The President's Daily Brief
PDB Afternoon Bulletin | November 21st, 2025: Secret US Wargame Models Maduro’s Collapse & Trump Threatens Ukraine With Thanksgiving Peace Deadline
21 Nov 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, Washington's pressure campaign on Venezuela comes with a previous warning label. A New York Times report reveals that U.S. officials once ran a secret war game on what would happen if Nicolas Maduro fell. And the outcome wasn't pretty.
To be fair, regime change is almost never pretty. Let's see, there's Libya, Iraq, Chile, Nicaragua. Um, South Vietnam? Yeah, definitely South Vietnam. Iran? Guatemala? Yeah, we've got some practical case studies that we could learn from. Now, it's not always apples to apples, to be fair, but, well, there are lessons to be had.
Later in the show, President Trump is ratcheting up the pressure on Ukraine to accept his new 28-point peace plan for ending the war, giving Kyiv until Thanksgiving to agree. We'll break down the framework, Europe's reaction, and the impossible decision that Zelensky now faces.
The White House is, to put it simply, suggesting that Ukraine make all the concessions and essentially capitulate to Putin, just so we can say we've got a peace deal? Hmm. Everybody, well, except for Putin, everybody wants peace and stability, of course. But that doesn't mean that you have to give in to Putin's demands, which haven't changed since he started this invasion.
But first, today's afternoon spotlight. We've been watching the rising tensions, of course, between Washington and Caracas and the steady U.S. military buildup in the region. But it all raises a basic question, of course. What would actually happen if the U.S. toppled Nicolas Maduro?
Well, there's a detail tucked into a recent New York Times piece that deserves a lot more attention than it's getting because it actually seems to answer that question. During President Trump's first term, U.S. officials quietly ran a war game exploring what might happen if Maduro were pushed out of power in Venezuela. And the result wasn't some triumphant march toward democracy.
It was chaos, prolonged, grinding, unpredictable chaos. According to people familiar with the exercise, analysts walked through different scenarios, a military coup, a popular uprising, a negotiated exit, and every path appeared to lead to the same messy destination. The collapse of the Maduro regime didn't produce a clean handoff to opposition leaders or technocrats waiting in the wings.
Instead, the country splintered. Cartels rushed to carve out territory. Colombian guerrilla groups moved in. Parts of the Venezuelan military broke off and started answering to whatever local boss could pay them.
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Chapter 2: What warning label accompanies Washington's pressure campaign on Venezuela?
The oil fields, the heart of Venezuela's economy, became contested ground, and the central government, such as it was in this war game, couldn't stitch anything back together. It's worth pausing there because that's not the picture that US politicians usually paint when they talk about Venezuela.
The public script so far focuses on restoring democracy, helping the Venezuelan people, or ending narco-terrorism. But this particular war game tells us something else. Even if Maduro falls, the US may not like what comes next. This is where the present moment becomes even more interesting. The U.S. is applying the most aggressive pressure on Venezuela in years.
Military deployments in the Caribbean, talk of designating Maduro's circle as a terrorist organization, new intelligence leaks about cartel ties, and diplomatic messages that sound a lot like ultimatums. Meanwhile, Maduro's government is warning that he'll employ his militias with their calling people's armies, asymmetric warfare, the language of a regime that is preparing for a siege.
And in the middle of all that, well, the Times reminds us we've already gamed out what happens if the whole thing collapses. What the war game suggests is that Washington shouldn't assume a post-Maduro Venezuela looks anything like a stable state. It may look more like a vacuum, one that criminal groups and foreign actors and local warlords would be rushing to fill.
That's another point that the Times hints at. The war game wasn't just about internal Venezuelan dynamics. It included Russia, China, Iran, players with interests in Caracas who wouldn't sit quietly by if the U.S. reshaped the map. Moscow has, of course, sold weapons to the regime and values the relationship with the country in America's backyard.
Tehran has backed Maduro's intelligence services. And Beijing, well, they've got billions tied up in loans and infrastructure. The message from the old war game was simple. If Venezuela collapses, you don't just get Venezuela. You get a host of other interested players.
All of this lands at a moment when the Trump administration is weighing options that could push the crisis toward a breaking point. And it raises a pretty important question. Is the U.S. actually prepared for the fallout that it's already predicted?
So, when you hear big statements about tough action or promises that a new government in Caracas would immediately stabilize, keep that war game in the back of your mind. The people who ran it weren't guessing. They were using the best intelligence available at the time, and this was President Trump's first term, and what they saw wasn't a victory parade.
All right, coming up next, we'll take you inside President Trump's 28-point peace plan to end the war in Ukraine and the White House's aggressive diplomatic push to get Kiev on board by Thanksgiving. Oh, look, Turkey's done. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here with big news from our friends over at DeBirch Gold Group.
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Chapter 3: What were the findings of the U.S. war game regarding Maduro's potential fall?
and Ukraine, Europe, and Russia would then enter into a, quote, non-aggression agreement. As part of this proposal, Trump also wants NATO to agree to not expand their boundaries any further or station troops in Ukraine.
Finally, Reuters reports that sanctions would be slowly lifted off of Russia in a phased approach, and Russia would be invited to rejoin the G8 and be reintegrated into the global economy, and the US would then enter into a sweeping economic agreement with Moscow And Putin would get a pony. Hmm. Now, you'd think Moscow would be fawning over the agreement, and they probably are, privately.
But so far, publicly, the Kremlin is taking a cautious approach. A Kremlin spokesman said they have not received any framework and no substantive discussions have been had, despite reports that Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev played a role in crafting the plan, or I bet he did, with U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.
Still, the Kremlin taunted Kiev, encouraging Zelensky to negotiate before it's too late. And Putin later suggested that he favors the framework. Of course he does. It basically matches his longstanding demands. To state the obvious, Europe is in a state of alarm over the proposal and the speed at which the White House is pushing it.
They fear the concessions will embolden Russia, fracture the Ukrainian government, and leave them holding the security burden for a weakened Ukraine. All while Putin gets to claim victory. Because, well, yeah, it would be a victory. And that, my friends, is the BDB Afternoon Bulletin for Friday, the 21st of November.
Now, if you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at bdbatthefirsttv.com. And of course, to listen to the show ad-free, just become a premium member of the President's Daily Brief by visiting pdppremium.com. And don't forget, it's Friday. Of course, you knew that.
Which means another episode of our extended weekend show, the PDB Situation Report, hits the airwaves this evening at 10 p.m. on The First TV. Excellent guests, insightful conversations. Really, the only thing missing would be a house band and, I suppose, a jolly sidekick announcer. You can also catch it on our YouTube channel.
That's at President's Daily Brief and wherever you get your podcast stuff. I'm Mike Baker, and I'll be back over the weekend with the PDB Situation Report. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool.
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