The PDB Situation Report | November 7th, 2026: U.S. Strikes Venezuela & Trump Plans to End Israel Aid

Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. Now, let's get briefed. First up, a deadly U.S. drone strike inside Venezuela signals a new level of cooperation between Washington and the Delce Rodriguez government. Even its opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, returns to challenge the interim president's leadership. We'll be joined by Rick DeLaTorre. He's a retired CIA operations officer and former station chief for Caracas. Later in the show, President Trump announces plans to end billions of dollars in annual aid to Israel, raising major questions, of course, about the future of the U.S.-Israel alliance. We'll get analysis from David Dowd, friend of the show, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Israel. But first, today's Situation Report spot. The U.S. military has reportedly carried out a deadly drone strike against Colombian guerrillas inside Venezuela with the cooperation of Venezuela's government. According to the Wall Street Journal, more than two dozen ELN fighters were killed in the operation. That's a dramatic reversal for a country that once provided sanctuary for those ELN fighters. Washington and Caracas are now reportedly negotiating an agreement that could allow American troops and joint military operations on Venezuelan soil. My, how times have changed. Meanwhile, opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has returned from exile. You've probably heard about that. Adding new pressure for Democratic elections and potentially complicating Washington's relationship with Delce Rodriguez. For more on that, I want to bring in Rick DeLaTorre. He's a retired CIA operations officer with over 20 years of experience, and he's the former station chief for Caracas. Rick, thanks very much for coming back on the Situation Report. I appreciate it. No, it's a pleasure to be here with you, Rick. Excellent. Well, hopefully you feel that way after we finish our conversation. I always do. So, I tell you, Maria's return, right, to Venezuela, just it absolutely captured the headlines for what appeared to be about 24 hours. And then, just the rush of events, other activities, mostly because in the U.S., the mid-term elections were right around the corner. But, you know, I think also we've got attention deficit disorder as a nation. But where are we with her return from exile? Well, I mean, I think with her return, what you finally saw now is a counterbalance to the Maduro regime, the Chavista regime, Delce Rodriguez and our group that are still very much in power. So, you know, up until then, she was outside of Venezuela. So, that means she's part of the problem. She's exterior to the issue. Now that she's inside the country, well, now she has an opportunity to get the opposition leaders, opposition folks to rally around her and provide now the needed counterbalance that Trump can use and Secretary Rubio can use to then pressure the Chavista regime to make the kinds of election reforms and, actually, put an election on the date on the calendar so that, you know, we could hopefully start seeing some pre-elections. So, look, I know it wasn't, you know, it wasn't wall-to-wall news here in the United States. That's understandable, right? You know, we've got plenty of our own issues and we've got the midterm elections. But there, I can assure you, it was definitely the biggest news and it continues to be the biggest news. You know, she's being followed by media all the time. What are your plans? What are next steps? What are your thoughts? So, what you're seeing now is something that Venezuela hasn't had in a long time, what we're used to here in the United States, right? You know, here in the United States, they ask the president something and then they turn around and ask someone who's opposed to the president what they think. Well, now that's happening in Venezuela. So, you get the official report from the government and then, you know, they put a microphone in front of her and, "What are your thoughts?" So, it's a great dynamic. It's starting to play out and, you know, hopefully, it will continue or safety is paramount and maybe we'll get to an election sooner rather than later. Maybe I'm wrong on this, but my initial reaction was that the reaction from the White House was less than enthusiastic about her return. You almost got the impression that the White House is pretty happy with sort of the transactional business opportunities that they've developed and it almost felt like, and again, I could be wrong, but it felt like the Trump administration was kind of like, "Hmm, is this a good thing or is this going to cause some problems for the business that we're trying to do here?" Right. So, I think you're right on many points there. Let's remember that under Trump 1.0, at that time, his advisors told him that the opposition leader Juan Guaido was the guy to support and that, you know, Maduro was, you know, the guy to support. So, you know, Maduro was, you know, the guy to support and that, you know, Maduro was, you know, the guy to support and that, you know, Maduro was, you know, the guy to support and that, you know, Maduro was, you know, the guy to support and that, you know, Maduro was, you know, the guy to support. So, the whole Chavista thing in Venezuela was a deck of cards and it would be easy to blow over. All we had to do was just really rally around Juan Guaido and you'll see everything lines up. And that obviously wasn't the case. And so, I think it's only fair for him to be a bit suspicious. And then, so you had a group of advisors who really focused on, and it makes perfectly good sense, really focused on U.S. first issues, right? Access to, you know, to oil, you know, building a stronger economy together. And then you had others that really wanted to focus on establishing democracy and whatever that means. So, those dynamics played out. And I think what the president realized as he is as a deal maker, he felt that Delcy was the kind of person that he could work out a deal with. It's only now over time, that I think that's happened is some of these deals have come under a lot of suspicion, a lot of concerns about corruption, a lot of concerns about backroom deals that aren't just going to pass muster. And, you know, of course, the White House wasn't involved in any of these things. You know, a lot of these issues were being driven from, you know, the same corrupt folks from Venezuela. And I know for a fact, right, there were a number of individuals who I think incorrectly, you know, were involved in any of these things. And, you know, a lot of these things were being driven from, you know, the same corrupt folks from Venezuela. And I know for a fact, right, were telling the president that Maria just didn't have the support, she wasn't respected, she didn't have the leadership experience, and that the support really wasn't there. Yet the polling data, the outcries of the folks, you know, it was consistent. And, you know, in her return, you know, she came in over the border outside of Colombia. And from that moment on, you know, what should have been a four-hour drive to Caracas turned into, like, 28 hours, because everywhere she went, you know, she got stopped, and the entire community will come out to support her. Recent polling is showing her in, you know, in the high 60s, 70s, while Delcy Rodriguez, the vice president, she's polling in, like, single digits, 10%, maybe. So those are things that, you know, that really can't be reconciled. And then we saw in the midterms, a lot of Venezuelan Americans remembered that, too. So I think this is a great opportunity or reset button for the president of the United States. He's done it before. He's pivoted from strategies that aren't effective, that aren't working. He's cleaned house and made the correct calls. This is another opportunity for him to review what's happening in Venezuela and maybe steer a little bit more towards the kinds of reforms that are going to be consistent, and also continue to provide great business deals for the United States. Yeah. What are the key impediments of a fair election in Venezuela? Well, there's no organized body. There's no system in place to guarantee or to make that happen. So let's start off with the actual election machines, right? These are the very famous machines that now it's being widely reported in the press. And I've got some inside info on that, so I won't discuss it. But according to the press reports, these are machines that are being used to control elections in Latin America. So according to the press, the Maduro regime took active steps to fix, to make sure that elections could be called the way they wanted to. They had a really strong concerted effort to export these machines throughout Latin America so that they can control elections in those markets. And these are the same machines that they used within their country, right? So they have to scrap all those machines. They have to clear the electoral rolls. They have to bring integrity from the ground up to the electoral process. Then you start local, then regional, then national. So best estimates, some folks are saying 12 months, others maybe 18. But it's certainly within a time span that's manageable and workable. The regime down there, of course, they're saying, "Oh, no, we need at least 10, 15." Just absolutely ridiculous, right? Yeah. It's a couple of decades based. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We got to be slow with democracy, right? So it's laughable. There's Their big strategy, of course, is to to to outlive this administration and hopefully, you know, have a second chance, a second life with, you know, with a new White House and remain entrenched. You know, it's you know, you remember this from from your days working with Russians and others by the Soviet and communist bloc. Right. You know, the higher up they go in these systems, right, the more they realize at the top that it's it's all crap. None of it is real. It's not about ideology. It's about corruption. It's about lining your pockets. And that's what it is in Venezuela. Right. You know, these are folks who have not millions, but billions of dollars in overseas bank accounts, and they're trying their best to make more and figure out how to how to keep the money. Yeah, no, it's absolutely. Absolutely correct. I think with with the potential, right, what what is the the timeline from the public's perspective? I know that's a that's a hugely speculative question, but but what's their patience level? I mean, does it stretch out to 12 months? Does it stretch out to a couple of years before at some point you would assume there's going to be a level of frustration overall? I think we're there now. Look, I visited I visited Caracas in in July and it was palpable. What I saw was a lot of the locals were saying, hey, when is Trump coming? You know, when's the rest of the American forces coming? And I'm a heart to tell them, like, hey, you kind of moved on from this. Right. It's kind of up to you. And rightfully, it should be right. Yeah. But but, you know, they were so hopeful. Right. And we are right there. If they had the power, they would have elected President Trump and Marco Rubio, you know, president, you know, president of the world, you know, God, deity of Venezuela, if they could. And and obviously then the earthquake happened a few weeks later. And I think that was one of the bigger breaking points, because there were no emergency services available to Venezuelans. None. None. Right. A country that has had earthquakes since the beginning of time. So it wasn't like a surprise. Oh, my God, there was an earthquake. Like it's like, you know, it's like no one knows there's earthquakes in California. Yeah, there's earthquakes. You got to prepare for that stuff. And when they looked for the emergency rations and the emergency, you know, systems and and none of that was there. All of that had been looted years ago. The people who were supposed to rise up and lead evacuation efforts, they were, you know, a communist party, you know, apparatchiks who, you know, who just got the job. Because of relationships, one of them was a poet, no experience in anything to do with civil engineering or emergency services. But he could write really good poetry, apparently. And and, you know, that's the response that they saw. Right. Yeah. You know, so so so that was it. That that was really the breaking point. There were very grateful for the American response, because that's what we do as Americans. You know, we were the largest donor nation in the world and we help people. You know, they're like, hey, we're sick and tired of the blackouts. We're sick and tired of not having jobs. We're sick and tired of the corruption, of the shakedowns, of the political arrests. And I look the best way I could explain this is to, you know, I look I'm a Cuban-American. Right. Imagine if if the U.S. government removed Fidel Castro, but then put Raul Castro in charge. Right. You know, and then and then said, hey, you know. We're winning. And that's a really bitter pill for, you know, for folks to swallow. And that's how they they see things in Venezuela. Yeah. You removed, obviously, the head of the stake, but you left a lot of other little stakes around. And and and and there until they see elections, when they see people that they know, people that, you know, that believe in representative democracy, free press, capitalism, all the things that we believe here in the United States. That's what people are. Are going to feel better. And they remember all this stuff. The regime had only been there for 20 some odd years. So most adults remember what it was like. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they've got the advantage of, you know, of remembering democratic society, what it means to have elections, you know, the sort of things they don't have in Iran now. You know, after all these years with the Islamic Republic and why it's so difficult to get, you know, the potential for change there. A lot more questions here, Rick. But we need to take a quick break. So don't go anywhere. And we'll be back with more from Rick Tillitore, former CIA operations officer, former station chief for Caracas, right here on The Situation Report. So stick around. 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Tax relief advocates, real solutions for real people. Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Joining me once again, it's former CIA station chief for Caracas, Rick De La Torre. Rick, thanks very much for being there. If you come back and you weren't in your chair, that would have been. But so thank you for sticking around. Of course. Look, we we've been talking about, you know, the potential for elections in Venezuela. To what degree is all this hinging on. The Venezuelan military security apparatus and where they view their survival. Yeah, well, look like like like. It's all good to solitary regimes. The first thing you do is control the guns and the ammo and and and and the military. Right. So what you have there is you have, you know, a group of generals and colonels and military units that have been handpicked over the years by the regime or the first thing Delsi did when she took over was she she immediately removed anyone who she, you know, felt would be a threat to her. Her power and and immediately promoted, you know, people off the street that she knew and made them, you know, generals and colonels and in charge of the units that she wanted them to be, including the person who led the Venezuelan army. The real, you know, you know, the real guy who's who's extremely evil out there, the guy who's got American blood on his hands, one who orchestrated and masterminded a lot of the kidnappings of Americans over the last year is. Is is is the head of the the Venezuelan intelligence services and the internal police. I got into a cell of Cabello. D.A.'s got an arrest warrant for twenty five million dollars and and he's still there and he's still in charge and he still runs these units. And, you know, I one of the things I realized when I was there in July, which shocked me, I didn't know this. And this is after Maduro's arrest. He's out of the country like every night on the local television. Channels like at a certain time. This is old Soviet propaganda stuff, right? You've got somebody who comes out and you've got the dear leaders poster behind you. And, you know, they rattle on for like two hours, giving you, you know, that, you know, that day's communist sermon, you know, right out of the Book of Lenin. Oh, it's riveting stuff. It's it's absolutely. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, you know, it is full of all the poison and evil, you know, blame the U.S. and. So, you know, I'm in town, I'm sitting in the hotel, I turn on the channel and they're still broadcasting that stuff. It literally still happening. Right. And and so so this is a guy with this is what he does. He goes on TV and he calls all American leaders butchers and that communism is very much alive and well and that, you know, Maduro has been kidnapped and he'll be returned. And the political repression still continues. Right. They're still arresting Venezuelans in the street. They're still throwing them into, you know, into jail. They're still tracking. Down people. They're still shaking down businesses that that system is still very much alive and continues and will continue until there's a change in government there. Well, but you could argue a couple of things here. Right. First of all, you could argue that we've got twenty five million dollars sitting on Cabello's head and he's still there. He's still visible. It's not like he's gone into hiding somewhere. So that begs the question, just how interested is the U.S. in in. Continuing this effort or have they just decided, as you pointed out earlier, in a way they've moved on. And then that system is still in place, and in part also, as you pointed out, because they've all become wealthy off of this system. They all want to maintain this system. So without – I mean, it sort of implies that without really significant U.S. involvement here, you're hard-pressed to see how some well-meaning opposition is going to replace the system that's there. Look, I agree. There's no easy choices here. I am encouraged, though. Secretary Rubio, I think, is – well, I know this, right? When I used to brief Senate Oversight, and he was the senior ranking member there, he was certainly one of the senators who – well, I got to tell you, I think he was the only senator that actually took the time to read all our intel reports, dive into the – the ops traffic, ask us real questions about how we saw things. You know, he'd listen to the analysts, and then he'd turn to us and say, well, from an ops side, how do you see it, right? And he got it. I mean, he really, really understood it. So I have no doubt that he gets it and he understands it, too. And I think, you know, like everything, there's no one way of doing things. And, you know, Diosdado, right, he – Cabello has access to the weapons systems. He does command power. I think – I think his time is limited. I don't think he's going to be around forever. And I think he's going to face justice at some point. It is happening. It's just not happening at the pace that I think Venezuelans would like to see, right? And, you know, some recent stuff going on. You know, they just appointed a new forecaster. I think, you know, just reading the body language and the stuff coming out of State Department, you could tell it was a very cold relationship with Secretary Rubio. You know, during the United Nations General Assembly, Marco Rubio stayed very clear of taking any photos with Delce Rodriguez or any of those Venezuelans. So, you know, I think he understands better than anyone the kinds of changes that need to happen. But, you know, we don't control the timeline. And this is – I grant it, it's gradual. It's step by step. All I'm saying is I think the Venezuelan people, they're at a stage now where they want to see more. And maybe they're ready for it. How would they feel about it if – look, I mean, this is kind of a broad question. We did cover here on the PDB the past couple of days. We covered the drone strikes along the border with Colombia in Venezuela, which seems to imply sort of a bit of a sea change in terms of military cooperation between the U.S. and Venezuela. Given that, given the U.S. military drones went in and reportedly killed upwards of two dozen ELN fighters with the cooperation of the Venezuelan military, seems like, okay, that's good. We've got a relationship there. But, in a way, it's bad. You would see – I guess, in my mind, I would think, look, Cabello's there. You've got a lot of fat stacks riding on picking him up, you know, if someone, you know, rolls him over. U.S. military goes in and picks him up, you know, and brings him to justice. I don't – you know, I – on one hand, I think to myself, why wouldn't we do that to help accelerate this process? Plus, he deserves it. But, on the other hand, I can see where the White House would be like, look, we've done enough here. We've got other issues on our plate. We're going to move on. They're going to get themselves sorted out. Or maybe they won't. I don't know. Again, that's a terrible way of framing what really, I guess, wasn't much of a question. Well, look, there's one thing about this administration, too, is we don't get into military hostilities just for ideological reasons, right? You could argue that's probably been some mistakes we've made, right? There's got to be a clear reason why it's a benefit to the United States. And there's competing interests there. And perhaps there's competing interests there that I'm not tracking, that the press isn't tracking. And maybe, you know, we'll certainly give, you know, some deference there. But do you get – let me ask you this. Do you think there's a benefit? Do you think there's a national security benefit that it's in the interest of the U.S. to have a free democratic – society in Venezuela? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, because if you have a free democratic society in Venezuela, then that means you have rule of law. You have institutions. You have a system in place. If you have this communist system in place right now, this totalitarian system that just makes decisions willy-nilly, then, you know, what's the stop, you know, on January 21st of 2029 of everything just going back to what it was before? Right? You know, so that's why you need these things. We're blessed that a lot of the opposition, if not most of them, want closer relationships with the United States, are embracing free markets, believe in rule of law and contracts and constitutions. So, you know, I think we're in a better position if, you know, if we do do that. And look, and I'm honest to add, I would argue, look, it actually serves the purpose of, look, if, again, I know this makes me sound cynical, but, you know, you and I have been around the block a few times. As a result of that, you do have a certain level of cynicism. But if the White House views Venezuela right now as a, let's not rock the goddamn boat, right, with worrying about this opposition situation and elections and who knows what that's going to do to these business deals, because we believe that creating the business, maybe that's the long-term driver for a democratic society. So, okay, that's what we want to focus on. Then, if that's not the case, then I would argue that rule of law issue is a much better driver for better business and the future of Venezuela and U.S. business interests, because otherwise, yeah, otherwise you're just talking about trying to cut some business deals in a semi-totalitarian environment, you know, and you go back to, I don't know, it just seems to me that, yeah, I worry. I guess this is what I'm saying. I worry that we're doing what we tend to always do, which is we lose interest, we move on to other things. You know, great, we're making lots of money on the oil and gas situation in Venezuela. That's good enough. And then we lose an opportunity. You're absolutely right. No, you're absolutely right. And look, our adversaries use Venezuela as an aircraft carrier in our hemisphere, where the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, you know, all of them were able to launch off this aircraft carrier and spread their evil throughout, you know, the hemisphere. We now have an opportunity to make sure that doesn't happen again, certainly, hopefully in our lifetimes, and actually do something even better, bring, you know, that country really close to a good, hardworking relationship with the United States. What we saw with these drone strikes in, you know, in the United States, and, you know, along, you know, the borders there with Colombia, by, you know, that's a step in the right direction. Is there collaboration with Venezuela? Well, I suspect so, if we were able to do it from their territory, and apparently they were aware of it. But I'll also say, you know, that, you know, ever since 9-11, we fight, you know, global terrorism, wherever it is. We always try to work with the local governments, you know, and cooperate. We work with them. But that doesn't stop us from killing terrorists if they're in a country that we don't have relationships with, right? You know, we've done that in the past. We continue to do that today. So, you know, if I was in the Venezuela military or government, and the United States, you know, military came to me and said, hey, we've identified these terrorists in your country. We're going to kill them. Would you, you know, would you give us permission to do so? And, you know, what's the answer going to be, right? So, you know, it's a step in the right direction. But I wouldn't claim that somehow we've, you know, we've harmonized a liaison military relationship with the Venezuelans. We are very far from that. And I guarantee you that the targeting deck and the information and the intel that carry that operation out, I guarantee you that was not shared with anybody on the ground. And it occurred, and then, you know, all we got was the lawyers to sign off on it. Oh, you said yes? Okay, great. We'll get back to you. And the next thing that happens, right, we've pulled off the whole thing, right? So, you know, the flip side of that is Colombia. You know, Colombia is also coming out now. You know, they've got a government now that is much more supportive, much closer. We've had a longstanding working relationship with the Colombians, Colombian military. Great folks over there. There's an opportunity now. to really put a squeeze play on fart D-E-L-S. and these terrorists there, because they're originally Colombian. Colombia pushed them into Venezuela. Whenever Maduro put a squeeze on them, they moved on to Ecuador. Then when Ecuador was sick of them, then they'd move back to Venezuela. Then they'd pay off Maduro. And now, if you look at the geography under Trump and the amazing stuff he's done there, Colombia's aligned. Ecuador's aligned. Brazil, not so much. But now we're operating militarily in Venezuela, too. It's a real squeeze play. These guys have nowhere to go. And if you look at those military units, what are we talking about? A few thousand people? Two, three thousand guerrillas, maybe? We could wipe out just about every Marxist military force in that area. And that would be the end of that. Yeah. Well, it does seem like there's certainly been talk about, Rubio's talked about, extending the cooperation between U.S. and Venezuelan militaries and potentially Portugal. I mean, we're talking about putting troops on the ground there, whether it's a— I doubt it would be a permanent base, but in some capacity. So, it is a fascinating development. Rick, I've got another page and a half of questions for you, but I have no time. So, that means you've got to come back when we call you again. Anytime. Anytime you do that. Excellent, man. Listen, thanks so much. I hope to see you soon. Yeah, please. Yeah, same here. Good luck. Talk to you soon. Take care. That was Rick DeLaTorre, former CIA. Senior officer and former station chief in Caracas with some excellent insight into what's happening there in Venezuela. Night. Coming up next, President Trump says Israel no longer needs billions in American military assistance. Really, who does any longer need billions in assistance? Signaling a major shift in Washington's relationship with Jerusalem. We'll get analysis from David Dowd. You know him. He's a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. So, please, stick around. The President's Daily Brief is brought to you by Maud. Maud prescribes a once or twice daily modafinil drink that can keep you energized, focused, and alert. And that all sounds pretty excellent. Here's the science behind it all. Caffeine energy drinks block what's known as adenosine. That's the chemical that makes you tired. It builds up, and when the caffeine wears off, well, there's your crash. But modafinil works differently. It engages pathways in your brain, dopamine, norepinephrine, histamine, orexin, to achieve energy. And alertness for 10 to 12 hours. Madafinil was invented in the 70s. And since then, it's been used by soldiers, astronauts, pilots, anybody in high-stakes situations for concentration and alertness. Visit Maud.com. That's Maud, M-O-D, Maud.com for a free consultation and get 10% off your first order plus free shipping with promo code PDB. That's promo code PDB at Maud.com. See their website for important safety information. And, of course, thanks very, very much to Maud for sponsoring the PDB. Welcome back to the Situation Report. President Trump says the U.S. will end nearly $4 billion in annual military aid to Israel by the end of this year. Trump claims he reached an agreement with Prime Minister Netanyahu arguing that Israel no longer needs American financial assistance. Washington would continue selling weapons to Israel, but the announcement does raise some serious questions. The current aid agreement runs through, and Congress controls the funding. Israeli officials were reportedly caught off guard, even though Prime Minister Netanyahu has talked about this arrangement in the past, while critics warn the decision could weaken the longstanding alliance. Joining me now for more on this is David Dow, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. David, thank you very much for the courage that you show in continually coming back on the program. You know, it's a tough audience. I like a challenge. It is. It is. And thank you for acknowledging the studio audience. They're quiet. We stopped to have them in. They're all packed in the living room right now. The house band. Working on the theme song for the SITREP. Well, we got lots to cover here, but let's start with this aid issue. Issue. It really garnered a lot of headlines. The idea that the U.S. is going to put an end to roughly $4 billion in U.S. aid to Israel. Trump says starting, you know, end of this year. What do you make of this announcement? What was the genesis of it? And where do you think this is all going? Well, simple question, not that simple to answer. Yeah. That's a very specific question. That's why I come on here. Look, I think that there's been a long time coming for better or for worse. The nature of the U.S.-Israel relationship has been a central question of American political discourse for several years now. Particularly after October 7th, this came more to the forefront. And the question of U.S. aid has been, or U.S. aid to Israel, the $3.8 billion that we give to Israel annually. This has come under increased scrutiny. It's in some ways, and, you know, barely, in other ways, conspiratorially. And I think what President Trump was trying to do here was trying to, I think he said this, right? He's trying to get rid of kind of an easy, low-hanging fruit target for the other side, which has transformed this, again, beyond a question of as the United States is engaged in a process of reassessing its role in the world, what do we make of the U.S. as our own relationship, and how do we modify it or change it to suit our changing needs, our changing posture into something, you know, that's a legitimate conversation, but it's been made into, well, you know, the reason why your eggs are expensive is because of Israel, which is insane and ridiculous. We've seen kind of the impact, unfortunately, at the polls of this narrative. I think President Trump was, in part, trying to get out of this. Now, one of his, I'm sorry for interrupting, before I forget, once an idea pops in my head, I've got to say it out loud. Like, I've got to say it, otherwise I'll just forget it. The White House has implied, and I think Netanyahu has said as much himself, that Netanyahu had actually raised this issue early in the year, saying, you know, it's time for Israel to, you know, stop accepting this financial assistance. We've become successful. We can actually afford to pay for all this assistance. You know, from what you're hearing from your sources and contacts, is that correct? Did the idea start on the Israeli side? I don't know if it started on the Israeli side, and there's no reason to go even beyond what's been publicly disclosed. Prime Minister Netanyahu has talked about moving towards self-sufficiency, autarky even, in terms of Israel's, you know, self-reliance, even production of weapons. Whether this is a realistic prospect moving forward or not, that Israel can produce domestically all of its military needs or not, this is something that Prime Minister Netanyahu has been talking about. It's become a more central part of the political conversation, even in Israel, for a while. And yeah, it's as you stated, that Israel feels itself in a position that it no longer needs to accept this aid, or no longer needs this aid. And perhaps the price that Israel is paying for receiving this aid is one of loss of confidence in the American public, which is translating into, you know, a more, more critical, more tense relationship, political relationship in Israel and the United States. So it could be an assessment in Israel that, you know, what we're getting out of this, we don't need, we can pay for this ourselves. And what we're losing, credibility among the American people, is far more substantial. And it's not just Prime Minister Netanyahu. You know, you may have heard Israel also had its own elections recently, and this has been a central plank of the opposition as well. The changing nature of the U.S. public's and U.S. politicians' perception of Israel, and how to adjust that, and part of that is obviously money. Yeah, it does seem as if they're sort of setting the table, or trying to get out ahead of what they're perceiving as a real seismic shift, in a way, in, you know, U.S. attitude. I'm old enough to remember when a lot of the Democrat Party were big, keen supporters. Of Israeli assistance. So, I can see them, although, you know, then you have this issue of internal politics in Israel, because they had Yair Golan and Aizenkat and some others criticizing Netanyahu, you know, trying to make hay off of the fact that, "Well, we're going to lose this, what's this going to mean for Israeli taxes and taxpayers?" And, you know, "Can we fill the gap?" and yadda, yadda, yadda. So I think internally they're just playing some games there, but I do, it does feel, feel as if, early on, I mean, not just in the past couple of months, but early on in the year, probably before then, they thought, "Yeah, we can give this up, because otherwise, you know, the cost is too great." I agree, and look, I mean, there is a domestic component to this in that, okay, $3.8 billion is not a principal economy, it can afford it, but, you know, the money's going to have to come from somewhere. This isn't a small amount either. You have a whole segment of the population that is not contributing economically or militarily. Cost of living is high, and this impacts cost of living. And there's a huge welfare state in Israel that's built to cater to the sustenance of the ultra-Orthodox community, which, again, is not contributing militarily or economically. And the ultra-Orthodox issue is a central plank of all the parties running in opposition to Netanyahu. The Zionist part is at least the idea of shirion benet, equality of burden, and integrating the ultra-Orthodox into the mainstream, because if it's not done now, in four years, this may be something that Israel can no longer address in a way that maintains Israel's technological superiority, economic superiority, military edge, and it might have a corrosive impact on Israel's durability as a state. So you can cut the money from here, but the money has to come from somewhere internally. And I think what the opposition parties don't want is that this welfare society or this welfare system used to fund the ultra-Orthodox societies already burdening the Israeli taxpayer, whose number one issue, by the way, going to the polls, has been cost of living. So now what they're saying is you can't burden them even more with more tax. Yeah. Oh, wait a minute. It should have to be a universal. Yeah, it seems to be universal. People like to live comfortably and not like to be able to afford to take a seat. I don't know. The Republican leadership in the U.S. didn't seem to get with the idea that cost of living is not one issue. So let me ask you this. And if you don't have the number off the top of your head, well, then we're just going to cancel this interview. But what percentage of Israel's population is considered ultra-Orthodox? So right now, 14%. But they're a very fast-growing population. I think they've doubled, I think it's since 20, if I'm remembering the number correctly, since 2016 till today, the population's number has doubled. I think they were like 750,000 in 2016, and now it's about a million and a half. And they have the highest birth rate in the country, I think four times even, if I, again, don't quote me on this one, but for some reason, four is popping into my head, four times the rate of. Arab-Israeli Muslims were the second highest in terms of birth rate. So fast-growing population, massive population, and they're very young. That's the other thing, they're very young. So a lot of the communities, some are in the 20s, and they're Israel's youngest population. Is there a, I don't know where I'm going with this, but is there a correlation between the ultra-Orthodox population that exists there and some outlier in terms of unemployment? Number or percentage? I mean, are they. Depends on how you consider employment. Now, most, they're not employed in a proper sense. Now, of course, the ultra-Orthodox women are largely part of the workforce. I think, you know, something like 80% of ultra-Orthodox women are working, and among men, it's like closer to 40 or 50%. So more women work in that community than do the men, and it's just. One of those, what are those dudes up to? There's a lot of. There's a lot of viewers right now. How do they get out of this? Well, they're sitting and then learning Torah, ostensibly, and they're, you know, the way they're presenting it is they can't do both, even though other Israelis, including religious Israelis, seem to do, especially religious Israelis, seem to do both, right? The religious Zionist community, for example, fully integrated into the Israeli mainstream, served in the army, and finds time to study Torah. This has never been like this, you know, unsolvable. And in Jewish history, I mean, the rabbis in the Talmud used to compete over who had a job, right? They were proud of having a job, and they were, obviously, again, the biggest scholars in Jewish history. But the ultra-Orthodox are saying, no, well, we can't deviate from Torah study. We can't interrupt our Torah study. We have to sit and learn Torah all the time. Oh, and by the way, this is what really sustains the state. So that's what they're doing. Now, whether that is considered employment, an Israeli employment statistic, or whether it's a different issue, and also what kind of employment do these people have, again, it's the women in these communities that are usually getting the higher degrees and working in more professional fields rather than the men. Okay. Well, I want to move from that, but I did find that interesting because, again, what you talked about in terms of how they view the economy and the welfare state and what that may mean and something where, yes, they are going to have to cover this gap in financial assistance. But again, the government and most elements of the government are going to have to cover this gap. And I think that's where the government seems on board with the concept. So I suspect that's moving forward. Then it becomes an issue of U.S. administration, regulatory policies, legislation. How do you kind of get that to a position where you can say, okay, we're not providing this assistance, even though it's been covered or essentially accounted for through 2028. Man, that made me sound like a policy wonk. You're not at all. You're not at all. Yeah, you're right. You're right. I'm sorry. So if you'll stay right where you are, we've got a bunch more questions to throw your way, but we'll be back with more from David Dowd here on the Situation Report. So please stick around. Joining us once again is senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, David Dowd. David, thank you very much for staying put. We've been talking about the announcement of the aid cut to Israel. You know, I just want to touch on this, and then I want to get to the recent elections in Israel and particularly kind of the part that the Arab parties might be playing going forward. But Vice President J.D. Vance came out over the past couple of days with a fairly lengthy, I don't know how long he spent typing it, social media screep saying, you know, this is why the Republicans lost. You know, might have been a little bit of a mistake. And due to a variety of factors, but he put it down essentially to the war in Iran. And he also cited as something that has to be addressed is the relationship going forward with Israel. Now, I mean, obviously, we talked on in the first segment, we talked a bit about sort of the left, the Democrat Party, kind of a sea change that we were seeing here in terms of how they view Israel. They're much, you know, more hardcore. Hawks on the Ukraine conflict than they are on this, this Iran issue. But how do you interpret Vance's comment there? I think it's positioning. Look, you know, there's not one factor that led to this, this, this change, right? The Trump administration has been in office for two years and, you know, the Trump administration came to office on the promise of, you know, MAGA 2.0, which was to, you know, put more money in our country. Put more money in our pockets, lower the cost of living. Again, there's that cost of living thing. Deal with immigration properly, seal the southern border. There were a lot of promises that were made and the cost of living has not gone down. And again, I think polling here also showed that cost of living was the number one issue. Again, surprise, surprise. That is not to say that the Iran war has had no impact on the choice that Americans made when they went to the polling stations. Part of it, I think, is the failure of the Trump administration. The failure of the administration. Wars obviously impact the bottom line of the average American, right? Oil prices did go up, right? The money that the average American had to put out on a day-to-day basis went up. Again, it's not the only thing that affected it. But I think the average American couldn't understand why do we have to go to war with Iran? And that's something this administration failed to do, which is to explain the danger that this Iranian regime poses, not just to Israel's existence, right, because it's slated in the old curve for destruction. Not just to our partners in the Middle East, not just to our Middle Eastern interests, but ultimately to our way of life at home. And it's not as comical as something like Iranian soldiers marching down the streets of Washington. No, no, no. Iran wants to, in the Middle East and with this global alliance of similar actors, diminish our global reach, break the international order that we built off of American blood after World War II. And through doing that, kind of put us into a corner to where we're just another second-rate country. And eventually they can dictate to us, including how we live our lives here. That's something that was not explained to the American people. So I think what Vice President Vance is trying to do, look, what is this saying? Defeat is an orphan. He's clearly positioning himself for a run in 2028. President Trump only has two more years left. And I think what he's trying to do is position himself as the guy who warned about this. And, you know, even though he's in the administration, he's not going to be able to do that. And, you know, even though he's in the administration, it's like, guys, guys, this thing that you don't like, I had nothing to do with it. I was the other guy. He's been he's been more vocal. Recently, leading into the midterm election and just immediately afterwards about, you know, trying to remind people, you remember, I was privately I was really against this, you know, but then I did go along. So I get that part. It's the changing relationship with Israel, which seems to be almost him trying to placate whether we're talking about independence or sort of center democrats or center left whatever uh it seems like so i i guess that's all part and parcel of just trying to set the table for 2028 perhaps i i think so look i think he's trying to build as what we've learned even when president with president trump uh winning winning winning the last election wasn't just you know lifelong republicans that voted for him a lot of large blocks of voters came from independence and right now unfortunately the israel issue is not a very popular issue uh among among americans and i think what he's trying to do is position himself as the republican who will change the nature of the u.s israel relationship in a way that aligns with this growing skepticism to the relate towards the relationship and even hostility towards the relationship among independents and again if you can pull away some democrats why the heck not that's more numbers for you um so i think to have this in the bag he's trying to you know where israel where support for israel used to be a bipartisan issue i think now unfortunately the shift is that israel is not a bipartisan issue and i think that's a big issue that hostility towards israel is becoming uh you know a cross-partisan issue and vice president vance is trying to tap into that sentiment to make sure that he doesn't lose the voters over the israel issue come 2028 and what what primarily accounts for that that shift from your perspective you spend a lot of time in this arena kind of studying uh the region and u.s relationships with that region what do you think accounts primarily for this shift that we're seeing i think there are several factors first of all the october 7th war happened at a time when the united states was already reassessing its role in the world that was independent of of israel um and this this war happened to happen at that moment where we were already going whether right or left in a more isolationist uh if you want to call it that or more america first direction i mean one thing i've been highlighting the irony is that you have people who are on the far left uh who two two three years ago were calling america first direction and i think that's a you know irredeemably uh exceptionally evil systemic racist systemically racist country conspiracy theory now positioning themselves as the america firsters um right and it's because they're trying to tap into the sentiment so at a time where america is going this way israel's needs went the other way needing american support needing uh american uh american uh help uh needing american aid another thing happened also you had the growth of anti-semitism um and at a time where americans kind of got tired of what they thought what they felt as uh you know speech policing and you know cries of racism and feeling that they were being silenced with cries of racism the jewish community uh raised the alarm about growing anti-semitism um and this didn't this kind of was out of lockstep with with the american electorate you also had a concerted effort by people who don't want to see israel exist uh to create a narrative that demonized israel um and its conduct of the war and also look let's not forget the israeli contribution to this in the sense that look like every war there's going to be horrific scenes that come out of it there's going to be war crimes the israelis did not do enough to kind of get ahead of that in terms of their pr and there were ministers in the government who were either saying or doing things uh that made it um you know very difficult for even centrist republicans or democrats politically costly to come out and say we're supporting israel we're backing so a lot of different factors again perhaps the iran war contributed to that but you know it was like this perfect storm of a moment for this war to happen when american sentiment was already going in a different direction irrespective of of what the israelis were doing or not doing yeah now i think there's a lot there within what you've been saying i mean looking at the iran conflict i think the trump administration did a terrible job of explaining themselves um you if you say that it's imminent that this problem is imminent you have to you have to figure out a way to classify something to back that up with some level of evidence again you're not going to blow sources and methods but you're going to have to be a little bit more clear and their messaging has always been kind of abysmal you know regardless of what the subject is so they didn't do themselves any favors i think the the the vast majority of of americans looked at what happened on october 7th and were horrified absolutely horrified but at the same time then shortly after had a hard time squaring what was they were seeing in gaza as being a problem for the iranian public and the iranian government so i think the iranian government is going to have to deal with some sort of proportionate response and i think that was a a major issue on their their their plate but um let me ask you about this in the time that we've got left the elections that just took place you know nobody got a majority so now once again you've got smaller parties uh potentially acting as king makers these parties have to come together they have to agree to work together as a coalition in order then to have the president turn around and say okay i want you netanyahu and the iranian government to come together and say okay i want you netanyahu and the iranian government to come together and say okay i want you netanyahu and the iranian government to come together and say okay i want you netanyahu and the iranian government to come together and say okay i want you netanyahu and the iranian government to form a government uh the arab parties had a historic showing there in israel which probably surprises a lot of people that don't understand the demographics of israel talk to me about that and and and what role the parties may play so they went from being the lowest lowest uh turnout to lowest involvement demographic to i think they the the turnout from the arab community in israel even outdid the turnout from the jewish uh the jewish sector uh so more more percentage of arab israelis came out than jews the problem is um you know look that should give uh god the eisen code technically a majority and today there are now there are consultations uh between the president of israel and these various parties and for those who can speak hebrew or understand it i highly recommend watching these consultations because they're they're fully recorded they're fully you know they're put up on the on the president's youtube channel and basically he sits down with the parties and talks to them about the issues and what he's trying to emphasize is unity and compromise um and when it comes to the arab parties the main sticking issues right and not all of them you can't lump them all together because you have mansour abbas's party which is highly much more highly pragmatic and much more willing to pursue a course of arab israeli integration into israel as a jewish state and that's that's a critical point the joint list parties uh kind of what you know the so that accounts for eight of the 19 seats that were won by arab parties and in this election the remaining 11 were won by the joint list the joint list uh its constituent parties you know it's made up of three parties and this this coalition um are explicitly anti-zionist uh want to shrink the budget of the idf uh are against the integration of arab israelis into israeli society they're opposed to what they call israelization of arab israelis and they want to they want to promote a feeling of connection between arab israelis and palestinians and palestinian national identity um you know they refuse to call hamas a terrorist organization they're trying to make sure that they're not a terrorist organization they're their conception of who is the regional threat uh differs fundamentally from jewish israelis right they view israel as the regional threat rather than viewing israel as new as as you know confronting regional threats and so because of that they want to they don't want ultra orthodox conscription they want the idf which they view as an inherently negative organization to be to be weaker uh both in terms of its budget and its personnel but seems like they're trying to be pragmatic i don't know today i haven't been i've been on interviews all day uh but uh i gotta snippet i got to see a snippet of some of these consultations uh including the president herzog speaking to um yusuf jabarin who's the chairman of uh of the joint list and he asked them specifically what happens if israel is going to be confronted with some kind of regional security situation you know we're having to go to war with hamas or hezbollah or iran where are you going to sit on this if you're either supporting the government from the inside which doesn't seem like they're going to do or you know providing the 61 from outside of the government which you can do right as long as you as long as the government has the votes it doesn't matter if they're part of the coalition or not and they said look we didn't uh it's a very vague answer that jabarin gave but effectively he said we didn't come here to get netanyahu out of power so we could pave the way for his return um so what we're going to do is look at our um our our broader strategy and and and work in accordance with that now what what does that mean practically i don't know i think it's deliberately vague does that mean that come the moment that we're going to be able to get netanyahu out of power in a moment uh if israel has to go to war because they have they they view these the jointless views that it has bigger priorities than squabbling with the jewish israeli majority on israel's security needs that they're going to act pragmatically or like at least not oppose an israeli military action that the rest of the country views as necessary perhaps perhaps it remains to be seen but this is much more flexibility than we've seen from these parties in the past um and that's important because on its face if you look at what the zionist opposition parties ran on that you know all of them uh sitting with parties that are for universal conscription uh jewish and democratic nature of the country uh going after hamas and the security threats right there's not that much of a difference if at all in terms of the framing of the threats that that face israel all the way from the left to the you know to benvir uh all israelis all jewish israelis all the parties view uh iran is a threat has below the threat hamas is a threat the question is how do you deal with them uh how do you get rid of these threats um so you know on its face the platforms of the joint list and the platforms of the zionist opposition parties are irreconcilable but politics is you know the art of the possible so it remains to be seen what the arab parties are going to uh how much flexibility either side can show so that there can be kind of a a government that's birth and what we see from president herzog the one thing he keeps asking all parties um that i've watched even yesterday is how do you get rid of these threats and how do you get rid of these is what do you know? are you willing to compromise? What, how are you, are you willing to sit with the other side? What if, you know, what, what, what if you were seated in a government with someone from the entirely opposite political, political part of the spectrum, what are you willing to do? He wants to avoid second elections. He's trying to get everyone to come to the table. So we'll see. Yeah. Compromise. Well, there's a thought. Listen, David, thank you, man. Uh, great stuff. Really, really interesting. And as always, we obviously very much appreciate your insight. Um, and I look forward to the next conversation, which hopefully will not be too far down the road. I have a feeling that, uh, after this midterm election, something's going to happen. Either we get a negotiated settlement with the Iran conflict or, or we end up, you know, launching new military strikes and, you know, either way that goes, we look forward to having you back. My pleasure. Whenever there's problems, call on me. David Dallet, Foundation for Defense of Democracy is a great guy. Well, that's all the time we have for this week's PDB Situation Report. Look, if you have any questions or comments, and I hope you do, well, write them down, fax them to me, or maybe not, you know, just put them on a postcard or a telegram. I'm not sure. Possibly an email is the most efficient thing to do. Just reach out to me at pdb at thefirsttv.com. And you know what we do with a lot of those questions. We try to mush them together every month. Sometimes we're speedier at it than other times, depending on travel. And we put them into an episode we call Ask Me Anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, within groups. So there you go. Keep your cards and letters coming. And finally, to listen to the podcast of this show ad-free, you know it's very possible, and it's very simple. Just become a premium member of the President's Daily Brief by visiting pdbpremium.com. I'm Mike Baker. And until next time, you know the drill. Stay informed, stay safe, and stay cool. Thank you.