October 25th, 2024: Israel Delays Strike Against Iran, North Korean Troops “Fair Game”, & U.S. Voting System Attack
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It's Friday, 25 October. Welcome to the President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. Okay.

Let's get briefed. Coming up on today's show, fallout from the Pentagon's classified document leak as Israel delays its retaliation against Iran after sensitive details of the operation were allegedly exposed. Now, has anybody asked the White House lately what they're specifically doing to determine the cause of the leak? Just a question.

Later in the program, the U.S. government is warning that North Korean troops will be, quote, fair game as South Korean intelligence reports that Pyongyang is dispatching 12,000 troops to Ukraine. Plus, we're getting reports on another attack on America's voting system. Georgia's secretary of state confirms a cyber attack targeting the absentee voting website, which aimed to crash it.

And in today's back of the brief, we've got a, well, let's call it bizarre human interest story from Russia. Is it a human interest story? I'm not really sure. But we'll tell you how a man who became famous for looking like U.S. actor Leo DiCaprio found himself on the front lines in Ukraine because of his expanding waistline. I did use the word bizarre, didn't I? But first, today's PDB Spotlight.

I want to examine the fallout from last weekend's leak of classified intelligence detailing Israel's plans to retaliate against Iran over their ballistic missile attack in early October.

While their operations were said to be finalized last week and the attack was thought to be imminent, an exclusive report from the UK's Times newspaper on Thursday reveals that Israel has been forced to delay their response and rethink their potential strategy due to the damaging leak, the source of which US officials apparently are still investigating.

Citing an unnamed intelligence source familiar with Israel's military deliberations, the Times report said that even though the leak did not list potential targets inside Iran that Israel planned to strike, they fear Iran could use the documents to predict certain patterns of attack.

As we discussed earlier this week, the documents detailed some of Israel's military preparations, including the movements of munitions and Israeli Air Force exercises involving air-to-surface missiles. The documents also suggested that strikes on Tehran's military and oil interests could remain on the table.

Israeli officials have now reportedly settled on an alternative attack plan with different target packages, but need time to wargame the scenario before they feel confident in proceeding. The source told the Times, "...the leak of the American documents delayed the attack due to the need to change certain strategies and components. There will be a retaliation, but it has taken longer than it was supposed to take."

As a reminder, the documents first appeared online last Friday via a Tehran-based Telegram channel, sparking speculation, of course, about Iran's involvement. As of Thursday, the White House is still no closer to determining how the disturbing security breach occurred. The FBI is leading the investigation,

And despite speculations to the contrary, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has claimed there is no indication that any employees of the Office of the Secretary of Defense are being investigated over the incident. That's according to the Times of Israel. Well, look, I've said it before. I'll say it again because I do like to beat a dead horse. This isn't complicated.

If it's not a hack or cyber breach, then it's an insider threat, an individual with access. So, determine who had access to the leaked documents, and that can be done. Create a list of all those individuals, and then immediately polygraph each one, and do a forensic audit of their work and personal devices. It's labor-intensive, but it's not rocket science. If the White House is serious about actually finding the perpetrator, well, they could do it.

But given the past three and a half years of appeasement and soft approach from the administration towards the Iranian regime,

The problem is, well, they may not be completely motivated to resolve this problem, meaning to find the perpetrator, particularly if it points to one of their own. Now, it appears the Biden administration is still apprehensive about Israel's potential response and is attempting to pressure leaders in Jerusalem to curtail their revised attack plans. During a visit to Israel on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned leaders not to escalate their conflict with Tehran

fearing that it could spark a regional war between the two adversaries. Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv, "...it's been an imperative for us to try to make sure that this conflict doesn't spread. We stand with Israel and will always stand with Israel and its defense. It's also very important," he said, "...that Israel respond in ways that do not create greater escalation and do not risk spreading the conflict." End quote. Hmm.

As a reminder, the White House has been intensely lobbying against Israeli strikes that would target Iran's nuclear program or their oil facilities. When it comes to Iran's energy infrastructure specifically, well, there are concerns that an attack could cause oil prices to surge globally. Ooh, and nobody wants that before an election.

But Israel has said while they respect the concerns of the White House, they will proceed based on what's in their best national interests. In fact, Israeli leaders have suggested that the scope of the response could be widened due to last weekend's drone attack on Prime Minister Netanyahu's residence in Caesarea by Iranian proxy Hezbollah, which caused extensive damage.

A defiant Netanyahu blamed Iran for the attack, saying, quote, the agents of Iran who tried to assassinate me and my wife today made a bitter mistake, end quote.

Now, despite the delay, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Golent, speaking to troops at an air base on Wednesday, promised that any enemy that tries to harm the state of Israel will pay a heavy price. He told the troops, quote, After we strike in Iran, everyone will understand what you did in the preparation and training process. Everyone who dreamed a year ago of beating us and attacking us paid a heavy price and are no longer in that dream, end quote. All right.

Coming up next, the U.S. government warns that North Korean troops will be, quote, a fair game as Pyongyang plans to send upwards of 12,000 troops to Ukraine. And in the U.S., Georgia's secretary of state confirms a cyber attack targeting the absentee voting website. I'll have those stories when we come back.

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Welcome back to the PDB. Turning now to Ukraine and a topic that we've been highlighting here on the PDB for a couple of weeks. Reports have now emerged that North Korea is deploying upwards of 12,000 troops. Initial estimates were only up to around 10,000 at most to fight alongside Russia on the front lines. That's a move that the U.S. and its allies are calling a major provocation. Well, they're not wrong. Over the course of the past few months,

South Korea's National Intelligence Service has revealed that since August 2023, North Korea has been quietly bolstering Russia's war effort with more than 13,000 containers of military equipment supplying munitions and artillery. But now, well, now it's sending troops. According to U.S. and South Korean officials, 3,000 North Korean soldiers have arrived in eastern Russia with 9,000

more expected, including special forces, military engineers, and artillery troops. On Wednesday, U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed these soldiers are, quote, fair game on the battlefield and could suffer casualties alongside their Russian colleagues. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin echoed this sentiment, calling the deployment a, quote, very, very serious issue. Well, there's an understatement.

emphasizing that North Korean troops would be treated the same as Russian forces by Ukrainian defenders. South Korean Defense Minister Kim Jong-un added to the urgency, revealing that North Korean soldiers are being disguised as Russians acting under the Kremlin's command in a bid to obscure their presence. The defense minister blasted North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for "selling North Korean soldiers as cannon fodder mercenaries."

The Kremlin dismissed the North Korean troops' reporting as, quote, fake and hype, yet refrained from issuing a direct denial, of course deepening suspicions. North Korean state media has also remained silent, and intelligence reports indicate that the regime may be sequestering the families of deployed soldiers to prevent any backlash at home.

Meanwhile, concerns are mounting in Seoul that this deployment could provide untested North Korean troops with valuable combat experience, which may strengthen their military back home on the Korean Peninsula and have long-term ramifications for regional security.

On Thursday, the South Korean president hinted at a potential policy shift, signaling that Seoul may begin supplying offensive weapons to Ukraine, stating, quote, We will not sit idle in the face of this major North Korean provocation, noting that South Korea's longstanding policy against providing lethal aid could be reconsidered.

The global response is beginning to take shape. China, which has developed increasingly close ties with both Russia and North Korea, is calling for a peaceful settlement to the war. Beijing has opposed unilateral sanctions and expressed concerns about escalating tensions. You can always count on the Chinese regime under Xi Jinping to talk out of both sides of their mouth.

claiming they're neutral and just want peace, we just want peace, while providing economic and military support to Putin that, in large part, has kept his war machine operating.

When asked about Pyongyang's deployment of troops, Chinese officials claimed that they were, quote, not aware of the situation. We had no idea. Yes, entirely believable that Kim Jong-un would just send thousands of troops to Russia, a country, by the way, that has a no-limits partnership with China, and somehow Xi Jinping would know nothing about it. Next up, they'll tell us they have no idea how the coronavirus pandemic started.

Anyway, despite these supposed calls for diplomacy from the Russian regime, Chinese companies have been accused of helping Russia with weapons technology, further complicating China's role in the ongoing war. Last week, the U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions on two Chinese companies for collaborating with Russia on the development of drones that are used in Ukraine.

For Ukraine, the involvement of North Korean troops provides an opportunity to reinforce its appeals for more Western military aid. By drawing attention to North Korea's role in the conflict, Ukrainian President Zelensky has strengthened his case for additional support from the international community.

All right, shifting to the U.S. A major cyber attack targeting election infrastructure in the state of Georgia was thwarted earlier this month, preventing an attempt to crash the state's absentee voting website. And that's according to the Secretary of State's office. The attack, detected on 14 October, involved over 420,000 access attempts from global IP addresses in a coordinated effort to overwhelm the system.

Despite the massive assault, cybersecurity experts working in partnership with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, hmm, do you think that agency has an acronym? Of course it does. CISA, C-I-S-A. Experts working with CISA were able to swiftly neutralize the threat, reporting that the website slowed for just a short period of time.

Gabrielle Sterling, chief operating officer for the Secretary of State's office, praised the rapid response in a social media post, stating, quote, This was a big win for our cybersecurity team and our partners, adding, quote, We work every day to protect Georgia voters and our systems. The attack was detected and mitigated quickly, end quote.

It's important to note that although the identity of the attackers remains unknown, Sterling suggested that the attack bore the hallmarks of a foreign entity acting on behalf of a nation-state. Both CISA and the FBI are actively investigating the breach, but U.S. officials have not yet confirmed any foreign involvement.

Election security has become, obviously, an increasingly urgent issue, particularly in swing states like Georgia, which has ramped up its defenses against foreign interference. A Wednesday report from the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center emphasized ongoing cyber efforts by adversaries, including Russia, Iran, and China, to undermine the democratic process in the U.S.,

Despite the cyberattack, Georgia voters turned out in record numbers on the first day of early voting, which began on 15 October, which was just one day after the thwarted attack. That first day saw over 310,000 ballots cast, and that's more than doubling the early voting numbers from the first day of the 2020 election. Alright,

Up next in the back of the brief, I'll bring you the strange story of Fat Leo, the Russian Leo DiCaprio lookalike who ate his way to the front lines in Ukraine. I'll have the details after the break.

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Alright, every now and then, here at the PDB, we do decide to let one of our crack interns choose the story for our Back of the Brief segment. And then, we usually regret that decision. This would be one of those times.

This story comes courtesy of the New York Post, and it takes us to Russia, where a man famous for his uncanny likeness to American actor Leo DiCaprio is now being unceremoniously thrown to the front lines of the war in Ukraine after, well, gaining too much weight to pass as his celebrity doppelganger.

Roman Bertsev, a Russian computer programmer dubbed Fat Leo, that's a great nickname, isn't it? Rapidly rose to fame across Russia back in 2016 after posting his picture on a dating website where users were struck by his uncanny resemblance to the Hollywood A-lister Leo DiCaprio. Much to his surprise, users quickly became enamored by Bertsev's appearance, calling him the, quote, Russian fat version of Leo DiCaprio.

Then 33 years old at the time, he parlayed his likeness to Leo into lucrative modeling gigs. Of course he did, despite being a bit heavier than his American lookalike. In one famous imitation, he ventured into the snowy Russian wilderness to recreate scenes from DiCaprio's Oscar-winning performance in The Revenant. Look, you're not going to get this sort of news from any other podcast, let's face it. For a time, Fat Leo was in hot demand. Of course he would be.

and earned a good living leveraging his celebrity resemblance, eventually ditching his programming job to impersonate DiCaprio full-time. But then, hmm, the COVID-19 pandemic struck, causing his career to sink faster than the Titanic. And I apologize for that last line. As his waistline expanded, Fat Leo found himself living in isolation,

The modeling gigs quickly dried up. Broke, he was reportedly forced to move in with his parents, where he apparently packed on even more weight. According to the New York Post, after falling out of favor with the Russian public due to the weight gain, well, that seems rather fattest, and facing no job prospects, he was drafted to fight in Ukraine. But instead of attempting to dodge conscription and engage in a game of catch me if you can, I did it again, with Russian authorities,

Fat Leo, apparently, is taking his fate in stride. Now 41 years old, he was reportedly eager to accept the roughly $21,000 bonus that conscripts receive upon completing their training, along with a monthly stipend equivalent to roughly $2,100. It's unclear exactly where Fat Leo is serving, but photographs show him dressed in fatigues and holding a rifle somewhere on the front lines of the war.

And that, my friends, is the President's Daily Brief for Friday, 25 October. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at pdbatthefirsttv.com. And to listen to the show ad-free, well, become a premium member of the President's Daily Brief simply by visiting pdbpremium.com. And, of course, well, today is Friday, but you knew that already. And, well, we've made it to Friday.

And as you may recall, every Friday evening at 10 p.m. on The First TV, we delight the viewing audience with a new episode of our extended weekend show, The PDB Situation Report. This week's most excellent guests include former CIA officer and co-host of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show, the esteemed Buck Sexton, along with China expert and author Gordon Chang. Now, we cover a lot of ground on this week's show, so tune in. It's informative,

It's educational and has just a touch of whimsy. It's also on our YouTube channel. Check that out. It's at President's Daily Brief. And of course, as also on the podcast platforms, wherever you get your podcast stuff. I'm Mike Baker. I'll be back later today with the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool.