PDB Situation Report | January 4th, 2025: Terrorism Hits Home & Beijing’s Strategy for 2025
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What incidents raised concerns about terrorism on U.S. soil?
Welcome to the PDB Situation Report and welcome to a brand new year. It's 2025. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. We'll start today's show with a deadly New Year's Day, where two incidents over 1700 miles apart have shot the nation and sparked new concerns about terrorism on U.S. soil. Retired FBI Senior Agent Kurt Peipel joins us to provide insight into these attacks and the ongoing investigations. Later in the show, we'll examine Xi Jinping's New Year's message. Did you catch that? Where he laid out China's economic challenges and renewed his hardline stance on Taiwan. Author and China expert and friend of the show, Gordon Chang, will join us to break down what this means for Beijing's agenda in 2025. But first, our Situation Report Spotlight. Two major incidents shocked the nation on New Year's Day.
First, in New Orleans, where 42-year-old Shamsa Din-Jabbar drove a rented pickup truck into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street, killing at least 15 people and injuring over 30. Now, Jabbar, an Army veteran, was fatally shot by police at the scene. The FBI has revealed that the suspect had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and is investigating the attack as an act of terrorism. Just hours later, in Las Vegas, a Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside the Trump International Hotel, killing the driver, 37-year-old Matthew Livelsberger, and injuring seven bystanders. The vehicle was packed with fireworks and gas canisters, turning what initially appeared to be an accident into a deliberate act.
Investigators have since discovered that both vehicles were rented through the same peer-to-peer app, raising questions about whether these attacks were coordinated. What do these incidents tell us about the threats that we face in 2025 and how might authorities respond to those threats? Well, here to share his insight is Kurt Peipel, a recently retired FBI senior agent with 20 years of experience and, full disclosure, now working for Portman Square Group, our company that's an intelligence and security and risk mitigation firm. Kurt, thanks very much for joining us here on The Situation Report.
What insights can Kurt Peipel provide on the New Orleans attack?
Thanks, Mike. Thanks for having me.
Yeah, of course, man. Of course. And look, honestly, you didn't need to get dressed up for the Situation Report. But thank you. Thank you for making the effort. I appreciate it. So let's kind of start at the 30,000-foot level with New Orleans. We'll start with New Orleans first. Can you walk us through how does an investigation like this unfold? The attack occurs and then maybe, I mean, I don't mean for you to get too far into the weeds, but just kind of lead our audience through how this investigation unfolds.
I'm going to assume that after the attack, the scene secured, you know, police are on scene, they've made that safe. What's going to really happen, you know, the Bureau is going to probably bring in some experts, bomb techs, along with the police bomb techs, and then the evidence response teams and maybe other special agents, depending on the needs of, you know, the division at the time. But, uh, they're going to immediately start trying to identify it. I think you saw it really in both incidents, but, um, and for certainly into Orleans, they identified the attacker pretty, pretty fast. And so they're going to identify that subject as fast as they can, because they're going to want to go, um, interview co-conspiracy or determine if there's any other threats, you know, out there like co-conspirators or anything like that. Um, They're going to do interview all the witnesses. They're going to ask for video, you know, either locally or by cell phone.
That's going to be a lot of work just to go through all that. But they have identified the Royalene subject. And, you know, initially, the Bureau, the FBI and the police had said that there was other pro conspirators. Now they've come out and said he acted alone. Which is interesting. I felt like the FBI has said that they're trying to be more transparent and therefore they're releasing information as it comes, which in an investigation that can change quickly. So now they're saying, originally they said there was co-conspirators, now they're saying they're not.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What incidents raised concerns about terrorism on U.S. soil?
0:12–2:30
2
What insights can Kurt Peipel provide on the New Orleans attack?
2:30–17:58
3
What happened during the Tesla Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas?
17:58–25:40
4
How do investigations unfold after terrorist attacks?
25:40–47:35
5
What are the challenges in preventing similar attacks?
47:35–58:45
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The President's Daily Brief
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