May 22nd, 2026: Iran’s Economy Is Breaking Under A Massive Internet Blackout & Russia Threatens Latvia
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It's Friday, the 22nd of May. 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. First up, Iran's massive Internet blackout is further crippling the country's economy. We'll explain how the regime's digital crackdown is threatening millions of jobs and pushing Iran even deeper into crisis. Later in the show, Russia warns Latvia that it could face retaliation over allegedly hosting Ukrainian drone operations. Latvia says the claims are complete fiction. Plus, the U.S. and U.K. are easing oil sanctions on Russia, citing surging fuel costs tied to the Iran conflict. Somewhere off in the distance, Vladimir Putin is chuckling while stroking his hairless cat.
I never get tired of that visual. And in today's Back of the Brief, a U.S.-bound flight is forced to divert after officials discover a passenger from an Ebola-hit region on board. Because, of course, that's what the world needs right now, a new pandemic. But first, today's PDB Spotlight. The Islamic Republic is now in the middle of what digital watchdog groups say may be the longest and most severe internet blackout in modern history. A shutdown so extensive that is beginning to cripple not just communication inside Iran, but the basic functioning of the country's economy. In Iran, as with just about every other country, the Internet is something like the nervous system of the state. It carries data, commerce, communication, logistics, banking, news, and human connection across an entire country in real time.
And in Iran right now, that nervous system is being deliberately strangled by the regime. According to the digital monitoring organization NetBlocks, Internet connectivity inside Iran has hovered between just 1 and 2 percent of normal capacity for weeks. Before the unrest began, the country typically operated at around 90 to 100 percent connectivity. The blackout first intensified earlier this year after anti-government protests erupted across the country in January. Thousands, by some estimates tens of thousands, of demonstrators were reportedly killed in the government crackdown that followed. Iranian authorities then moved to heavily restrict internet access in an attempt, of course, to suppress communications and keep images and information from spreading both domestically and internationally.
But after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran on February 28th, the restrictions tightened significantly, and they've largely remained in place ever since. For a modern economy, loss of access to the Internet, whether through government shutdown or infrastructure breakdown or cyber attack, well, it can quickly become catastrophic.
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