The President's Daily Brief
November 26th, 2025: Trump Ready for Direct Talks With Maduro & Moscow Signals 'No Deal' On Ukraine
26 Nov 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Thanksgiving is almost here. Welcome to the President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. And with apologies for the late upload this morning. A bit of technical difficulty meant a late release. All right, let's get briefed. First up, an unexpected twist in Washington's pressure campaign on Venezuela.
It looks like President Trump is now ready to talk one-on-one with Nicolas Maduro, even as the US labels him a terrorist. Later in the show, an unusual moment on the diplomatic front. Xi Jinping personally phones President Trump to talk Taiwan and Ukraine, a rare move from Beijing. Plus, the ball is now in Russia's court, and all signs point to them picking it up and going home.
Sources say Moscow is poised to reject the latest U.S.-Ukraine peace plan, meaning, of course, the fighting won't stop anytime soon. And in today's back of the brief, a Russian drone pushes further into NATO territory than any previous incident, forcing Romanian and German jets into the air yet again. But first, today's PDB Spotlight.
a major development in the standoff between Washington and Caracas. President Trump is now signaling that he's ready to speak directly with Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. That's a notable shift in tone, considering that the administration just formally designated Maduro as the head of a terrorist organization tied to drug-running networks. And behind the scenes, U.S.
officials are now openly acknowledging that while military options remain on the table, diplomacy appears to be taking the lead, at least for the moment. According to senior officials who spoke with Axios, the president has told his advisers he intends to make direct contact with Maduro. That alone is a remarkable reversal, possibly almost even surreal.
As we've been tracking here on the PDB, the White House has spent months now authorizing targeted maritime strikes against Venezuelan vessels believed to be involved in narcotics trafficking. Those operations have rattled the Venezuelan government, tightened Maduro's circle of loyalists, and sparked fresh fears of a broader confrontation in the Caribbean.
And yet, here we are, with the president now expressing willingness to talk. When asked about the possibility of the U.S. attempting to snatch or assassinate Maduro, one White House official told Axios, "...nobody is planning to go in and shoot him or snatch him at this point. I wouldn't say never, but that's not the plan right now."
That phrase, at this point, signals that Washington's pressure campaign is still very real, of course, and very active, or at least they want to give that impression, but that the White House also believes diplomacy may now offer something that military strikes can't, and that would be leverage. And that leverage brings us to a critical question. What exactly does Maduro have to offer the U.S.
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Chapter 2: Why is Trump ready for direct talks with Maduro?
The Venezuelan economy is collapsing under the weight of corruption, mismanagement, and sanctions. Maduro's government does desperately need cash, foreign investment, and some measure of legitimacy. Meanwhile, the U.S. isn't exactly hurting for oil, but access to specific grades of heavy crude would be strategically useful. So what should we watch for next? Good question.
First, whether the White House clarifies what form this potential contact with Maduro would take. That's something to watch for. A phone call is one thing. A meeting is another. U.S. officials are very carefully choosing their words, suggesting that a conversation is on the table without committing to anything more formal.
Second, whether Maduro publicly signals a willingness to make concessions, particularly around oil exports, production targets, or the role of American energy companies in Venezuela. If he does, that's a sign the regime is preparing for a real negotiation rather than a symbolic exchange. And finally, whether the U.S. shows or recalibrates its maritime operations in the Caribbean.
If those strikes continue at the same intensity, that tells us Washington believes pressure remains the most effective tactic.
Chapter 3: What did Xi Jinping discuss with Trump during their rare call?
If the tempo slows, well, it may signal that diplomatic groundwork is being laid quietly behind the scenes. All right. Coming up after the break, Xi Jinping personally phones President Trump in a rare diplomatic move, and Russia looks ready to reject the latest U.S.-Ukraine peace plan. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here, PDB host and well-known snack expert. Now, let me ask you a question.
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Chapter 4: How is Russia reacting to the latest U.S.-Ukraine cease-fire proposal?
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Chapter 5: What implications does the Russian drone incursion into NATO airspace have?
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For the first time in years, Beijing was the one picking up the phone and calling the White House. Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly started his call with President Trump by talking Taiwan, as Japan's new hard line on the islands of autonomy sent regional tensions rising. But sources close to the conversation say Trump wanted the conversation to be focused on Ukraine.
Now, it's rare for those two issues to collide in a single conversation, and even rarer for Beijing to take the initiative to reach out at this level, which is why the call, of course, immediately drew Washington's notice.
Privately, sources say the call did begin on the topic of Taiwan, at Xi's insistence, before shifting toward Ukraine once Trump redirected the discussion, a sequence that Beijing worked aggressively to spin once the call became public. According to those familiar with the exchange, Xi didn't waste time getting to his point.
He went straight into the familiar historical argument about Taiwan, referencing post-war agreements, the U.S. and China's World War II partnership, and the idea that both countries should protect the so-called, quote, gains of that era. A citation from China state media reports that Xi told Trump, quote, Taiwan's return to China is an important component of the post-war international order. Hmm.
But given the fact that Japan is now openly warning that it would join any fight over the Democratic island, Xi's message came across less like a reminder and more like a warning. And that set the tone for the rest of the call, though the two sides framed the talk very differently afterward. Chinese state media said Trump acknowledged, quote, the importance of the Taiwan issue to China.
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Chapter 6: What are the potential offers Maduro could make to the U.S.?
Romania's Defense Ministry says two Russian-made drones crossed directly into NATO territory early Tuesday morning, triggering immediate air defense alerts and prompting NATO to place forces stationed in neighboring Poland and Bulgaria on high alert.
The breach happened near Romania's Danube border with southern Ukraine, the same region where debris and errant drones have landed repeatedly since the war began. But this time, Bucharest says the UAVs didn't just slip the frontier, one penetrated deeper into Romanian airspace than ever before.
Two Eurofighters from a German air policing mission in Romania were initially scrambled to track the first drone, which flew over a county near Ukraine's southern border before crossing back into Ukrainian airspace. Romanian officials later deployed two F-16 fighter jets and activated ground-based air defenses after the army detected a second airspace breach near the border county of Galati.
Romania's defense minister said the fighter jets nearly shot down the drone but held off over concerns about falling debris causing damage to civilian areas. Radar contact was eventually lost, but a Russian drone without an explosive device was later found more than 150 miles from the Ukrainian border, making it the deepest verified intrusion into NATO airspace since the war began.
Leaders in Bucharest condemned the incursions, which marked the 13th breach of Romanian airspace since the war began, calling it another major Russian provocation. The incident comes less than a week after a Russian drone flew roughly five miles inside Romania before radar contact was lost, also during a major bombardment of Ukraine by Moscow.
Meanwhile, Moldova's defense ministry said they also suffered an airspace breach on Tuesday morning, with six Russian drones detected crossing into their territory. One of the drones, sporting a spray-painted Z symbol, frequently used by the Russian military, fell on a guards building in a border area near Ukraine, but did not explode.
Now, while NATO has dealt with the pattern of spillover since 2022, the increasing frequency of these incidents is forcing NATO to reassess the Kremlin's broader intentions and has heightened fears that the war could soon spill into the alliance's eastern territories.
The incursions appear geared towards testing the response times of NATO aircraft and overall capabilities of Western air defenses, while leaving enough strategic ambiguity to avoid triggering retaliation. These latest drone incursions came as Russian forces pounded Kyiv and other regions with another massive missile and drone attack.
A total of 22 missiles and 464 drones were fired during the bombardment on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, killing seven people and wounding 21 in Kyiv while knocking out electricity and heating systems across the capital. While this shouldn't come as a surprise, the latest aerial attack coincides with the renewed push by the Trump administration to broker a peace deal to end the war.
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