The President's Daily Brief
April 24th, 2025: Cartels Deploy New Tactics At The Border & Abbas Torches Hamas
Thu, 24 Apr 2025
In this episode of The President’s Daily Brief: We begin at the southern border, where Trump’s immigration crackdown is pressuring Mexican cartels to shift tactics—some now targeting Americans in alarming new ways. Then, a deadly terror attack in Indian-administered Kashmir leaves dozens dead. A known militant group has claimed responsibility, and Indian forces are already responding with major force. Plus, Hamas signals willingness to release hostages under a new truce proposal—but the Palestinian Authority isn’t buying it. President Mahmoud Abbas publicly blasts the group and demands they disarm. And in today’s Back of the Brief: The Trump administration files the first-ever RICO charges against members of the violent migrant gang Tren de Aragua, signaling a new phase in the crackdown on transnational criminal organizations. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief TriTails Premium Beef: Visit https://TryBeef.com/PDB for 2 free Flat Iron steaks with your first box over $250. Plus, for a limited time enjoy 5% off on almost everything site-wide excluding subscriptions and B-stock. Birch Gold: Text PDB to 989898 and get your free info kit on gold StopBox: Get firearm security redesigned and save with BOGO the StopBox Pro AND 10% OFF @StopBoxUSA with code PDB at http://stopboxusa.com/PDB ! #stopboxpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Mike Slater and what is Politics by Faith podcast about?
My name is Mike Slater. I have a podcast called Politics by Faith. I was just talking to a friend of mine who said he hasn't been able to follow the news lately. It's been too much. It's too crazy. It's driving him crazy. And he's just checked out. If you feel that way sometimes too, I think you'll really like our podcast, Politics by Faith.
We take the main story of the day and we run it through the Bible. What does the Bible say about this? It's amazing, but it's all there. And then God tells us what to do. We don't even have to figure it out. The answers are right there. He gives us the answers. Politics by faith. Please join us over there. You can listen to it wherever you're listening to this podcast right now. Politics by faith.
Chapter 2: What is the latest update on cartel tactics at the US southern border?
It's Thursday, the 24th of April. Welcome to the President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. We'll start things off today at the border, where the Trump administration's crackdown is shaking up cartel operations. Now, smuggling networks are shifting and adjusting their targets, and Americans are getting caught in the crosshairs.
Later in the show, India reels from its deadliest terror attack in years. A militant group has claimed responsibility, and now Indian forces are hitting back hard. Plus, Hamas says it's ready to release hostages. Oh, it's ready now?
Under a new truce, as the Palestinian Authority openly criticizes the Iranian-backed group, accusing them, meaning Hamas, of prolonging the war and calling for disarmament. And in today's back of the brief, a major legal strike against a violent migrant gang operating across the U.S.
The Trump administration is using the RICO process to go after Trenda Aragua, Venezuela's violent TDA gang that's made significant inroads into America. But first, today's PDB Spotlight. We'll begin today with an update from the US southern border, where Mexico's powerful drug cartels are shifting tactics in the wake of President Trump's sweeping crackdown on their migrant smuggling operations.
According to an exclusive report from NewsNation, the drug barons of Mexico are increasingly pivoting to kidnapping civilians for ransom, including American tourists, to make up for their lost revenue streams. When America's borders were wide open, cartels were making a killing on what they called, quote, floor fees for migrants looking to enter America illegally.
Basically, migrants would pay cartels for the privilege of passing through their territory as they made their way to the U.S. Cartels also generated significant revenue from human trafficking operations, with migrants paying to be smuggled across the US-Mexico border.
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Chapter 3: How are Mexican cartels adapting their smuggling and kidnapping operations?
But those operations have been significantly undermined by the Trump administration's myriad actions to tighten security and block access routes, along with their mass deportation agenda, which has dissuaded potential migrants from making the trek.
As PDB listeners are aware, President Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border when he began his second term and deployed thousands of troops to assist border agents in curbing the flow of migrants. Migrant encounters have since dropped to a record low, plunging some 95% in March when compared to the previous year.
The rapid decline is hitting the cartels where it matters most, and that would be in their wallets. And now they're looking for new ways to mitigate their losses. As I mentioned, one tactic that is gaining popularity involves kidnapping Mexican and American civilians for ransom.
They're targeting those who they think have something to lose, like a lucrative business, or who have family members that are willing to pay a hefty fee for the release of their loved ones.
While it's difficult to say how many Mexican civilians have been impacted, we do know that two Americans were kidnapped by cartel members earlier this month outside a sports bar in the Mexican border town of Juarez.
They were held for nearly three days at a house in South Juarez before being rescued by Mexican state police in partnership with the FBI, which provided technical support to track down the suspects. The Americans were found alongside migrants from Central America and China. All had been severely beaten and tortured by the suspects in an attempt to extract ransom payments. The U.S.
State Department has since issued travel advisories warning Americans to stay away from at least six Mexican states due to the rising threat. Meanwhile, the state of Chihuahua, where the abduction took place, has been placed under what's called a reconsider travel advisory, with the State Department warning U.S. tourists and government officials to avoid traveling between cities after dark
and to only take approved transport, like registered taxis. While the danger is significant, the kidnapping for ransom business is still just a side hustle for the cartels. Their primary revenue stream remains illicit drugs, and as their migrant business dries up, they're reportedly putting a renewed focus on large-scale drug smuggling operations.
Authorities in Texas and San Diego have seen a major influx in narcotic smuggling in recent months and are warning that the efforts of the cartels are intensifying. Officials with the Texas Department of Public Safety, for example, said they recently seized more than 500 pounds of cocaine valued at nearly $7 million smuggled inside a tractor trailer at the far port of entry.
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Chapter 4: What measures are US and Mexican authorities taking to combat cartel activities?
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Welcome back to the PDB. The terror attack that left at least 26 vacationers dead in the long-disputed region of Kashmir has now been claimed by a terror group widely viewed as a front for the Pakistan-based Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, or L-E-T, further igniting hostilities between India and Pakistan, both, might I add, nuclear-armed.
As we reported on Wednesday's PDB, gunmen opened fire on a group of Indian tourists and one Nepalese national on Tuesday in Pahagram. That's a resort town nestled deep in Indian-controlled Kashmir, marking the most lethal civilian massacre in the region in years.
According to Indian officials cited by the Indian Express, the attackers, believed to consist of seven men armed with automatic rifles, staged a coordinated ambush during a 20-minute firefight in an isolated meadow. The attack wounded at least 17, and in the immediate aftermath, authorities detained over 1,500 individuals across Jammu and Kashmir as part of the investigation.
A manhunt for the terrorists is still underway. Now, the Resistance Front, or TRF, it's a shadowy outfit that Indian intelligence describes as a proxy of LET, claimed responsibility on social media. The justification given by the group claiming responsibility?
Well, accusations that New Delhi is orchestrating a forced demographic shift by settling over 85,000 so-called outsiders into the Muslim-majority region. TRF, the proxy group of LET, issued a chilling threat, warning that, quote, violence will be directed toward those attempting to settle illegally.
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Chapter 5: What was the deadliest terror attack in Kashmir and who claimed responsibility?
According to a Saudi-owned news outlet, the plan envisions a one-phase release of hostages in exchange for an agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners, echoing past exchanges that have become familiar flashpoints in this grinding war.
The draft also demands Israeli forces pull back to positions held during the short-lived January ceasefire that was negotiated with help from the U.S., Qatar, and Egypt. That agreement kept IDF troops largely stationed along Gaza's borders, including the strategic Philadelphia corridor. A total halt to Israeli military operations is also a key component of Hamas's proposal.
Hamas is further calling for the resumption of humanitarian aid flowing into the enclave, something that Israel cut off in early March in an effort to strong-arm the terror group into accepting a ceasefire.
As we've covered here on the PDB, the blockade was later justified by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, who cited intelligence reports that the Iran-backed group was selling humanitarian aid that it seized to bankroll its war chest.
Now, as part of this latest proposal, Hamas is asking for international guarantees backing a five-year ceasefire and the formation of a technocratic committee to oversee civilian governance in Gaza. It's an idea that originated in earlier Egyptian proposals.
Perhaps most politically charged, Hamas signaled the potential to reconcile with Fatah, the rival faction that dominates the Palestinian Authority, the PA. Now, the PA currently governs parts of the West Bank and has long clashed with Hamas over the future of Palestinian leadership. But despite the new diplomatic packaging, Hamas's red line remains unmoved. No disarmament.
That refusal has, of course, torpedoed past talks, and it would seem that this time is no different. According to the Times of Israel, Hamas has told Arab mediators, it's open to a long-term truce with Israel, complete with a freeze on tunnel construction and weapons production, but surrendering arms is off the table.
Despite Hamas's attempt to sow the rift with the PA in the draft, its rivalry did take center stage this week when PA President Mahmoud Abbas unloaded a fiery speech on Hamas. Abbas accused Hamas of giving Israel an excuse to prolong its ground offensive and demanded that the terror group release Israeli hostages.
In perhaps his most forceful threat since the war began 18 months ago, Abbas declared, quote, sons of dogs, just release whoever you're holding and be done with it. Shut down excuses and spare us, end quote. He didn't stop there. Abbas called for Hamas to hand over weapons and relinquish governing authority to the PA and transform itself into a political party.
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Chapter 6: How is India responding to the terror attack in Kashmir?
Chapter 7: What is Hamas's new truce proposal and how is the Palestinian Authority reacting?
Chapter 8: What is the Trump administration's new legal action against the Tren de Aragua gang?
State Department has since issued travel advisories warning Americans to stay away from at least six Mexican states due to the rising threat. Meanwhile, the state of Chihuahua, where the abduction took place, has been placed under what's called a reconsider travel advisory, with the State Department warning U.S. tourists and government officials to avoid traveling between cities after dark
and to only take approved transport, like registered taxis. While the danger is significant, the kidnapping for ransom business is still just a side hustle for the cartels. Their primary revenue stream remains illicit drugs, and as their migrant business dries up, they're reportedly putting a renewed focus on large-scale drug smuggling operations.
Authorities in Texas and San Diego have seen a major influx in narcotic smuggling in recent months and are warning that the efforts of the cartels are intensifying. Officials with the Texas Department of Public Safety, for example, said they recently seized more than 500 pounds of cocaine valued at nearly $7 million smuggled inside a tractor trailer at the far port of entry.
That followed the seizure of nearly 800 pounds of cocaine, valued north of $10 million, in a series of border-crossing busts by Texas state authorities. In San Diego, Border Patrol agents recently seized hundreds of pounds of meth, cocaine, fentanyl, and heroin, along with firearms and ammunition, in a massive multi-agency operation that led to the arrest of 20 smugglers.
One Texas state official bluntly warned, quote, as illegal border crossings decline, Mexican drug cartels are increasing drug smuggling efforts. U.S. authorities are obviously not sitting idly by. They've been expanding operations using spy planes and drones equipped with advanced radar and infrared sensors in partnership with the Mexican government to track their operations.
In late March, the Trump administration also directed two intelligence agencies to train their surveillance satellites on the U.S.-Mexico border in order to help supplement the ongoing efforts. Additionally, two Navy guided missile destroyers were recently deployed to the region to support drug interdiction efforts.
All right, coming up next, India responds with force after its deadliest terror attack in years, and Hamas floats a new hostage deal as the Palestinian Authority, the PA, publicly slams Hamas and demands disarmament. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here. Well, I'm happy to report that it's grilling season. You probably already knew that, right?
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Tritails is a fifth-generation Texas ranch where cattle are pasture-raised, grain-finished, and raised the right way. They handle the beef on-site, and they ship it straight to your door. There's no mystery or middleman. All their beef is sourced to match the genetics and care that they've built into their herd, ensuring consistent marbling, tenderness, and rich flavor in every cut.
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