The PDB Situation Report | October 24th, 2026: The Armed Insurgency Challenging Iran's Regime

Welcome to the BDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, Iran's regime is facing a growing armed insurgency on its own soil as militant groups step up attacks against government security forces. We'll examine who's behind the rebellion and whether it could pose a serious threat to Tehran's grip on power. We'll be talking with Jonathan Sae from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Later in the show, France is bracing for another weekend of unrest as new revelations expose a network of more than 100 organizations helping coordinate and amplify the demonstrations. Simon Hankinson of the Heritage Foundation stops by to give us insight into that. But first. Today's BDB Spotlight. Iran's Islamic regime is facing a growing threat from within its own borders. In the country's southeast, a coalition of armed insurgent groups is stepping up attacks against government forces, targeting police, military personnel, and commanders of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC. The violence has escalated sharply in recent weeks, with dozens of armed confrontations reported this year. And while these insurgents don't appear capable of overthrowing the regime on their own, they're opening another front at a time when the Iranian regime is already under enormous military and economic pressure. So, just how serious is this rebellion? And could it spread? Joining us now to break it all down is research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Jonathan Sae. Jonathan, welcome back to The Situation Report. Great to see you. Great to be back. Well, I hope you feel that way after we finish our conversation. So, here we go. There's always been this thought, for decades, that the people would rise up in Iran, and that would eventually spell the end of the Islamic Republic, and they would finally have a future that they deserve. What do we make of what we're seeing in the southeastern part of Iran at this stage? What's really remarkable about the southeast insurgency, as you know, Iran has two main insurgent groups. One of the southeast, one of the northwest, that everybody knows about, the Kurds. The southeast, the Baluch ethnic group, is lesser known. But the major difference is, even though both groups very much evolved to pursue ethnocentric policies or aspirations, the southeastern insurgency is increasingly adopting a nationalist framework. I think they may have really picked up what happened with the Kurds in early March. There was a lot of backlash, and there was fears of separatism, both from U.S. friends and allies, and, of course, the Iranians. So by reframing the nature of their opposition, I think that definitely gives them an upper hand compared to other groups. But that said, one, they're still quite far from the capital and from the major urban areas. The Kurds are much closer, so that's one issue. And the other angle is that these groups initially started, in addition to separatism, with a lot of Sunni Islamist agenda. So this is all to say you should still take it with a grain of salt, but whatever framework moves within a nationalist one would still be a positive, and that might be it later. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Sometimes some of these intra-opposition, really, frictions do have a political consequence for the movement as a whole. With this particular case, they're quite far from one another geographically. That makes it harder for them to logistically coordinate. I think the other issue, looking at it, is that the Kurds enjoy more or less support or influence from both Israel and the United States, as we saw prior, as we saw in Iraq and Syria. That's not the case with the Southeast. So that's really a new chapter and a new wave of opportunity. As we see the U.S., again, re-evaluating whether they should initiate another round of strikes joint with Israel, the real question is, would they actually move on with capitalizing on some armed existing insurgency that operates within the national framework because the Kurdish option proved to be not really viable? So this is to say, as they're evaluating whether after or before the midterms, this is something that has to be on their radar. When you say not really viable, you're talking about the Kurds. Can you expand on that? Yeah. To begin with, the groups tend to be very fragmented. So there's a lot of intra-Kurdish fighting. You don't see that with the Baloch ethnic group. They actually formed a new coalition in December 2025, and we see them really operating under the same umbrella. With Kurds, you don't have that. In addition, some of them are actually designated terror groups with the Kurdish population. But really, most importantly, is number one, they would very much jeopardize any sentiment that would resonate with, the Iranian populace. You're talking about a population of 90 million people. Kurds are only a few million. So you would really be alienating the main leverage if you moved forward with ethnocentric policies. And I guess the last point on that is, looking at numbers again, the IRGC, the armed apparatus, fields about maybe half a million personnel, but let's say 200,000 that are deployable immediately. The Kurdish factions are maybe about a few thousand. So the perception that somehow the Kurds are going to just, the way it's going to be paid for them, for them to move to the capital, all of a sudden the regime is going to collapse overnight, is not really realistic. So what we would have to pivot more towards is dragging it out to really implement the same asymmetric warfare against the regime itself. It's not going to be overnight. And it's about changing the calculus, making regime officials afraid of showing up to work, desertions. So then we can get to defections. And that was really playing out in March. But the ceasefire came to a roughly to make any successes come out of it. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think. I think there was also some thought that, look, with enough economic pressure, you can get this economy to collapse. Eventually, you know, the security forces don't get paid. And, you know, that's another point of leverage, perhaps, to create some splintering. The Baluch population, you know, is it safe to say, is it fair to say primarily Sunni in the South? That's correct. Yeah, they are. Okay. So are they viewed in terms of the Iranian population? In general, are they viewed with some skepticism in terms of their overall agenda? More or less, especially the background before they announced this coalition, like I said, they still had major Islamist tendencies. That definitely raises some eyebrows. But it's not because they're Sunni or because they're another ethnic group, really. That comes down to two things that Iranians fear the most. I'm talking about the population in the form of Islamism, replacing one with another and any form of ethnocentric policies that might balkanize the country and then lead to civil war. For the rest of eternity, they look at the Balkans, perhaps other countries in the region. They don't really want that to play out. So as long as you're not hitting those two issues, there's not necessarily a problem by the population. And PR is everything. You see how this Baluch population is putting out content on their TV and they're debunking Islamic Republic narratives. They're backing the crown prince. So all that really resonates. In the age of the Internet, you can really change minds quite fast with correct messaging. But again, this is to say it should still be taken with a grain of salt. You don't really know. They know how these groups might again restructure themselves post regime change. Did you get the sense that what's happening there in the south face of the Baluch with this, this, this, you want to call it an insurgency or just the uptick in violence against the security forces and police? Do you get the sense that for folks in Tehran, that's just an isolated thing that's happening? It's not impacting what, you know, what their concerns are or their daily. More or less. One, we talked about geography. It's quite far. But I think what really doesn't concern regime officials, if that's what you mean by folks in Tehran, is the fact that they are not yet, at least we don't quite know yet, but they're not really connected to Israel or the United States the same way the Kurds were. The president officially announced they had armed the Kurds and they were hoping these weapons would end up in the heartland of the country. That didn't play out. Separate story. But this is. Just to say, we don't see that connectivity between the Baluch. So if you look at an insurgency, one, it's quite far. And two, you don't see your main adversaries really engaging it as much. It's less of a problem. But that said, a regime that is so fragile, as you pointed out, with the economy, with increasing discontent, even amongst regime officials themselves, this no war, no peace limbo that is really devastating the regime as a whole. You can't really take any chances with anything. And, you know, once an insurgency starts in one part. You don't know how it's going to spread. And the last point on that is the groups themselves matter to an extent. But what's really more important about these groups, they're all situated by the border of the country, which means they can play a role logistically with importing weapons into the main urban areas. That, I think, would be the main asset. And that is what's everyone watching very closely. Okay. Yeah. And then do you get a sense that the regime, the IRGC or whomever, the siege militia or others, are they deploying? Resources down there at the present time? Are they trying to tamp this down to any degree or? Are they already stretched thin and they don't have that ability? No, you're quite right. They are. And it's not only the Southeast. They're also doing it in the Northwest. So as soon as they hear there might be another round of strike, the more fragile they feel internally. And once there's an uptake in rhetoric coming from one, Yavun, of course, Trump, they're soon to deploy forces. And now you see conventional military in the Southeast and the Northwest by the Kurds. So, I mean, that's how regime is treating it right now. Of course, disinformation is going to go a long way. They still try to. You see a lot of divisive language coming from the regime's apparatus, trying to play Iranian ethnic groups against one another. So that is their malign agenda there. But increasingly, as every Iranian looks at their life, they look at the repression. It's hard to find discrimination. That's perhaps one area that the regime is indiscriminate is when it comes to the repression of its own people. So these propaganda campaigns can only work so much. So really, it comes down to the logistics of actually uniting and organizing them. Under a formed opposition. The Islamic Republic is is it's very inclusive. They'll repress everyone. So, yeah. So they've got that going for them. Johnson, if you stay right where you are, we do have to take a quick break and then we'll be back with more from Johnson's side here on the Situation Report. So please stick around. Hey, Mike Baker here. Now, you may have noticed that the U.S. midterm elections are heating up. Right. Just I'm putting that diplomatically. Congressional control, possibly Senate control and President Trump's agenda are all basically on the ballot and up for grabs. Every new poll and every new article does have the potential to shift the odds. And here's the thing. CalSheet, America's number one prediction market platform, lets you trade those predictions in a live market. Now, one race worth watching is Michigan, where Democrat Abdul El-Sayed is facing Republican Mike Rogers for an open Senate seat. Right now on CalSheet, El-Sayed is trading. It's. 68% to win, while Rogers is sitting at 32%. 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Joining me once again is research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Jonathan Sayeh. Jonathan, thanks very much for sticking around. We've been talking about Iran. We've been talking about the insurgency in the southeast. To some degree, the current state of the Kurds up north. In terms of the Tehran, in terms of the main population centers, what are you seeing in terms of the regime trying to maintain control of the population or trying to ensure that they don't have a repeat of protests? I mean, are they out every night just essentially patrolling neighborhoods, warning the population, you know, stay at home, you know, nothing to see here? What is happening? That's an excellent question. And the answer is really short. They launched this campaign called the Life Sacrificee Campaign. And it's really calling on Iranian civil society, really Iranian population, Iranian civilians to increasingly militarize themselves. As the IRGC put it, because they're preparing for a long term war with the United States, they need to use every interval between clashes with the United States to identify vulnerabilities. And of course, the main existential being not the bombs themselves outside, but every threat is at a corner in every street. Every Iranian at this point is a threat to the Islamic Republic. Right. So the regime is doubling down on militarizing their support base. Let's say you're driving your kid to school and all you see nowadays in the past few months is billboards asking you if you know how to operate and clean an AK-47. Do you know how to use a rocket launcher? They set up stands in little booths. Let's say you're just taking your family on a walk and an IRGC guy approaches you and says, hey, you seem like a very Islamic devoted family. Would you like to learn how to operate this pistol? Let's say you have that component. You see increasingly parades and, of course, nightly gatherings. So you have to be very careful when you're delivering and paired with patrol. And the last theme here that you haven't really seen before. I mean, some of this does echo the Iran-Iraq war, but this time was really news. They're incorporating women increasingly. So you look at what the supreme leader of the revolution Khomeini initially, how he talked about women in armed units versus now. So now they're bringing in special forces, specifically women from different parts of the country. In addition to training them, they're also teaching them how to operate first person view drones. So you can see that they're using the same drones to identify women who are not wearing the compulsory hijab. So that duality, I guess, to some of these loyalists is not necessarily a contradiction, but this is to say they would really rewrite any policy they had initially if survival at its stake. If they have to incorporate women, if they need to militarize society, if they need to teach kids at school how to use weapons, they'll do it for the sake of survival. And that has been the main theme of the past couple of months. So the driving concept there. There is try to get the people to view the U.S., to view Israel as the problem, right? I mean, they're saying we all have to stand together against the outside forces, even though the regime just finished slaughtering thousands of their own citizens earlier in the year. You know, hey, don't look over there. Look over here. This is where the real problem is. Now, I'm assuming that while they may be trying to educate people on how to operate. I mean, they're trying to educate people on how to operate. And I think that's the real problem. I think that's the real problem. Iran that things are reaching a tipping point from an economic perspective? Yes. And there are two points I have to quickly address. Number one, I know we use the term economic collapse and some people point at Iran, they say, well, people are still living their lives, therefore there's no economic collapse. It's not necessarily a well-defined term. You can argue economic collapse is happening already. I think some people have the perception of once we hit economic collapse, everyone's going to pour into the streets, all the banking is going to shut down. That's not how economic collapse, quote unquote, really plays out. It's rising inflation, it's you going to store today and then going the next day and they have to change prices. It's people not using cash ever. Everything's card-based because the currency is so devalued. It's unemployment rates skyrocketing, things of that nature. And of course, we see that impact like never before. The currency has never been weaker. Some of these numbers, you just have to start just cutting zeros for day-to-day grocery items. So that's on the economic front. This is to say maximum pressure, the blockade. Economic theory, economic D-Day, it's biting. But brings me to my second point, to what ends? Is there a framework in place to capitalize on this? My fear with the current administration is that the idea is if you inflict enough economic and therefore political costs, you're going to get behavior change. I cannot imagine a single RGC or regime official looking at the status and say, because the people are poor, therefore we have to make a deal. It is more so that because the masses might rise up, with sufficient backing, and if they're armed, then we might have to temper or maybe lower our stance. But as it sits right now, the regime thinks it might be another insurgency or uprising. Sure, they'll just kill their way through it if there's no backing from the United States or Israel. So we're only halfway through the puzzle. The remainder, the infrastructure, I don't see it currently being in place to actually utilize some of this dissent. Yeah, I think you've raised a really good point. We've talked about that on occasion here on the PDB, is the inability of the administration, the U.S. administration, not just this one, but past ones as well, to understand the nature of the Islamic Republic and how the leadership processes information and how they make decisions. And it's in part because we have this, I would argue, a fatal flaw at times where we mirror our own values onto other cultures. And imagine that, you know, in. a set of circumstances, they'll act and behave the same way that we would. And there's just no logic to that. The Islamic Republic, the leadership, that's not how they process things. And I think we've always made that mistake. And I agree with you. I think that the only thing they care about at this stage is the same thing that Kim Jong-un cares about, Vladimir Putin cares about, Xi Jinping cares about, and that's maintaining a grip on power. So if that's. If that starts to slip, yes, then you may get some behavioral change. But. Ah, Jonathan, this is me climbing down off my soapbox now. Listen, as always, man, really, really enjoyed the conversation. And I do hope you'll come back next time we give you a shout. I think we'll be dealing with this issue. I don't know. And we've all been speculating as to what may happen after the midterm elections in the U.S. with President Trump talking about a potential new military campaign. But we'd love to have you back on shortly after the elections to talk about what's happening. The pleasure was all mine. And I ended with this, that two years is a long time. Trump is seeking a legacy. That's going to be critical. And just look at where we were last year. The 2025 June 12-day war was very different to what we saw. So a lot can happen in one year, let alone two. So we just have to wait and see. But to your point, post-November, I think is going to be critical. Yeah, I agree. But I will also, I would add to that, Jonathan, not to sound like a complete downer, but some of us have been watching the Islamic Republic for decades. A friend of mine was one of the hostages. And you develop a certain level of cynicism in doing that. But I do hope that we do see some change for the better coming up. But anyway, more importantly, pick up that phone. I'll see you next time. Pick up that phone next time we call and we'll get you back on. I look forward to the next conversation, Matt. As will I. Thank you so much. Take care. Jonathan Saeed, Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Well, all right, coming up next, France braces for another weekend of violent unrest as new questions emerge about the far-left organizations and others futiling the chaos. Simon Hankinson of the Heritage Foundation. He'll join us to examine who's behind the riots and what they may be hoping to accomplish stay with us. The President's Daily Brief is brought to you by Maud. 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France is bracing for another weekend of unrest following violent riots and chaos that left cities burning, businesses looted, and thousands arrested because nothing says legitimate protests like looting. But there's a bigger story emerging about who's organizing these demonstrations. A recent investigation has identified more than 100 organizations across 13 countries involved in coordinating or amplifying the protests, including communists, socialists, and other far-left groups. French President Emmanuel Macron is accusing radical leftists of deliberately trying to destabilize the country. And with another wave of demonstrations planned, French authorities are preparing a massive security operation to prevent a repeat of last weekend's chaos. Joining me now is Simon Hankinson. He's a co-founder of the French Foundation's Border Security and Immigration Center. Simon, thank you very much for joining us here on the Situation Report. Good morning. Let's start at sort of the 30,000-foot level of what's been happening in Europe. We'll start with France. To what degree can you either give us a sense of how this started? Was it an organic, legitimate, protest at the outset by students and then joined by some teachers? Or from the outset, do you think there was an organized element here involving whether it's progressive lefts, anarchists, whomever? Both. There were definitely some issues that students were upset about and probably happened for a long time. Teachers not showing up, classrooms being too big. They don't have air conditioning in many French schools. Which in the summer can be, or whether the spring and fall even can be pretty uncomfortable. So there were legitimate questions too about the, it's called parkour soup. It's an online system which helps high school students navigate where they go to college. Another big issue is that the French system basically lets everybody into college, like 80% get the equivalent of a high school diploma, which guarantees them a place at university. But of course, they can't educate that many. So the French system, they make them fail out. So they make the medical school, law school, and universities really, really hard in the first year and they have a 50% or more dropout rate. And people don't like that. So there are a variety of different complaints that I think are fairly legitimate in the high school and university sector. But there's also, France is a tinderbox of protest just waiting for an excuse. You've got the unions, the CGT, the General Confederation of Workers, and others that happily glom onto any sort of protest, generally looking for better benefits, shorter working hours, earlier retirement. And then you have an organized far left and Islamist community, lots of different organizations that have been waiting for an excuse to get out there and break stuff and riot for what they want or protest for what they want. So I think there is a kernel of legitimate Well, to what I said, is any protest legitimate? People have a grievance, they're out there on the street, it's legitimate until they start breaking stuff, right? So there were people with genuine complaints and the government can't do much about them. But there are other people out there on the streets now who are hardcore leftists, militant Islamists, and looters who might be none of the above. They're just there to get some free sneakers. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we've certainly seen that in occasion. We've seen protests here in the U.S. Expand on that a little bit more. The government can't do anything about that or can't do much about that. You talk about these illegitimate grievances, and to include some of the concerns of the unions and others. When you say the government cares too much about it, let's talk about that a little bit. Well, the French state, they're on their fifth republic now, and they have always had a pretty generous welfare state since World War II. But it has grown up to the point where it is no longer sustainable with the budget that they have. So they have, I believe they're the second highest taxed country in Europe, which is saying a lot. Well over half of the income of the average French person is going to go in taxes of one kind or another. They have high gas taxes, diesels, like $10 a gallon there, as opposed to maybe six now, I think, that we're complaining about. And they get free medical care, free education, including university education. But every year they have a budget deficit. They haven't balanced a budget in 50 years in France. The deficit this year is like five and a half percent, and so their national debt is about 120% of GDP. Now some of those things are true of the United States as well, and these are problems we're going to have to reckon with. But we have a couple of advantages that they don't have. Our economy is growing at, I don't know, three and a half percent, give or take. Theirs is growing at about half a percent, and it hasn't really grown in 20 years to any mean. So they can't grow their way out of the problem. They're hostile to entrepreneurs, basically. It's very difficult to start a business and run a business in France. So that's what I mean. The state can't really give the demonstrators what they want. You can retire if you're a railroad worker in your 50s in France, because back in 1850, it was a really dangerous job. Today, you're walking around, you know, punching tickets or driving an electronic console train. You're not sucking steam off. You're off an engine or getting burned by hot coals. But you can still retire in your 50s. You know, at my age, I could probably be retired. And I think the general age of retirement is somewhere around 62. It might be, you know, it's under 65. And every time the government tries to change it to say, hey, look, we need to raise the retirement age a bit or cut some kind of benefits, people get out in the streets and they protest. So they're making demands that the government simply doesn't have the means to meet unless they borrow more money, which puts them in jeopardy with the bond market. It's a vicious circle. So, you know, I know this is a tough question to answer, probably an impossible question to answer, but how do they work themselves out of this situation? Well, I don't see an easy exit. There's an election coming up in April for the president. President has a lot of power in France and can even go around Parliament with sort of the opposite of a veto. The president can just bypass Parliament. That's what the last President Macron. Did to pass his budget. But if you let's say Marine Le Pen is elected, she's the right wing party. They will control immigration. They will crack down on hooliganism and, you know, people burning things and looting in the streets. But she has not really made any commitment to cutting back on spending. She knows that she needs the votes of retirees and an aging population who don't want to see anything cut. The left wing guy from La France. I assume he's France unbowed. They translate it to Jean-Luc Mélenchon. I mean, he's out there. He is a far, far left socialist who wants basically open borders and unlimited benefits. And he doesn't really care if the whole thing comes crashing down. So, you know, I don't see an easy way out for France. They don't have a lot of wiggle room and there's no popular appetite to accept the kind of cuts and reforms that Greece did, for example, to get itself in line a couple of years back. Is it a. Cautionary tale for the U.S. I mean, I know you said that we have certain advantages in the U.S. in terms of growth. But do you look at what's happening in France and not just France, but other parts of Europe where they're experiencing the same issues, perhaps not with the same intensity? Do you look at that, look at the U.S. and think, you know, here we are in five or 10 or 15 years? I don't think it's a direct line. France has a very different history from ours. We're not so big. We're not so big on with the exception of the George Floyd 2020 riots and a few others. We're not so big on people getting out into the streets and trying to demand things and extort things from the government. And, you know, we're much more spread out. So there's not like one Paris that you can go to and shut down and get what you want as you as you can more easily in Europe. But the things that we have in common are we can't balance a budget. We have a growing debt, which is overtaking our defense spending is becoming the number one. Budget line item. We have also a red green alliance of Islamists and socialists who are temporary political bedfellows who want to rip down Western civilization and capitalism. You know, the whole woke industry that's taken over all of our campuses is basically the same as the guys who are out there riding in France, minus the looters. So, yeah, I think we have some of the same ingredients here and problems to deal with. But just to. Very different political system that's going to cope with them compared to France. Yeah, I've got several pages of questions for you, Simon, to throw your way. But first, if you don't mind, stay right where you are. We do have to take a quick break and then we'll be back here on the Situation Report. Joining me once again is Simon Hankinson. He's the senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation's Border Security. And the Immigration Center. We've been talking about the current unrest in Europe, particularly in France. Simon, first of all, thank you for sticking around, because if we came back and you decided to leave, it would be all the way around. So let's, if we could, talk about the impact of immigration policy on what we're currently seeing in France. And again, I'm kind of using France right now as a case study. Europe in general, but because France has been stealing the headlines with all their unrest. To what degree do you look at what's happening currently, whether it's at the macro level and issues with social benefits being stretched thin or just perhaps what's happening on the streets in terms of violence? How do you link immigration policy that's been in France for years to what's taking place right now? Well. The French have always pretended that they don't see color in their official statistics. They don't break things down by race the way other countries do, because everybody's French is that is that's the conceit. But the reality is that they have accepted a large wave of immigration ever since the 60s from their former colonies from North Africa, from Africa, from Asia. And a lot of that immigration. Is Muslim, and it is also not particularly highly skilled. They're not they're getting some doctors and engineers, but they're also getting a lot of peasants, basically, and city dwellers with low levels of education who are not easy fits into the sophisticated French economy. So they have brought in a lot of people. If you look at the unemployment rate among immigrants in France and their children, it is higher by 10, 15 percent than that of indigenous people. Or native French people over time that changes. I mean, there is an assimilation process, but it's very, very slow. And they've also most of the people have settled in what they call the Bonlea, the suburbs. But they're not suburbs like with green lawns and picket fences. They're more like the projects, high rise buildings. And they surround. I lived in Marseille as consul general there for three years. They called it the northern quarters. And they were basically projects in the north of the city of Marseille. France is surrounded by these Bonleas, and they're very densely packed with Algerians, Tunisians, Moroccans in these neighborhoods. So the assimilation process just isn't happening the way it might if they were more spread out, which is incidentally why the Danish government, which had similar issues, decided to break up what they called ghettos. So you can't have a concentration of more than 10 or 15 percent migrants or their or. Their immediate descendants in any particular neighborhood because they realized that they were creating these ghettos that were that were perpetuating gang violence and, you know, barbaric religious practices and things that were very undanish and unmodern. So France's immigration policy has been to accept large numbers of people like us. They have family reunification. They have people applying for asylum and getting it. And when they refuse people asylum, they don't deport more than a small percentage of. Them and all of that has been building up over the years until there is now a very large and very young population, some of whom are perfectly happy to become French, but many others of whom are unhappy about their future. And they want to blame somebody for it. And they're blaming the French state and Western capitalism and Christianity and everything really that is France. Yeah, I've been to some of those areas. In the suburbs of Paris and elsewhere, and they are. very depressing neighborhoods if you can even call them neighborhoods so you can look at that and you can say okay i you can you can sense the grievances you you understand you know this sense of you know okay what's what's in it for me where's the future um but they've you know i don't want to sound callous but it you know for france for the government it's a self-inflicted wound that that you know took place over years yeah i mean it's just like us here i mean we we brought in uh millions of people without being discriminatory as to whether they could pay taxes or get jobs or contribute to society you look at our refugee policy we have brought in people who generally speaking are taking a lot more from the united states taxpayer than they are contributing that was a deliberate policy show well you can do that on a charitable basis for a few thousand people but once you start doing it for millions of people the government can't handle it and that's what's happening in france and i would argue that's what happened uh in in minnesota with all the welfare scams there was just uh it was too quick too many people brought in without enough effort made and time to acclimatize them to the way we do things here uh and to get them to be contributing members of society uh and and that has led to some real issues that we're now trying to clean up is it is there one group or a couple of groups you can point to currently in france that are driving the unrest again with the concept okay fine legitimate protests at the outset the students certainly had some grievances that that needed to be dealt with um but at this stage are part of their particular organizations that are driving this train there's a good article i'm just reading in the free press today uh by somebody who breaks down all of the groups that are organizing behind the scenes um and i recommend that to if you want to know the exact names the the left-wing party la francais sumis i think has a role to play here they're playing a role um they want to win the elections but they also want to create chaos and uh destroy the state as it is so they have an incentive there was a young uh frenchman college student beaten to death about two months ago and they're going to win the elections and they're going to go by and by left-wing thugs um and one of them was connected to an actual member of parliament from lfi he was a staff aide i think and this poor young man was murdered because he was he was doing volunteer security for uh just an event at a university um they are really violent this is like germany in the 1930s you know when the communists were out there fighting the fascists um the fascists won but believe me the communists were you know equally violent would have been uh equally violent had they taken over the state and they would have been able to win the elections or germany it just would have gone in a different direction um and the left wing in france is extremely well organized and and uh dangerous i would argue at least elements of it there's also um several uh islamist groups there's a student uh muslim group that is a a chapter of the muslim brotherhood that you've probably heard of which is this organization's founded in egypt that has the ultimate aim of you know turning the whole world into the the caliphate into the umma um they they claim to be peaceful and they claim to be peaceful and they claim to be peaceful and they want to do it through people voluntarily converting uh but i think it's pretty clear that they have a track record of violence when when they think it's effective yes that's that's always the tradition voluntary voluntary joining um you know are you seeing or um have you seen any analysis of linkages between organizations in france and other parts of europe where they're also experiencing some of these similar unrest i mean i think there's coordination and contact between uh particularly the anti-semitic the the sort of pro-gaza arabic speaking network um because they share a common language and a common cause um the left-wing parties are you know somewhat organized on the european level but because of the language barrier it's just like the conservatives you know they they uh they tend to be a bit siloed uh but i will say historically uh communist socialists are much more internationally focused than conservatives conservatives tend to be nationalists we want to fix our country first and then we can be friends with other countries whereas the the communists a century ago it was their their anthem was called the international it was about setting up supreme world soviets not just one in one country um so they have that tradition um there have been reports too that they've been receiving some money some foreign funding uh to to organize some of the protests uh but there's plenty of of indigenous french um you know money and organizational capacity to do that so i think it's a it's a it's a great way to to get these protests out in the street and to cause mayhem what are the what are the islamist groups want out of this those that are taken to the streets well i guess islamists in general want to uh destroy the sort of western secular society and replace it with uh an islamic society now that's not you know obviously every muslim it's islamists the more extreme jihadists salafist whatever you want to call them uh they're not the al-qaeda um i would argue the muslim brotherhood and and groups like that um they gaza is like the obsession it's the unicause now they they want to destroy the state of israel by uh you know creating one country in the area formerly known as palestine which of course would be majority arab in about five minutes um and they oppose any country any company that does business with israel because they consider it part of that oppressor class that is oppressing the the palestinian people so that's that's the flag that they're raising now that kind of unifies the movement if it gives them one particular cause to cry about is there a sense that um i know obviously it depends on the on the election outcomes but is there a sense within france again kind of focusing on that on that country that they've made a mistake that the their immigration policies have led to problems that perhaps they could foresee but just didn't care about until they land in their lap um do you get just again i know this is a tough question to answer but i'm wondering whether people look at that because we had that sea change here in the states i think which obviously led to election results uh the last go around but i think is there a sense within france that you know we've got to change well this is the problem is yes uh but are they enough are they enough they have a low fertility rate the people who have arrived in the last uh 40 years have a much higher fertility rate it goes down over time and in the first generation it's you know much higher they have bigger families so the young people if you look at the demographics of the u.s of britain um of all the major western democracies uh i'm white people in the united states for example european origin people are still a majority but if you look at k through 12 schools i believe they are a minority so the future demography of the united states is heading in a very obvious uh direction which is non-european for good or ill and that is the same in france and in germany and in great britain so i think some people in britain for example and france have realized hang on a minute we the indigenous people of this country english irish scottish welsh in britain and france french um will be a minority in our own country within probably 30 years at the current rate and some of them don't want that future because they see that they as the minority will not be well treated because my historically get stomped on by majorities that's just the nature of of humanity so i think they have realized it but are there enough of them you still have a large group of indigenous french like john luke mellow show who's as french as they come who are uh you know communists far left socialists i don't see much of a distinction between the two and they hate western society they really hate france um and you add to those the islamist uh element of the immigrant population which is by no means all of them and they hate the islamist uh element of the immigrant population uh they can win elections so i think the worm has turned i think people are awake now to the danger but i just don't know if they have the political power just like in the united states i'm not sure that we have the political power to stop socialism uh in its tracks we certainly lost a bunch of cities we're probably going to lose a bunch of states and we may even lose congress uh and we'll just have to see where it goes yeah yeah alluding to the upcoming midterm elections um that is going to be fascinating and obviously we'll be keeping an eye on that here at the pdb but our focus is always what's outside the u.s borders and looking at things that are happening national crisis national security issues um i guess last question for for the u.s when you look at what's happening in france and i think you made a really interesting comment at the very beginning about socialists uh hard left progressives and islamists you know being interesting bedfellows currently um do you see that you see that dynamic here in the states oh of course i mean that every protest that you see where the students are out there doesn't matter what the issue is the palestinian flags come out somehow um you know you've got queers for palestine which is just an insane combination of causes because the the palestinians are not known to be particularly kind to people who are not who are of uh different sexual orientations there there is this really odd uh unicars now i mean greta thunberg is now on the on the palestine train uh having i don't think she's given up on climate change but i don't think that was paying the rent um so yeah there there is this this same um combination of woke uh you know trans ideology anti-western anti-capitalist uh and pro-palestinian anti-israeli anti-semitic it's all it seems to all be one thing now it's like you have to pick you can't pick from that menu you got to buy all of it yeah yeah it has been interesting to see and and some of the i mean mom donnie himself right the new york mayor got uh the food out of out of an event um because he wasn't viewed as as i suppose pro-palestinian enough right and if there's somebody who's been consistent in their pro-palestine views as mom donnie but the mob always turns on on its own uh simon this has been a fascinating conversation i do hope that you'll come back here on the situation report next time we'll give you a shout and i want to thank you very much for all your time it's been a pleasure thank you take care simon hankinson of the heritage foundation and uh we'll definitely have him back on uh because i do not think the unrest that we're seeing in europe is going to die down anytime soon well that's all the time we have for this week's bdb situation report and if you have any questions or comments just reach out to me at bdb at the first t v dot com we love to get your cards faxes and western union telegrams and beeper messages and every month we try to compile what we call an ask me anything episode we take some of your best questions uh most interesting comments and throw them into an episode uh that you can find uh all you have to do is be a premium member of the president's daily brief and that's very simple to do just visit pdb premium dot com i'm mike baker and until next time you know the drill stay informed stay safe stay cool