian weapons training,
6:05
paramilitary mobilization,
6:06
and pro-regime demonstrations
6:08
is particularly interesting.
6:10
Some of this is undoubtedly intended to demonstrate national resolve,
6:15
but Iran's leadership also has to worry
6:17
about maintaining control at home.
6:20
The country's economy has been battered by inflation,
6:22
sanctions,
6:23
and the ongoing American blockade.
6:25
Public frustration has grown while the war has placed additional pressure on
6:29
a government already struggling
6:32
to maintain something resembling economic stability.
6:35
A renewed American bombing campaign
6:37
could encourage some Iranians to rally behind
6:40
their government against a foreign enemy.
6:42
But additional destruction,
6:44
economic hardship,
6:45
and military losses
6:46
could also deepen public anger,
6:48
place greater strain on the regime.
6:51
For Washington,
6:52
another military campaign might aim
6:54
to destroy additional nuclear infrastructure,
6:57
further weaken Iran's missile forces,
6:58
or compel Tehran to accept restrictions on its nuclear program.
7:03
But Iran's leadership probably defines success very differently.
7:08
If the regime survives,
7:09
retains control of the country,
7:11
and preserves enough military and nuclear infrastructure to rebuild,
7:15
it could claim victory regardless of
7:17
how much destruction American forces inflict.
7:20
And for now,
7:21
Tehran appears to be betting that it can survive another round of fighting,
7:26
retain enough leverage to negotiate,
7:28
and convince Washington
7:29
that continuing the campaign simply isn't worth the price.
7:33
All right.
7:34
Coming up next,
7:35
a Ukrainian special forces veteran goes on
7:38
trial over the Nord Stream pipeline bombings,
7:41
and the US conducts an underground experiment
7:43
to detect suspected secret Chinese nuclear tests.
7:47
I'll be right back.
7:50
Hey,
7:50
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Welcome back to the PDB.
9:16
Looking now at one of the bigger mysteries of the war in Ukraine,
9:19
4 years after explosions tore through the Nord Stream pipelines,
9:24
a Ukrainian special forces veteran is standing trial in Germany,
9:28
with prosecutors alleging his country's state agencies ordered the attack.
9:32
The man at the center of the case is
9:34
identified under German privacy rules only as Sergei K.
9:38
His trial opened Wednesday in Hamburg.
9:40
His attorneys deny that he participated in the
9:43
September 2022 sabotage beneath the Baltic Sea.
9:47
Now consider the position that
9:49
that puts Germany in.
9:51
Berlin is Ukraine's largest military backer in
9:54
Europe and has budgeted more than $12 billion
9:57
to support Kiev this year.
9:59
Yet its prosecutors say an operation intended to weaken Russia
10:03
also violated Germany's own sovereign rights.
10:07
To understand how those interests became entangled,
10:09
we need to revisit the pipeline attack.
10:12
Nord Stream was the world's largest offshore natural gas pipeline system,
10:16
a roughly $20 billion project
10:18
that had tied Germany's energy supply
10:21
to Russia for more than a decade.
10:23
German prosecutors say severing that connection was the point of the operation
10:27
with the aim of depriving Moscow of revenue
10:30
that could help finance its invasion of Ukraine.
10:33
So how do prosecutors say the team carried it out?
10:36
Well,
10:36
at the time,
10:37
Sergei Kay was serving as a captain in the Ukrainian special forces unit.
10:42
Prosecutors allege that he led a seven-member team.
10:45
They rented a recreational yacht called the Andromeda,
10:48
using it to transport divers and military-grade explosives into the Baltic Sea.
10:53
From there,
10:54
the divers allegedly descended the pipelines
10:57
roughly 250 ft below the surface
11:00
and planted the explosives.
11:02
The resulting blasts destroyed 3 of Nord Stream's 4 gas lines.
11:06
The 4th survived with relatively minor damage but
11:09
has remained out of service ever since.
11:12
And that brings us to the evidence what actually
11:14
connects the individual Sergei K to the operation.
11:18
German prosecutors have no DNA or fingerprints or other forensic evidence
11:23
directly linking him to the attack.
11:25
They say he belonged to a sabotage team
11:27
whose other members have been connected to the operation
11:30
through forensic evidence.
11:32
The indictment also describes how members of the group
11:34
allegedly traveled using Ukrainian passports bearing false identities,
11:39
but their real photographs.
11:41
Serhi Kay was arrested in Italy and extradited to Germany,
11:45
where he now faces charges of sabotage,
11:47
destruction of critical infrastructure,
11:49
and a war crime.
11:51
Another suspected team member,
11:52
Ukrainian deep sea diver Volodymyr Z,
11:55
could eventually join him in court.
11:58
German police say traces of explosives recovered from his diving equipment
12:01
match explosive residue found at the Nord Stream blast sites.
12:05
If he's transferred,
12:07
people close to the prosecution say his case could be combined with Sergei Kay's,
12:11
potentially strengthening their account of
12:13
how the team operated.
12:15
But Serhi Kaye's attorneys dispute both his involvement
12:18
and the prosecution's interpretation of the law.
12:21
They argue that even if Ukrainian forces destroyed Nord Stream,
12:25
the pipelines could constitute a legitimate military target
12:28
in Ukraine's war of self-defense against Russia.
12:32
The defense points to the money and
12:33
influence that Nord Stream generated for the Kremlin
12:36
along with its majority owner's involvement in the war.
12:39
According to a 2023 European Union sanctions decision,
12:43
Russia's state-controlled energy giant Gazprom
12:46
created and financed private military units staffed largely by its employees
12:51
that fought in Ukraine.
12:53
But Germany's Federal Court of Justice has already challenged that reasoning
12:57
in a preliminary ruling in December.
12:59
The court rejected the idea that
13:01
civilian infrastructure becomes a legitimate military target
13:05
simply because its revenue helps finance a war.
13:08
It also found that destroying Nord Stream infringed Germany's sovereign rights,
13:12
even though the explosions occurred in the
13:14
exclusive economic zones of Denmark and Sweden.
13:18
That brings us back to the relationship at the center of this story.
13:21
What happens between Berlin and Kiev
13:23
if a German court finds that Ukrainian state agencies ordered the operation?
13:28
Ukraine has long denied state involvement.
13:30
On the 23rd of August,
13:31
President Zelensky said,
13:32
quote,
13:33
Ukraine has never officially taken part in such an operation.
13:37
The trial
13:38
is expected to continue in the next spring.
13:40
As it unfolds,
13:41
the court will examine how far a country
13:43
can legally go in striking its aggressor's economic interests
13:47
when those interests are tied to an ally's.
13:51
For Germany and Ukraine,
13:52
the question is also whether their partnership
13:54
can withstand
13:56
whatever emerges in the courtroom.
13:59
OK,
13:59
I want to turn now to an underground
14:00
experiment in Nevada aimed at sharpening America's ability to
14:04
detect secret nuclear tests,
14:07
including those that the Trump administration says
14:10
China is trying to hide.
14:12
At the center of this is a difficult national security question.
14:15
How do you detect a nuclear explosion if another country
14:18
deliberately weakens the signals that it would normally give away?
14:22
The Department of Energy announced Wednesday
14:24
that the National Nuclear Security Administration,
14:26
and you say to yourself,
14:27
I wonder if there's an acronym for that,
14:29
and the answer is,
14:30
of course there is.
14:30
Come on,
14:31
NNSA
14:32
conducted the experiment inside what's dubbed as the P tunnel.
14:35
That's just the letter P,
14:36
not
14:37
P as in the word.
14:39
P tunnel.
14:40
Interesting,
14:40
which is cut into the site of a mesa at Area
14:43
12 of the Nevada National Security site northwest of Las Vegas.
14:47
Are you following this?
14:48
Scientists used chemical explosives and radio tracers to collect data that
14:53
will help validate scientific models and refine the algorithms
14:57
that the US relies on to identify nuclear explosions around the world.
15:01
To be clear,
15:02
what was done was a conventional blast,
15:04
not a nuclear explosion.
15:06
So,
15:07
you say to yourself,
15:07
what exactly are American scientists trying to recognize?
15:11
What are they looking to gain from this experiment
15:13
inside the P tunnel?
15:15
Well,
15:16
a large underground nuclear explosion creates seismic
15:18
waves that can travel thousands of miles,
15:21
but a very small explosion
15:23
produces a weaker signal,
15:25
and a country trying to hide its activities
15:27
can potentially make that signal weaker still.
15:30
One way to do that is through what's called a decoupled explosion.
15:34
Normally when an underground nuclear device detonates,
15:37
energy transfers directly into the surrounding rock,
15:40
creating seismic waves that monitoring stations around the world can identify.
15:45
But place the device inside a sufficiently large underground cavity,
15:50
and less of that energy transfers into the surrounding ground.
15:53
The explosion produces a weaker seismic signal,
15:56
making it harder to detect and confidently distinguish
15:59
from an earthquake or a conventional blast.
16:02
By collecting measurements from a controlled explosion,
16:05
scientists can check how well their models
16:07
predict the signals an underground blast produces.
16:10
They can then use those findings
16:12
to refine the algorithms that help identify suspicious events.
16:16
Look at this.
16:16
It's almost like I'm a nuclear scientist,
16:19
which,
16:19
of course,
16:20
then brings us to China.
16:21
The Trump administration alleges that Beijing
16:24
secretly conducted a low yield nuclear test at its Lop Nur testing complex
16:29
in northwestern China.
16:30
That was back in June of 2020,
16:32
an act that Washington says
16:34
breached the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
16:38
Now,
16:39
NNSA administrator Brandon Williams
16:41
reinforced accusations made earlier this year
16:44
by State Department arms officials.
16:46
He told Axios that China is quote,
16:48
clearly conducting explosive nuclear testing
16:51
and
16:52
trying to hide it.
16:54
Beijing
16:55
for its part denies the accusations and insists it continues to abide by the treaty.
17:00
Now
17:00
both countries signed that treaty in 1996,
17:03
but neither has ratified it,
17:05
and the agreement has not entered into force.
17:08
So in reality
17:09
it's not really an agreement at all.
17:12
But what do we actually know about the alleged test back in June of 2020?
17:16
Well,
17:16
the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization.
17:20
Says its international monitoring system did not detect an event
17:24
consistent with a nuclear test explosion on the date that Washington identified.
17:28
It did,
17:28
however,
17:29
record two small seismic events separated by about 12 seconds.
17:34
The available data could not confidently establish their cause.
17:38
Now,
17:38
do those signals establish that China conducted a nuclear test?
17:42
Well,
17:42
no,
17:43
not exactly,
17:43
but the uncertainty
17:45
helps explain why Washington wants better detection tools.
17:48
See,
17:48
we're coming around full circle.
17:50
So you ask,
17:51
why would a nuclear power bother conducting a test so small
17:55
that international monitors might struggle to identify it.
17:57
It's a good question,
17:59
because a small explosion can still produce
18:01
valuable information for a weapons program.
18:04
Robert Kelly,
18:05
a former Energy Department official who
18:07
also served as director of nuclear inspections
18:09
at the International Atomic Energy Agency,
18:12
oh,
18:12
there's another acronym there,
18:13
IAEA,
18:14
says very small tests
18:16
could help scientists understand how a larger bomb may work.
18:21
That's a,
18:21
that's a very scientific explanation right there.
18:24
If Beijing is secretly carrying out explosive nuclear tests,
18:27
it could be gathering information.
18:29
To improve its weapons while denying Washington and its allies
18:33
a clear picture of what it is exactly developing,
18:36
and that would be a serious challenge to American national security,
18:40
especially given the scale of China's rapid nuclear expansion.
18:44
In its China Military power report published last December,
18:47
the Pentagon estimated that Beijing remains on
18:50
track to possess more than 1000 nuclear warheads
18:54
by the year 2030.
18:56
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated
18:59
that China had as many as 620 warheads
19:02
at the beginning of 2026
19:04
and expects that stockpile to continue growing over the coming decade.
19:08
That buildup is quickly changing the nuclear balance
19:12
that American policymakers have dealt with for decades.
19:17
All right.
19:17
In today's back of the brief,
19:19
a suspected spying operation inside Open AI
19:22
where an employee is accused of planting a listening device
19:26
in a room used for sensitive executive meetings.
19:29
More on that
19:30
when we come back.
19:33
Hey,
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In today's back of the brief,
22:31
an employee at OpenAI,
22:33
the company behind Chat GPT,
22:35
has been arrested by the FBI after investigators say he planted
22:38
a listening device inside one of the company's executive conference rooms.
22:43
The suspect is 35 year old Abdul Rahman al-Fzan,
22:46
a Saudi national who's been
22:48
working as an engineer at OpenAI since July of last year.
22:52
Federal prosecutors accuse him of secretly
22:54
installing recording equipment in a conference room
22:57
at the company's San Francisco offices,
23:00
and the way he allegedly concealed the device was,
23:03
well,
23:03
let's just say somewhat low tech.
23:06
According to the Justice Department,
23:07
the recorder was wrapped in toilet paper
23:10
and connected to a USB port behind a television.
23:13
All the best listening devices should be wrapped in toilet paper.
23:16
It was designed to capture conversations taking place in
23:19
a room where company executives discussed proprietary technology,
23:23
product development,
23:24
government relationships,
23:25
and other sensitive business matters.
23:28
OpenAI security personnel discovered the device on
23:31
September 30th and launched an internal investigation.
23:34
And in a bit of irony,
23:36
according to investigators,
23:37
Alfozen
23:38
used artificial intelligence to help plan the whole thing.
23:42
Prosecutors say they uncovered chatbot searches about
23:45
building a continuous audio recorder,
23:47
encrypting recordings,
23:48
and accessing the device remotely.
23:51
Other searches involve the layout of open AI's
23:53
offices and the scheduling of executive meetings.
23:56
Hey,
23:57
chat GPT,
23:58
tell me how I can spy on my own company.
24:01
Yeah,
24:01
there's some rocket science at work,
24:03
but AI works both ways.
24:05
OpenAI says its security team used the company's
24:08
own AI models to help investigate the device.
24:11
Does anybody do their own work anymore
24:13
and identify the suspected culprit,
24:15
eventually turning its findings over to the FBI.
24:18
And investigators uncovered some additional evidence
24:20
after the original device was discovered.
24:23
OpenAI installed a security camera inside the conference room
24:26
on October 5th.
24:27
That camera allegedly captured Al Fozan
24:30
entering the room and inspecting the area behind the television
24:34
where the recorder had been hidden.
24:35
Maybe he just needed to
24:36
wrap it in new toilet paper.
24:39
That same day,
24:40
security personnel found an unattended bag containing his identification,
24:44
wallet,
24:44
and a second recording device similar to the first.
24:47
The FBI arrested Al Fzen on October 9th,
24:50
and federal prosecutors announced the charges Tuesday.
24:53
Of course
24:54
there are still a lot of unanswered questions
24:56
here which the investigators are working on.
24:58
Most importantly,
24:59
who was he working for and what was he planning to do with those recordings?
25:03
Al Fsen
25:04
previously worked at Meta,
25:05
that would be Mark Zuckerberg's company,
25:07
and he does have connections to Saudi Arabia's technology industry.
25:11
But federal authorities haven't accused him of working
25:13
for Saudi intelligence or any other foreign government.
25:17
I'm looking at you,
25:18
China,
25:18
and there's no publicly established evidence that the
25:20
recordings were passed to anyone outside the company.
25:24
OpenAI also says it found no indication that its source code,
25:27
AI models,
25:28
or customer data were stolen.
25:30
Alfozen is charged with illegally intercepting
25:33
or attempting to intercept oral communications.
25:36
If convicted,
25:37
he faces up to 5 years in federal prison.
25:41
And that,
25:41
my friends,
25:42
is the president's daily brief for Thursday,
25:44
the 15th of October.
25:45
Now,
25:45
if you have any questions or comments,
25:47
and I hope you do,
25:47
just reach out to me at PDB@hefirsttv.com.
25:51
And finally,
25:52
you know,
25:52
you can have yourself an ad-free PDB experience
25:55
simply by becoming a premium member of the President's Daily Brief.
25:58
Just wander on over to PDBpremium.com.
26:02
I'm Mike Baker,
26:03
and I'll be back later today with the PDB
26:05
afternoon bulletin.
26:06
Until then.
26:07
Stay informed,
26:08
stay safe,
26:10
stay cool.