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Mike Drop
Mike Drop, hosted by former Navy SEAL and bestselling author Mike Ritland, is a no-holds-barred conversation platform that dives deep into the stories and experiences of extraordinary individuals from diverse backgrounds. Known for his candid and unfiltered approach, Mike invites guests ranging from military veterans and elite athletes to renowned authors and thought leaders, offering listeners an unvarnished look at the human side of those who have excelled in their fields. Whether it's discussing the intense challenges of combat, the resilience required to overcome personal adversity, or the mindset needed to achieve greatness, Mike Drop provides a space where real conversations happen. Join the Mike Drop podcast—where relevancy is irrelevant and we don’t give a shit about your feelings.
Oct. 3, 2026

A Private Intel Brief on Iran: What the Headlines Aren't Telling You | Mike Drop Newsroom

A Private Intel Brief on Iran: What the Headlines Aren't Telling You | Mike Drop Newsroom
A Private Intel Brief on Iran: What the Headlines Aren't Telling You | Mike Drop Newsroom
Mike Drop
A Private Intel Brief on Iran: What the Headlines Aren't Telling You | Mike Drop Newsroom

MIKE DROP NEWSROOM | 03 OCTOBER 2026

The Saturday papers split again, and this episode includes something new: a private intelligence summary from Mike's friend Max at Asylum Security, a former SEAL sniper who now works in executive security. It's not classified, but it comes from serious sources, and it covers threats that never make the front page.

The headlines: Russia is pushing migrants across Latvia's border as a tactic against the West. Student protests over school conditions have turned violent across France. The U.S. added a lower-than-expected 29,000 jobs in September. Chinese officials' unusual requests at a recent summit are raising new questions about Xi Jinping's health. DHS is paying local police departments for help with immigration arrests. And the Wall Street Journal reports that more voters dislike both parties than in any recent election. From the intel brief: Iran is reviewing retaliation options that reach beyond the Middle East, tankers were struck in the Strait of Hormuz, cyber threats are aimed at critical infrastructure and personnel data, and China's spy satellite network is growing fast.

Mike's take: he doesn't understand why secure borders became a partisan issue, since knowing who is coming into your country is common sense. He supports students fighting for better schools but says violence defeats the purpose. On Congress, he argues that both parties have to hold their own side to the same standard they hold the other. And he has a simple fix for the budget: if the government shuts down or the budget isn't balanced, Congress doesn't get paid. On Iran, the intel brief brings him back to the question he keeps asking: months of strikes later, Iran can still hit shipping and plan attacks abroad, so what does success actually look like?

Your turn. Should Congress go unpaid until the budget is balanced? What does winning in Iran look like to you? And who do you think takes over China after Xi? Tell us in the comments. Mike reads them.

Timestamps

0:00 Happy Saturday and a special intel brief

1:15 Why wildfires in Indonesia led the Times

1:50 FlyDubai: the mother's scream that alerted passengers

2:15 A new inquiry into the Cornell case

3:20 Russia uses migrants against the West

4:35 Why secure borders shouldn't be partisan

6:15 Student protests turn violent across France

8:20 A weak September jobs report

9:25 Xi Jinping's health and who comes next

12:05 DHS pays local police for immigration arrests

13:45 A hurricane-free summer and El Niño

14:40 "Double haters" and the midterms

16:35 Holding your own side accountable

19:10 No balanced budget, no paycheck for Congress

20:40 The intel brief

21:45 Iran's retaliation planning

23:20 What does success in Iran look like?

24:20 Tankers struck in the Strait of Hormuz

25:50 Cyber threats to infrastructure and personnel data

28:55 China, Russia and the race for space

30:25 A Sunday preview: faith and suffering

31:40 Wrap-up

Former Navy SEAL Mike Ritland reads the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times so you don't have to. No cable news spin, no recycled talking points, just the actual front pages and a straight take on what they mean for you.

On Mike Drop Newsroom, Mike picks the day's biggest headlines, compares how two of the country's largest papers cover them, and says what he thinks. That covers everything from AI and national security to the economy, foreign policy and the stories cable TV skips. He's not here to push a party line. As Mike puts it, if you want to put a label on him, he's an American who wants to see America succeed.

Every episode ends with a question for you. Tell us where you land in the comments, because Mike reads them and your answers shape what we cover next. Subscribe so you don't miss a morning.



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WEBVTT

00:00.556 --> 00:04.339
[SPEAKER_00]: mic drop newsroom where the front page gets a second opinion.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Happy Saturday, everybody.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for tuning in for the morning headlines.

00:10.445 --> 00:21.615
[SPEAKER_00]: Got another, I'd say, a little bit of disparity between Wall Street Journal and New York Times, but before we get into that, I do have a bit of a special treat for you today,

00:22.648 --> 00:44.711
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a kind of executive intel summary from my buddy Max at asylum security, who's a former former seal sniper, does a lot of executive security work and a host of other things that can't completely get into, but he sent me an intel brief.

00:45.171 --> 00:57.177
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to preface this with it's not compartmented information, but it does come from legitimate intelligence sources that that are significant.

00:57.257 --> 01:01.379
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll just put it that way, but so I'm going to get into that after the headlines.

01:01.399 --> 01:03.040
[SPEAKER_00]: There are a number of things in there.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to cover all of them, but there's a few key ones that I think.

01:07.020 --> 01:22.876
[SPEAKER_00]: are important and it's you know totally not media headline like at all it's much more intelligence brief and I'm going to try to bring stuff like that to you occasionally probably not every day because it's it's not realistic but

01:23.897 --> 01:51.419
[SPEAKER_00]: but when I when I get them and when I have access to them all certainly share some of the highlight bullet points that I think are relevant to all of you guys today and the times little strange the the headla the top headline is wildfires are choking indonesia not real sure why that's the top story on the New York Times Saturday edition

01:54.658 --> 01:59.663
[SPEAKER_00]: bad news, but I don't know how that's the leading story on the New York Times today.

02:00.644 --> 02:07.310
[SPEAKER_00]: Below that, they have Mother's Scream alerted passengers to a horrific mid-air attack, talking about the fly-due by.

02:07.330 --> 02:15.018
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently it was a mother screaming that kind of started the catalyst to alert everyone.

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[SPEAKER_00]: really nothing like a screaming mom to get people's attention.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That's for sure.

02:21.912 --> 02:34.563
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, to talk about Kathy Hulchel, the governor of New York, a science, Latisha James, saying authorities failed student on this Cornell case.

02:34.823 --> 02:36.825
[SPEAKER_00]: She opened a new inquiry.

02:38.095 --> 02:51.058
[SPEAKER_00]: I agree it sure sounds like authorities failed the student both in the administration within the campus, sounds like law enforcement, from what it appears may be fumbled quite a bit.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And just the whole thing, we've been talking about this for a while now and it's a pretty recurring common headline, just failures across the board, just really

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[SPEAKER_00]: really unfortunate.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I hope that it's a lesson learned for law enforcement, for college campuses and for students, you know, the fact that something like that can happen is it's depressing.

03:24.685 --> 03:27.146
[SPEAKER_00]: New York Times also talks about Russia,

03:35.034 --> 03:36.735
[SPEAKER_00]: I wonder where they got that tactic from.

03:38.716 --> 03:51.525
[SPEAKER_00]: Borders are an interesting thing in terms of national security and that it's strange to me that they get hyper-publicized from a partisan standpoint.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It really makes no sense to me why.

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[SPEAKER_00]: this issue and there's several of them that seem seem like common sense that most the overwhelming majority of the citizens of any nation would want secure borders would want to know every every background or have a good litmus and check process for anyone coming into their country whether it's

04:19.472 --> 04:35.743
[SPEAKER_00]: For actually, I mean, obviously actual immigration policy if people are moving to that country, semi or permanent, but even, you know, work visas, vacation, etc., like I don't know why it's controversial or divided.

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[SPEAKER_00]: partisan wise on why you would want to know who's coming into your country.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That is baffling now.

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[SPEAKER_00]: To me that there's not an element from my perspective that says that we shouldn't have policy and allow people to come to this country, but I do think that

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[SPEAKER_00]: not only does there need to be a clear cut and hard line approach in terms of knowing every single person who's coming here with their background is and you know to a certain extent and just ensure that that their people that we want to come to this country and not just not worry about it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and I would ask for anybody out there that has the the opposing viewpoint of open borders or no borders or you know, wanting to go back to the previous administrations, allowance of, you know, thousands or even tens of thousands in some cases.

05:36.577 --> 05:55.212
[SPEAKER_00]: unvetted people coming into this country for asylum-seeking and refugee status why you think that's a good idea why you're for that and and how you would mitigate you know the unknown factor of a tactic like this that Russia is using in Latvia.

05:55.992 --> 06:16.262
[SPEAKER_00]: been plenty of evidence of several other foreign countries, you know, streaming what I would consider operatives, for sure people that we don't know what their background is because they're coming here unbeknownst to us and we don't even know, you know, a number of how many of them are coming.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So if you have that viewpoint, I'd love to hear your reasoning for why that's a good thing.

06:26.855 --> 06:38.780
[SPEAKER_00]: Another thing on the New York Times, more of an international story, blockades, fireworks and tear gas, high school students across France, pushed for better standards, bringing days of unrest.

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[SPEAKER_00]: There's also that same headline is actually the, the co-main story on the Wall Street Journal, violent students, violent student protest rage across France.

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[SPEAKER_00]: fire burns in southwestern France's students clashed friday with riot police in demonstrations across the country.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Protesters are demanding more teachers, smaller classes and greater investment in dilapidated schools.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'm all for fixing those problems and even protesting to achieve it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I do have to draw the line at the violence part, you know, when

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[SPEAKER_00]: When you're enacting violence and breaking things to an act change, I don't think that that is an effective way to get your point across or to make change.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I think it does the exact opposite.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Man, there's nothing like the first sip of coffee after the morning routine.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, a protest has proven to be an effective measure in a number of cases, not all cases,

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[SPEAKER_00]: As soon as you cross the line of being violent, hurting people, breaking and destroying stuff, setting fire to things, you really do the exact opposite of what your intended consequence, or what your intended goal was, rather, unless that your goal was to, you know, so unrest.

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[SPEAKER_00]: and cause chaos and anarchy, but, you know, if the goal truly is to fix schools, breaking things and burning stuff isn't the way to go about that, but I can appreciate the passion of students wanting better educations.

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[SPEAKER_00]: There are certainly far worse things to protest about, so maybe just go about it in a different method.

08:30.320 --> 08:41.246
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all we got on the New York Times or several other bullets that I want to talk about on the Wall Street Journal beyond the student protests.

08:41.266 --> 08:47.690
[SPEAKER_00]: So the U.S. added a lower than expected 29,000 jobs in September.

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[SPEAKER_00]: the whole adding of jobs thing.

08:52.586 --> 09:01.083
[SPEAKER_00]: There's always an expectation and either meets it exceeds it or fails to meet it and that seems to be a precursor for

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, a lot of the kind of sentiment on how the overall economy is doing.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I've always been a little confused on what the projections are and how you factor in people that actually aren't even looking for work.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, to me, that's the one wild card that makes that stat a little difficult to wrap our head around, but if you have any, I don't know, coloring on that or context, you can

09:34.777 --> 09:40.234
[SPEAKER_00]: There's one thing here, I'm talking about China and their leader Xi Jinping.

09:43.156 --> 09:48.901
[SPEAKER_00]: There's been a number of instances here recently where his health has come into question.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And the headline is, G demands at some at fuel health questions.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Chinese officials made unusual demands, asking the U.S. to accommodate Xi Jinping's need for rest during a recent summit with President Trump, providing more evidence of the 73-year-old leaders' physical limitations.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This happened fairly recently to another global merging of the mines where he didn't show up for part of it for that same reason and you know that that begs the question.

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[SPEAKER_00]: it sure seems like his health is deteriorating, the question that I'm kind of pondering is, is what happens when Xi Jinping either passes away or passes the torch or, you know, somehow is unable to lead and who's going to take his place in China and what does that mean for

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[SPEAKER_00]: Chinese and U.S. relations.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's not, it's obviously a totally different hierarchy there than it is here and from my perspective, I don't know if anyone listening knows, but in terms of who his successor is or might be, I have no idea who that is, you know.

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[SPEAKER_00]: to me because he's been in that position of power for so long.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I would be very curious to see who's going to take the helm after that guy does.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And after that guy is.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And what that means for relations, you know, it's in a way there's encouragement in that, you know, maybe it's a more

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[SPEAKER_00]: I hate to use the word pro West because I doubt it, but maybe more favorable to the West.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Excuse me.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Need no little extra lube for the throat this morning.

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[SPEAKER_00]: excuse me and yeah be curious to see what happens because you know to me the you can read between the lines on that if he's getting to the point where he's having to to rest you know during summits and meetings and and stuff and skipping parts of it because he you know physically just just is incapable of attending and I doubt that there's a ton of time left on

12:07.109 --> 12:10.790
[SPEAKER_00]: on his leadership component to the country.

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[SPEAKER_00]: What are your heads thoughts?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Who do you think is going to take over?

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[SPEAKER_00]: And what's going to happen with U.S. Chinese relations when that takes place?

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[SPEAKER_00]: This one's a little alarming.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's a DHS pays millions for police help.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Local agencies can collect as much as $2 million for each immigration arrest.

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[SPEAKER_00]: the federal government, reimbursing or subsidizing, however you want to put it, local police departments, state police departments in helping with the immigration clean up.

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[SPEAKER_00]: $2 million per immigration arrest seems not just overboard, it seems ridiculous to a point that it's hard to even believe.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Doddridge County Sheriff Clinton boring committed his department to work on behalf of President Trump's President Trump's deportation campaign.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I just, I'm having a hard time understanding why and how local apartments can accrue up to $2 million per arrest.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Does anybody have any any context on that?

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[SPEAKER_00]: possibly ascertain that that's a both favorable from an economic standpoint and from a long haul, a sustainable policy, you know, again, I think the federal government should reimburse and pitch in for local police to help, you know, with their crackdown, but how is that even possible?

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[SPEAKER_00]: The Atlantic Ocean broke a century old record for the latest time of the year without hurricanes.

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[SPEAKER_00]: One of the many consequences of a historic El Nino, which is Spanish for the Nino altering global weather.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Been hearing about El Nino and its impact and we're getting dumped on by rain, which we needed a number of other places have, too,

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[SPEAKER_00]: summer is always a good thing.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I think it seems like hurricanes have picked up quite a bit in the last few years and to take the summer off Kudos to El Niño.

14:47.157 --> 14:47.637
[SPEAKER_00]: This last

14:49.875 --> 15:00.807
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say headline from the Wall Street Journal is both interesting and telling and it says double haters hold the key to midterms vote.

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[SPEAKER_00]: One key to victory in the midterm election comes down to this question, how can a party win support from people who don't like them?

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[SPEAKER_00]: More voters say they dislike both the Democratic and Republican parties than in any other recent elections.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The result of economic anxiety and deep dissatisfaction with politicians and government.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Probably comes as no surprise to anyone listening or watching.

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[SPEAKER_00]: There are more people now that despise both parties either equally or close to equally.

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[SPEAKER_00]: than any time in recent history, maybe ever.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, most people I talk to, I feel like kind of have the same thought process that I do and that, you know, definitely don't identify or agree with most of what the left has to say.

15:58.122 --> 16:04.726
[SPEAKER_00]: There are so many things on the right that I disagree with and don't really feel like I'm in line with that either.

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[SPEAKER_00]: bastardized political wing that the majority of the country takes up.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, most people that I talk to feel that way where they really don't feel like they have a home as the liberals would call it, the big dent policy which is all over the place, the right wing.

16:28.760 --> 16:36.763
[SPEAKER_00]: Kind of similarly, there's some really hard line approaches to things that I think a lot of people just can't get behind.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But on a broader spectrum, my biggest problem in concern with both sides of the aisle is an inability to hold their own side to the same level of accountability as the other side.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We see it all the time, you know, whether it's press conferences, media coverage, political pundits, even actual politicians giving short interviews outside of Capitol Hill, et cetera, where, you know, if they're kind of questioned about somebody on their side,

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[SPEAKER_00]: doing anything, something, anything that's either egregious or controversial, or whatever.

17:21.378 --> 17:27.419
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a scoffing, you read it out of context, or, no, that's not what happened.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's just brushed under the rug and kind of dismissed.

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[SPEAKER_00]: When the other side does the exact same thing, they're the first ones to come on there and demand resignation or action or punitive justice, et cetera.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, to me, I wrote about this in my un-F-America book, and, you know, to me, that is really the crux of the start of being able to get along and engage in any type of negotiations with one another is you have to hold yourself in your own side, at least as accountable as the other side.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I would argue that you should hold your own side even to more account.

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[SPEAKER_00]: than the other side and set that example for cleaning house, not taking any crap from your own side and not allowing your team to be guilty of the things that you're accusing the other side of because I think most people see all of these press conferences and interviews and media headlines from slanted organizations.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it just gives you zero confidence, you kind of roll your eyes and just wave your hand and dismiss the whole thing as being a joke.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the reality of the level of confidence or the lack thereof in our politicians from the most junior

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[SPEAKER_00]: house of representatives member all the way up to the very top, there's just, there is such a low level of confidence and approval rating to where it's laughable.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, something as simple as balancing the budget, you know, taking huge long recesses when there are major problems that need to be solved.

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[SPEAKER_00]: that they're being paid to solve and they're not solving them, you know, in what other element of our society do you get paid for not doing your job, you know, and then taking vacation on top of it, you know, I think something as simple as any time there's a shutdown, nobody gets paid.

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[SPEAKER_00]: If the rest of the government doesn't get paid,

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[SPEAKER_00]: Why do our elected leaders get paid?

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[SPEAKER_00]: So it's an absurd proposition.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I think I would take it even a step further and say, if the budget's not balanced and there's any in the red aspect to any of it, you guys don't get paid.

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[SPEAKER_00]: If it's not at least neutral or in the black, you guys don't earn a paycheck.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, what faster way to motivate them to balance

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[SPEAKER_00]: figure out the debt crisis, alleviate any type of government shutdown, and maintain that balanced budget, then to say, you guys don't earn a cent when any of those things are taking place.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why that's even an issue.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Other than they would have to approve that, and it's like asking a fox to audit himself in the henhouse, they're not going to do it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Just one man's take.

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[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so those are your Saturday Wall Street Journal and New York Times headlines.

20:50.487 --> 20:52.669
[SPEAKER_00]: Now let's get into the juicy stuff.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So again, this is an Intel report from my buddy, Max, at a silent security.

20:59.597 --> 21:21.869
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to reiterate, this is not compartmented information, so I'm not divulging any American or US intelligence, but these are completely nonpartisan, it's not broad scope media headlines where SEO searches and algorithm formulas are driving what gets put on

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[SPEAKER_00]: the front page.

21:23.514 --> 21:30.037
[SPEAKER_00]: This is things worth worrying about within the scope of kind of the intelligence community.

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[SPEAKER_00]: There are a ton of them.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to cover all of them because I would sit here for probably a few hours doing it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And frankly, not all of them, a number of them are not relevant to us here in the United States.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I know there are listeners from all over the world, but

21:46.681 --> 21:57.067
[SPEAKER_00]: As it relates to kind of what's happening right here in our backyard and or involvement that we have in other places of the country that's what I'm going to focus on or the world rather that's what I'm going to focus on.

21:57.828 --> 22:01.790
[SPEAKER_00]: The first one is Iran and in the streets of Hormuz.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The reports says that Iranian commanders are reviewing broader retaliation options if major U.S. strikes resume, including potential targets beyond U.S. linked assets.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Countries supporting U.S. operations and possibly locations outside the Middle East.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Confidence level is high that that planning is occurring.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The assessment is essentially that Iran is trying to re-establish deterrence while keeping a diplomatic off-ramp open.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, having your cake and eat it too, or the sidepiece strategy, it's a moderate threat level in terms of which options would actually be executed.

22:50.858 --> 22:53.779
[SPEAKER_00]: We saw this with the Royal Air Force Base.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Here recently I talked about that, I think it was yesterday, where obviously they have a vested interest, the capability, the reach, the competency, the resources, and of course the drive and desire.

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[SPEAKER_00]: to attack anything dealing with or link to the U.S. in any way, anywhere where they can do it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That is a legitimate threat.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That's the top thing on this executive summary.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That's something to keep in mind.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And again, I would pose the question is that, A, if what we're doing in Iran is necessary, B,

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[SPEAKER_00]: If assuming that it is necessary, what do we need to do to prevent and deter and mitigate this type of global reach that they still have the capacity to engage in?

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[SPEAKER_00]: And see, what does success in Iran actually look like?

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[SPEAKER_00]: I want to get your guys' opinion on this.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now if you think we shouldn't have anything to do with that, just say, no, I don't think we should be there and we should pull out.

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[SPEAKER_00]: If you do think that our involvement in Iran is both warranted justified and necessary from an existential threat standpoint as it relates to the US, I would ask you what does

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[SPEAKER_00]: That's a tough question for me to come up with a good answer to, and so I want to know your guys' opinion on that.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The next bullet point is in the maritime aspect of that, three Liberian flag tankers were struck by unknown projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Gulf exports have never the less recovered to about 23.3 million barrels per day matching the 25, 20, 25 average according to Goldman Sachs.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The assessment is essentially that the region is demonstrating simultaneous physical throughout recovery through put recovery and persistent attack risk confidence is high.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So still hitting, I don't know what unknown projectiles are, I wish they had a little more information on, on at least the size or the amount of damage that was incurred by these unknown projectiles, because I think that is pretty relevant.

25:25.721 --> 25:30.205
[SPEAKER_00]: How serious of a thing is that, but the reality of it is, is that that,

25:31.223 --> 25:53.427
[SPEAKER_00]: strip of maritime waterway that a significant amount of the global oil market moves through is obviously still super volatile, even though we've got the blockade in place, even though we've spent months completing over 10,000 air sordies on attacking critical nodes in infrastructure.

25:55.058 --> 26:07.173
[SPEAKER_00]: yet here here we are they still have the ability to attack and and shut it down so going back to my other question what does success look like cyber critical infrastructure

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[SPEAKER_00]: Warren's critical infrastructure entities about third-party ICS integrator risk, FBI also lists DPRK a bunch of other names that are essentially Iranian linked cyber attack and critical infrastructure threats.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Breach by, I'm not going to mention the name, expose sensitive personnel and intelligence-related data.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Confidence is high.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The assessment is supply chain compromise and personal data exposure are direct counter intelligence risk.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This is something we've seen.

26:47.047 --> 27:12.375
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of ad nauseam with foreign actors and even some hacker groups here in the United States being able to infiltrate not just lower-level government stuff like airports and not that I want to diminish or even consider it lower-level in terms of it being an alarming threat but just in terms of the potential

27:13.615 --> 27:33.160
[SPEAKER_00]: blowback, I think, that these entities being breached can incur, but obviously infrastructure airports and then moving all the way into national level intelligence entities, law enforcement entities, and that personnel data breaches huge because

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, all of our records, everything that we do is online, you know, it's digital, it's stored in clouds or hard drives that, you know, even if they're remote and, you know, not connected to me that there are so many ways for these groups to hack into and access both critical infrastructure as well as personnel data and the personnel data thing is,

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[SPEAKER_00]: I think something that's both under-reported and maybe not focused on as much as it should be is that you know, if you have the ability to know the names, socials, data birth, addresses, family, health records, you know, of people who are in all of these different government positions, it's a dangerous prospect.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, nobody wants their information linked like that, but you're seeing it kind of over and over.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So,

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[SPEAKER_00]: uh... certainly something to uh... consider and and again i would ask you know what what's the solution is it going back to the pure analog paper records seems pretty inefficient uh... i don't know how you you protect against especially as uh... quantum computing and in a i powered computer ability to

28:53.307 --> 29:01.432
[SPEAKER_00]: both access hack and 24-7 work at speeds that, you know, dwarf any type of human capacity.

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[SPEAKER_00]: How do you keep your people safe with that?

29:05.905 --> 29:18.449
[SPEAKER_00]: The last blip I'm going to talk about is a Space Force current threat fact sheet says China operates 510 or more ISR capable satellites and continues rapid constellation growth.

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[SPEAKER_00]: While Russia maintains jamming and ASAT capabilities confidence is high, so the space race is on.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I think it is great and necessary that we have an established space force and that, you know, significant funding and budgeting is put into that.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously Russia and China are on the same page and trying to accomplish the same things.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's an interesting prospect in that, you know, so many things that are controlled by, by satellite, whether it's GPS or

29:51.819 --> 30:20.298
[SPEAKER_00]: uh... so much of the internet access and you know just a lot of our world kind of hinges on support via satellites and you know once it starts turning into you know not just a space race but you know combating each other blowing up satellites or hackings satellites or you know whatever that that further makes things a little interesting but obviously it's a big enough deal to make this report and something worth

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[SPEAKER_00]: Those are the headlines and intel bullet points for this Saturday October 3rd.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I think.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Let's make sure it's October 3rd.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, October 3rd.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It is Saturday.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Sunday, tomorrow there's no Wall Street Journal on Sunday, but there is in New York Times.

30:40.779 --> 30:51.862
[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen a couple of comments asking, or I guess not even asking, talking about some of the references I've made to faith over the last few days of doing this, and I thought

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[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe since it's Sunday, I would kind of share my perspective on that and kind of explain one common in particular talking about this gentleman was a Christian for 20 plus years and kind of walked completely away from it for the

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[SPEAKER_00]: the kind of main purpose of, you know, not understanding the amount of suffering and misery that takes place on the planet and basically alluding to, you know, what God would ever be okay with that and that's something that I struggled with for a really, a really long time.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, decades and have come full circle to feel like I understand it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That's something

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[SPEAKER_00]: Since it's Sunday and there's only one paper I may make sure a little bit of maybe Sunday scripture kind of stuff.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But at any rate, thank you guys for tuning in and watching.

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[SPEAKER_00]: God bless everyone of you guys and I hope you have a great happy and safe weekend.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We'll see you tomorrow.