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The President's Daily Brief

December 4th, 2025: Maduro Now Fears His Own Military & Hamas’ Aid Network Infiltration

04 Dec 2025

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 36.316 Mike Baker

Looking to diversify and protect your hard-earned assets? Well, schedule a free consultation with the Birch Gold Group. They're the precious metals specialists. Just text PDB to 989-898 and you'll receive a free no-obligation information kit and you'll learn how to convert an existing IRA or a 401k into a gold IRA. Again, text PDB to 989-898. It's Thursday, the 4th of December.

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36.596 - 63.636 Mike Baker

Welcome to the President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage, and by all indications, still on the road. All right, let's get briefed. First up, signs of deepening paranoia around Nicolas Maduro. New reporting shows he's relying more heavily on Cuban operatives not to stop a U.S. strike, but to guard against his own officers. We'll break down what that means.

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63.616 - 86.94 Mike Baker

Later in the show, new documents reveal how Hamas quietly embedded operatives inside UN-affiliated aid groups in Gaza, influencing relief operations from the inside. Plus, CENTCOM unveils a new one-way attack drone force in the region, part of a push to get inexpensive, fast-flowing strike drones into the hands of U.S. troops.

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87.68 - 113.576 Mike Baker

And in today's back of the brief, after more than a year of grinding combat, the Kremlin has announced that they've captured the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk. But first, today's PDB Spotlight. A few overlooked lines, tucked into a recent New York Times story, are offering a clearer look into Nicolas Maduro's inner circle and into the mindset of a man who may no longer trust those closest to him.

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114.337 - 136.713 Mike Baker

According to the report, Maduro has dramatically expanded the number of Cuban intelligence officers in his personal security detail and inside Venezuela's military. Now, these aren't advisors. They're counterintelligence specialists. Their job isn't to protect him from the U.S. Their job is to protect him from his own officers. And that tells us something important about the moment.

137.054 - 161.152 Mike Baker

Maduro is acting like a man worried as much about betrayal from within as he is invasion from abroad. Now, the Times notes that Maduro has begun rotating where he sleeps. He changes phones constantly and appears unannounced at public events. He's bringing in more Cuban bodyguards, more Cuban counterintelligence officers, and embedding them across his security structure. These moves aren't random.

161.432 - 184.208 Mike Baker

They come straight out of a regime protection playbook that Havana has mastered over the last six decades. Because if there's one thing that the Cuban regime is really good at, it's counterintelligence. The Cuban state has built an entire system designed to identify dissidents early, infiltrate potential rivals, and prevent coup attempts before they even materialize.

184.188 - 207.617 Mike Baker

It's how Havera has kept a one-party system in place since 1959. And it's why regimes around the world, from Angola to Nicaragua and later Hugo Chavez, of course, in Venezuela, quietly turned to Cuban intelligence for assistance. Today, Nicolas Maduro is doing the same. And he's doing it at a moment when U.S. pressure on his government is at its highest level in years.

208.238 - 231.217 Mike Baker

The Trump administration, of course, says Maduro runs a narco-terrorist cartel. And U.S. warships are in the region. The White House has warned airlines to avoid Venezuelan airspace. And there are credible reports that the U.S. is preparing options that range from special operations raids to precision strikes on high-value targets. Obviously, there's good reason for Maduro to worry.

Chapter 2: What signs of paranoia are emerging in Nicolás Maduro's inner circle?

245.775 - 269.432 Mike Baker

He survived purges and conspiracies involving people who once stood at his side. And he knows that many Venezuelan officers do have close ties to the U.S. or Colombia or even the opposition. Cuban intelligence officers bring something no Venezuelan can, and that would be detachment from internal politics. They don't have any loyalties to Venezuelan factions, clans, or commanders.

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269.893 - 294.402 Mike Baker

They have no stake in succession battles. Their only mission is to keep Maduro in place, because Cuba's economic survival depends on it. Venezuela has been Cuba's largest foreign partner and critical energy provider for two decades. If Maduro falls, Havana risks losing billions of dollars in subsidized fuel and hard currency deals that keep the Cuban economy from collapsing.

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294.382 - 319.778 Mike Baker

So Cuba has every incentive to keep them alive, and Maduro has every incentive to lean on them. And this symbiotic relationship, of course, complicates the overall situation. For one, the presence of Cuban personnel inside Maduro's security apparatus means that the U.S. has to factor in an extra variable if it does take action. It's another complication in an already complicated standoff.

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319.798 - 340.335 Mike Baker

But more importantly, it makes internal change far more difficult. The Venezuelan military can't easily defect or split if Cuban counterintelligence has embedded itself in the command structure. It's not just that Cuban operatives protect Maduro. It's that they keep tabs on Venezuelan officers who might be thinking about switching sides.

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340.315 - 358.26 Mike Baker

Meanwhile, Maduro is putting on a show of confidence for the public, dancing at rallies, posting TikTok videos, delivering speeches that promise peace and stability. But, of course, behind the scenes, he's behaving like a man who expects trouble from within. And that's the story that the Times reporting reveals.

358.76 - 382.922 Mike Baker

Not a strong man standing firm against outside pressure, but a leader increasingly insulated by foreign intelligence and security officers because he no longer trusts his own. All right. Coming up next, new documents reveal Hamas operatives quietly embedded inside UN-linked aid groups in Gaza. And CENTCOM rolls out a new one-way attack drone force built to give U.S.

382.942 - 398.975 Mike Baker

troops fast, inexpensive strike power. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here. Let me take just a moment to talk personal finances, right? That's important. Let me ask you a question. Do you owe $10,000 or more in credit card debt or personal loans?

399.536 - 421.11 Mike Baker

Well, with credit card debt at all time highs, debt relief advocates are now advising consumers of debt relief being made available that's designed to aid consumers with out of control credit card debt. Look, those who qualify and enroll for this relief program may only have to pay back a fraction of what they owe. This is not bankruptcy or debt consolidation loans.

421.431 - 441.888 Mike Baker

This is a relief program that credit card companies, frankly, would rather you not know about. The program could enter debt troubles and save you money. Consumers owing at least $10,000 in credit card debt or personal loans can now take advantage of this debt relief as the cost of living continues to rise. To learn what debt reduction you may qualify for, it's simple.

Chapter 3: How is Maduro relying on Cuban operatives for his security?

520.603 - 537.404 Mike Baker

The goal was to embed operatives who could be, quote, exploited for security purposes, giving the terror group direct insight into organizations that the international community wrongly assumed were insulated from Hamas influence. Now, these revelations land, of course, at a sensitive moment.

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537.424 - 554.985 Mike Baker

Washington is sketching out how postwar humanitarian assistance will function under President Trump's 20 point peace framework. That is, if the parties involved can solve the Hamas problem. Thus far, the organization refuses to disarm and abandon any governing role in the enclave.

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555.867 - 579.916 Mike Baker

What we do know of that framework draft is that UNRWA is barred from future roles, but the plan still leans heavily on UN agencies and NGOs. That's the same infrastructure that Hamas appears to have been burrowing into for years. That's why Israeli officials see a risk that some aid groups may already be compromised, providing Hamas with an informal pipeline to preserve influence in the strip.

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580.837 - 599.485 Mike Baker

Hamas built the whole scheme around what it called the, quote, guarantor system. The idea was simple. If an NGO wanted to work in Gaza, it had to bring on specific local hires, usually people that Hamas already relied on, all the way from loyalists to full-on Hamas intelligence officers.

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599.465 - 614.063 Mike Baker

Those guarantors then served as the bridge between international aid groups and Hamas ministries, giving the terror group a say in how projects ran and handled aid, while allowing Western NGOs to say that they weren't dealing with Hamas at all.

614.965 - 639.632 Mike Baker

An April 2022 intelligence report made the arrangement clear, noting that American NGOs, quote, do not engage with the Gaza government directly, but via an intermediate individual. A separate December 2022 file lists 55 guarantors embedded across 48 NGOs, at least 10 of whom the terror group itself identified as supporters or employees of Hamas-run bodies.

640.333 - 657.883 Mike Baker

The files also pull back the curtain on how Hamas used NGO projects to shield its own fighters. A June 2021 intelligence report highlights an irrigation project in a sensitive border zone, noting that the fruit trees planted there would conveniently double as cover for, quote, resistance activities.

658.664 - 667.761 Mike Baker

An implementing partner in that report was, quote, affiliated with the Hamas movement and noting that the project created tactical positions for Hamas fighters.

667.741 - 683.041 Mike Baker

The new tranche of security files also lines up with previously released Hamas communications from September, which showed the International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders operating inside medical facilities that Hamas used as command centers.

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