Podcasts about PDB

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: First up — Day Three of Operation Epic Fury, and the cost of war for the United States has risen. We bring you the latest from the battlefield as American casualties climb and examine why, even as the fighting intensifies, Tehran appears increasingly isolated diplomatically on the world stage. Later in the show — Israel opens another front, launching strikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon after the terror group fires missiles across the border. We break down what this expansion means for regional stability and the risk of a broader conflict. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Ethos Life Insurance: Protect your family's future with fast, online life insurance from Ethos—get your free quote in minutes at https://Ethos.com/PDB  American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, http://nmlsconsumeraccess.org -. APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB DeleteMe: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/PDB and use promocode PDB at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: First up — just days into Operation Epic Fury, Israel says it now controls Iran's airspace and is operating directly over Tehran after dismantling key air defense systems and missile infrastructure. We break down what aerial supremacy means strategically — and why Iran, though wounded, remains dangerous. Later in the show — the world reacts. From the United Nations to Brussels, from Moscow to Beijing, global leaders weigh in as the conflict reshapes diplomatic alignments and raises fears of broader escalation. Plus — while the war rages abroad, the FBI shifts into a heightened defensive posture at home. Director Kash Patel orders counterterrorism teams onto high alert as intelligence officials monitor for potential asymmetric blowback inside the United States. And in today's Back of the Brief — a mass shooting in Austin leaves three dead and more than a dozen injured. We bring you the latest details as authorities investigate the motive and whether terrorism may be a factor. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com . Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Ethos Life Insurance: Protect your family's future with fast, online life insurance from Ethos—get your free quote in minutes at https://Ethos.com/PDB  American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, http://nmlsconsumeraccess.org -. APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB DeleteMe: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/PDB and use promocode PDB at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this Special Edition of the PDB, Mike Baker gives an update on the conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran — as a top Iranian official confirms that the regime has lost control of much of their military. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting ⁠https://PDBPremium.com⁠. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this Special Edition of the PDB, Mike Baker breaks down the latest developments in the newly escalated conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran — from the initial joint strikes and their strategic timing to battlefield reports, regional blowback, and what it all means for global security. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Situation Report: Western intelligence officials are warning that Iran could activate proxy networks across Europe if the United States moves forward with military strikes against Tehran. From sleeper cells to Hezbollah-linked operatives, the threat landscape could shift quickly beyond the Middle East. Former head of MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove joins us to break down what Europe may be facing — and how serious this warning really is. In a historic first, U.S. combat aircraft are now operating from Israeli soil as Washington prepares for the possibility of strikes on Iran. The deployment marks a dramatic expansion of military coordination between the two allies. Defense analyst Ryan McBeth joins us to assess what aircraft are in play, what missions they could be tasked with, and how Tehran may respond. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Cardiff: Get fast business funding without bank delays—apply in minutes with Cardiff and access up to $500,000 in same‑day funding at https://Cardiff.co/PDB  American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.org APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB  DeleteMe: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/PDB and use promocode PDB at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin:  First—The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem is urging staff to leave Israel immediately if they wish to do so, a significant move that signals Washington is urgently bracing for potential escalation with Iran as diplomacy falters. Later in the show—Pakistan is now declaring “open war” after launching air and ground strikes across Afghanistan, hitting Taliban military targets in Kabul and Kandahar. The escalation follows retaliatory drone attacks by the Taliban along the border, with competing claims of heavy casualties. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief DeleteMe: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/PDB and use promo code PDB at checkout. Ava: See how millions are boosting their credit with Ava—download the Ava app and use code BAKER for 20% off your first year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: For the first time ever, American F-22 stealth fighters are deployed to Israel, marking a dramatic shift in U.S.–Israel military coordination as pressure builds on Iran during high-stakes nuclear negotiations. The Treasury Department authorizes licensed companies to resell Venezuelan oil to Cuba's private sector, signaling a subtle but meaningful recalibration of U.S. policy toward Havana. President Trump announces he is directing the release of long-classified government UFO records, promising new transparency on decades of unexplained aerial sightings. New research reveals leading artificial intelligence models escalated to nuclear weapons use in the vast majority of simulated war scenarios, raising serious questions about AI's role in future military decision-making. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief.  YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief DeleteMe: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/PDB and use promocode PDB at checkout. Ava: See how millions are boosting their credit with Ava—download the Ava app and use code BAKER for 20% off your first year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: First up — a high stakes shootout on the high seas leaves four dead after Cuban forces open fire on a U.S.-registered speedboat. Havana claims it foiled an armed terrorist infiltration, but with nearly all the details coming from the Cuban government, serious questions remain. Later in the show — Russia's asymmetric warfare campaign against Europe appears to be expanding underground. New reports allege secret tunnels are being used to funnel migrants into European territory, with specialists from the Middle East reportedly recruited to construct the routes. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.org APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB  Ultra Pouches: Don't sleep on @ultrapouches. New customers get 15% Off with code PDB at https://takeultra.com! #UltraPouches #ad Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: First up — new reporting reveals how a five-minute phone call between President Trump and Nicolás Maduro may have sealed the Venezuelan strongman's fate, as misread intentions helped turn diplomacy into military action and, ultimately, a prison cell. Later in the show — amid mounting pressure on Tehran, the CIA launches a rare recruitment push aimed directly at Iranians. Plus — the United Kingdom slaps sanctions on nearly 300 Russian-linked entities after an email blunder exposed a network of illicit oil traders tied to Moscow's energy and military sectors. And in today's Back of the Brief — Russia accuses Ukraine of seeking to acquire a nuclear weapon with help from the UK and France, a claim Kyiv and Western officials dismiss as baseless disinformation.  To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.org APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB  Ultra Pouches: Don't sleep on @ultrapouches. New customers get 15% Off with code PDB at https://takeultra.com! #UltraPouches #ad Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: Protests erupt across Iran for the fifth straight day as university campuses turn into flashpoints between anti-regime students and pro-government militias. Unlike January's market-driven unrest, this new wave appears ideological — directly challenging the legitimacy of the regime. The Kremlin may be preparing its biggest digital crackdown yet. Russian security services are floating terrorism allegations against the founder of Telegram, raising the prospect that Moscow could shut down one of the last independent information platforms inside the country. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief DeleteMe: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/PDB and use promocode PDB at checkout. Ultra Pouches: Don't sleep on @ultrapouches. New customers get 15% Off with code PDB at https://takeultra.com! #UltraPouches Cardiff: Get fast business funding without bank delays—apply in minutes with Cardiff and access up to $500,000 in same‑day funding at https://Cardiff.co/PDB  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: Iran Nears Deal For Supersonic “Ship-Killer” Missile — Tehran is reportedly closing in on an agreement with China to acquire a supersonic anti-ship cruise missile capable of threatening even advanced U.S. naval vessels operating in the Persian Gulf. We break down what the CM-302 can do and how it could change the strategic calculus at sea. Xi's Military Purge May Be Hurting China's Readiness — A new defense study suggests that Xi Jinping's sweeping anti-corruption purge inside the People's Liberation Army is creating command gaps and potentially undermining the very force he has spent years modernizing. Russian Troops Allege Executions Inside Their Own Ranks — A BBC documentary reveals disturbing claims from Russian soldiers who say senior officers ordered brutal punishments — including executions — for troops refusing near-suicidal assault missions in Ukraine. Back of the Brief: Mexico Travel Concerns After El Mencho's Death — With cartel violence flaring following the killing of CJNG boss El Mencho, we take a closer look at travel advisories and what the latest unrest could mean for thousands of Americans planning Spring Break trips to Mexico. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief DeleteMe: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/PDB and use promocode PDB at checkout. Ultra Pouches: Don't sleep on @ultrapouches. New customers get 15% Off with code PDB at https://takeultra.com! #UltraPouches #ad Cardiff: Get fast business funding without bank delays—apply in minutes with Cardiff and access up to $500,000 in same‑day funding at https://Cardiff.co/PDB Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: First up — Mexico's most wanted cartel boss is dead, triggering fears of violent retaliation as burning vehicles, armed gunmen, and road blockades spread across multiple regions. Authorities brace for cartel infighting and a potential power vacuum that could destabilize key cities. I'll have the latest details. Later in the show — Venezuela passes a new amnesty law aimed at freeing political prisoners. But human rights advocates warn the legislation contains sweeping exemptions and loopholes that could leave many detainees behind bars while giving the regime broad discretion over who qualifies for release. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Stash Financial: Don't Let your money sit around. Go to https://get.stash.com/PDB to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures. Ava: See how millions are boosting their credit with Ava—download the Ava app and use code BAKER for 20% off your first year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

APBN mencatat defisit 0,21% terhadap PDB atau Rp54,6 triliun per Januari 2026. Menteri Keuangan Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa menilai angka ini masih terkendali dan sesuai desain APBN 2026.Namun, apa yang perlu dicermati dari kondisi fiskal awal tahun ini?Diskusi bersama Guru Besar Fakultas Bisnis dan Ekonomi Universitas Surabaya, Wibisono Hardjopranoto (Prof Wibi), membedah makna defisit, risikonya, dan implikasinya bagi ekonomi nasional.

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: Iran's Supreme Leader prepares for what insiders describe as an “assassination scenario,” quietly naming multiple layers of successors and restructuring command authority as Tehran braces for potential U.S. military strikes. The Supreme Court delivers a landmark ruling against President Trump's tariff strategy, limiting executive authority over trade policy and potentially shifting leverage to China in the ongoing economic standoff. Pakistan launches cross-border strikes into Afghanistan targeting militant hideouts, as humanitarian officials report multiple casualties and tensions rise along the volatile frontier. And in today's Back of the Brief — President Trump orders the Pentagon to begin releasing long-classified files related to UFOs and unidentified aerial phenomena, signaling a major transparency move on one of Washington's most mysterious subjects. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief.  YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Stash Financial: Don't Let your money sit around. Go to https://get.stash.com/PDB to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures. Ava: See how millions are boosting their credit with Ava—download the Ava app and use code BAKER for 20% off your first year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Situation Report: The stage appears set for a potential showdown with Iran, as the United States assembles its largest concentration of military power in the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Former Naval Intelligence Commander Paul Chabot (sha-BOW) joins us to assess what this buildup signals — deterrence, preparation, or something more. Washington ramps up pressure on Havana, even as reports surface of discreet outreach to figures tied to the Castro family. Former CIA analyst and author of Manufacturing Delusion, Buck Sexton, weighs in on what this dual-track strategy could mean for the future of Cuba policy. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief HomeServe: Protect your home systems from costly repairs with HomeServe—plans start at $4.99/month at https://HomeServe.com.  Sundays for Dogs: Upgrade your dog's food without the hassle—try Sundays for Dogs and get 50% off your first order at https://sundaysfordogs.com/PDB50 or use code PDB50 at checkout. Ultra Pouches: Don't sleep on @ultrapouches. New customers get 15% Off with code PDB at https://takeultra.com! #UltraPouches #ad Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: The clock is ticking on Iran. President Trump says Tehran has ten days to strike a nuclear deal — or face consequences — as U.S. forces assemble the largest concentration of firepower in the Middle East since the Iraq invasion. The United States begins withdrawing all troops from Syria, ending a decade-long mission against Islamic State and reshaping America's footprint in the region. A South Korean court sentences former President Yoon Suk Yeol to life in prison over his failed martial law declaration, marking a historic ruling in Seoul. And in today's Back of the Brief — the Pentagon enters a new nuclear era, airlifting its first-ever battlefield microreactor. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Stash Financial: Don't Let your money sit around. Go to https://get.stash.com/PDB to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures. Cozy Earth: Visit https://www.CozyEarth.com/PDB & Use code PDB for up to 20% off DeleteMe: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/PDB and use promo code PDB at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin:  First—President Trump is now weighing an initial military strike on Iran — a limited attack designed to force Tehran into a nuclear deal, but one that could escalate quickly if it fails to extract compromises from the mullahs. Later in the show—Russian bombers are back near Alaska, and U.S. fighter jets were forced into the skies on Thursday to meet them. The aircraft never crossed into American airspace, but the timing comes as tensions spike in the Middle East. I'll bring you the details. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Stash Financial: Don't Let your money sit around. Go to https://get.stash.com/PDB to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures. Cozy Earth: Visit https://www.CozyEarth.com/PDB & Use code PDB for up to 20% off DeleteMe: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/PDB and use promo code PDB at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: Russian, Chinese, and Iranian warships launch “surprise” joint naval drills in the Strait of Hormuz — including live-fire exercises that temporarily shut down portions of one of the world's most critical oil chokepoints.  A bombshell out of Britain. Former Prince Andrew has reportedly been arrested over alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Newly released U.S. Justice Department documents are said to contain communications that could carry national security implications for the United Kingdom. We break down what's known so far. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Trust & Will: Estate planning doesn't have to be complicated—create your will or trust online in minutes with Trust & Will and get 20% off at https://trustandwill.com/PDB  Ultra Pouches: Don't sleep on @ultrapouches. New customers get 15% Off with code PDB at https://takeultra.com! #UltraPouches #ad Sundays for Dogs: Upgrade your dog's food without the hassle—try Sundays for Dogs and get 50% off your first order at https://sundaysfordogs.com/PDB50 or use code PDB50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief:  New reporting suggests a potential conflict with Iran may not be months away, but weeks or even days, as diplomatic talks stall and military preparations accelerate on multiple fronts. Sources warn that a joint U.S.–Israeli operation could be larger than many anticipate, while Tehran also appears to be preparing for the worst. American officials have unveiled new seismic data supporting claims that China conducted a covert low-yield nuclear test. Beijing denies the accusation, but the new evidence could further strain already tense relations between Washington and Beijing. Amid shifting political dynamics and declining trust in American security guarantees, several European nations are openly discussing the possibility of developing independent nuclear deterrent capabilities. The United States plans to deploy additional advanced missile systems to the Philippines to counter China in the South China Sea, a move that has drawn sharp criticism from Beijing and raises the stakes in the Indo-Pacific. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Trust & Will: Estate planning doesn't have to be complicated—create your will or trust online in minutes with Trust & Will and get 20% off at https://trustandwill.com/PDB  Ultra Pouches: Don't sleep on @ultrapouches. New customers get 15% Off with code PDB at https://takeultra.com! #UltraPouches #ad Sundays for Dogs: Upgrade your dog's food without the hassle—try Sundays for Dogs and get 50% off your first order at https://sundaysfordogs.com/PDB50 or use code PDB50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: First up — we're getting a revealing look at the White House's quiet strategy for Cuba, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly opens backchannel discussions not with Havana's president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, but with the grandson of Raul Castro. Later in the show — another round of trilateral peace talks between the United States, Russia, and Ukraine wraps up with little to show. Despite diplomatic efforts, the battlefield reality remains largely unchanged, raising fresh questions about whether negotiations can gain traction anytime soon. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Sundays for Dogs: Upgrade your dog's food without the hassle—try Sundays for Dogs and get 50% off your first order at https://sundaysfordogs.com/PDB50 or use code PDB50 at checkout. American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.org APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB Cozy Earth: Visit https://www.CozyEarth.com/PDB & Use code PDB for up to 20% off Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: Ukraine launches its fastest series of counterattacks since 2023, reclaiming more than 200 square kilometers in just five days. What shifted on the battlefield — and could a breakdown in Russian command and control be behind the sudden momentum? Boots on the ground in Nigeria. One hundred U.S. troops deploy to support local forces battling Islamic militants as extremist violence threatens broader stability across West Africa. India detains three U.S.-sanctioned tankers tied to Iran, tightening enforcement against illicit oil shipments and signaling increased maritime pressure on Tehran. In today's Back of the Brief — U.S. forces destroy three more suspected drug-trafficking boats in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean, as counter-narcotics operations intensify at sea. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Sundays for Dogs: Upgrade your dog's food without the hassle—try Sundays for Dogs and get 50% off your first order at https://sundaysfordogs.com/PDB50 or use code PDB50 at checkout. American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.org APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB Cozy Earth: Visit https://www.CozyEarth.com/PDB & Use code PDB for up to 20% off Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: U.S.-Iran nuclear talks wrap up in just hours in Geneva, raising doubts about whether any real breakthrough was achieved. Tehran claims progress and says “the path for a deal has started,” even as it temporarily closes parts of the Strait of Hormuz during live-fire military drills — sending a clear signal to Washington and global energy markets. Israel delivers a stark ultimatum to Hamas: disarm within sixty days or face a renewed military operation. We break down the pressure campaign, what's driving the timeline, and whether another round of fighting in Gaza is imminent. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief HomeServe: Protect your home systems from costly repairs with HomeServe—plans start at $4.99/month at https://HomeServe.com.  Acre Gold: Start building physical gold with simple monthly payments and enter to win two Ancient Collection gold bars at https://GetAcreGold.com/PDB.  American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.org APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: Western intelligence officials say Russia's shadow war inside Europe may be entering a new phase, with former Wagner recruitment networks allegedly helping coordinate sabotage operations across NATO states — and in some cases, the recruits aren't trained operatives. They're teenagers. We break down what this shift could mean for Europe's security landscape. Talks resume in Geneva as Iran floats potential energy and aviation deals alongside a renewed nuclear agreement with the United States. We'll explain what Tehran appears to want — and what Washington may demand in return. Plus, Ukraine's former energy minister has been detained after allegedly attempting to flee the country, as a sweeping corruption probe reaches into the upper ranks of government. In today's Back of the Brief — a bipartisan funding deal collapses over immigration policy, triggering a partial government shutdown that directly impacts the Department of Homeland Security and reignites tensions over border enforcement. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief HomeServe: Protect your home systems from costly repairs with HomeServe—plans start at $4.99/month at https://HomeServe.com.  Acre Gold: Start building physical gold with simple monthly payments and enter to win two Ancient Collection gold bars at https://GetAcreGold.com/PDB.  American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.org APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: First up — a sanctioned oil tanker is tracked from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean and boarded by U.S. troops, marking another aggressive move in Washington's maritime sanctions campaign.  Later in the show — U.S. forces in Syria conduct ten coordinated strikes targeting more than 30 ISIS positions, as American commanders work to prevent the terror group from regrouping and reestablishing a foothold in the region. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Cozy Earth: Visit https://www.CozyEarth.com/PDB & Use code PDB for up to 20% off Ultra Pouches: Don't sleep on @ultrapouches. New customers get 15% Off with code PDB at https://takeultra.com! #UltraPouches #ad HomeServe: Protect your home systems from costly repairs with HomeServe—plans start at $4.99/month at https://HomeServe.com.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: We break down a new report that the U.S. military is preparing for potentially weeks-long operations against Iran, even as another aircraft carrier deploys to the Middle East and nuclear negotiations resume in Geneva.  Later in the show — Britain announces it is sending an aircraft carrier strike group to the Arctic, citing a rising Russian threat amid broader geopolitical tensions.  We also explore how the Pentagon reportedly used advanced artificial intelligence during the raid that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro — a sign AI's battlefield role is expanding. (Source: The Wall Street Journal) And in today's Back of the Brief — European officials allege Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was killed with a rare poison dart frog toxin, intensifying accusations against the Kremlin.  To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Cozy Earth: Visit https://www.CozyEarth.com/PDB & Use code PDB for up to 20% off Ultra Pouches: Don't sleep on @ultrapouches. New customers get 15% Off with code PDB at https://takeultra.com! #UltraPouches #ad HomeServe: Protect your home systems from costly repairs with HomeServe—plans start at $4.99/month at https://HomeServe.com.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Situation Report: First up — The United States continues ramping up pressure on Iran, but some analysts argue the real strategic target may be China. We speak with Joshua Philipp about how Tehran fits into Beijing's broader geopolitical ambitions, and why moves in the Middle East could be part of a much larger contest with the Chinese Communist Party. Later in the show — The Trump administration announces it is ending Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota after more than four thousand immigration arrests. Art Arthur of the Center for Immigration Studies joins us to break down what the operation accomplished, why it is winding down now, and what it means for immigration enforcement moving forward. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Acre Gold: Start building physical gold with simple monthly payments and enter to win two Ancient Collection gold bars at https://GetAcreGold.com/PDB.  Trust & Will: Estate planning doesn't have to be complicated—create your will or trust online in minutes with Trust & Will and get 20% off at https://trustandwill.com/PDB  BRUNT Workwear: Get $10 Off at BRUNT with code PDB at https://www.bruntworkwear.com/PDB#Bruntpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin:  First—President Trump is sending the largest warship in the world toward Iran. The USS Gerald R. Ford will join another carrier already operating in the region as nuclear negotiations remain unresolved. We'll break down what the deployment signals, and what it could mean if talks collapse. Later in the show—The CIA is making a rare public move, releasing a recruitment video designed to turn disaffected officers inside China's military into potential informants. The campaign comes as Xi Jinping's sweeping purge exposes instability within the PLA's leadership. I'll have the details. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief BUBS Naturals: Live Better Longer with BUBS Naturals. For A limited time get 20% Off your entire order with code PDB at https://Bubsnaturals.com Nobl Travel: NOBL gives you real travel peace of mind — security, design, and convenience all in one. Head to https://NOBLTravel.com for 46% off your entire order! #NOBL #ad DeleteMe: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/PDB and use promo code PDB at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: Taiwan's president warns that if China takes Taiwan, it won't stop there. As Beijing pressures Washington over arms sales, we examine whether Taiwan is the objective… or just the first move in a broader regional strategy. The Trump administration announces it is ending its immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota. Officials cite coordination and enforcement gains as reasons for winding down the operation. South Korea's intelligence agency says Kim Jong Un may be positioning his teenage daughter as North Korea's future leader, potentially extending the Kim dynasty into a fourth generation. And in today's Back of the Brief — Israeli reservists are accused of using classified information to place bets on military strikes through the prediction platform Polymarket, raising concerns about operational security in the digital age. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief BUBS Naturals: Live Better Longer with BUBS Naturals. For A limited time get 20% Off your entire order with code PDB at https://Bubsnaturals.com Nobl Travel: NOBL gives you real travel peace of mind — security, design, and convenience all in one. Head to https://NOBLTravel.com for 46% off your entire order! #NOBL #ad DeleteMe: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/PDB and use promocode PDB at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: Fresh satellite imagery reveals the United States has shifted Patriot missile systems onto mobile launchers at its largest base in the Middle East, signaling a hardened and more flexible defense posture as tensions with Iran simmer. New data from Mexico's defense secretary shows roughly seventy-eight percent of firearms seized under the current administration originated in the United States, reigniting the cross-border fight over cartel violence and arms trafficking. President Trump hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, where Iran dominated the agenda, including calls from Israel to expand U.S.–Iran talks to address Tehran's ballistic missile program. And in today's Back of the Brief—Russia says it will continue observing the limits of the New START nuclear arms treaty, even after its expiration, provided the United States does the same, keeping the last major nuclear arms agreement on life support. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief.  YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Acre Gold: Start building physical gold with simple monthly payments and enter to win two Ancient Collection gold bars at https://GetAcreGold.com/PDB.  Ridge Wallet: Upgrade your wallet today! Get 10% Off @Ridge with code PDB at https://www.Ridge.com/PDB #Ridgepod American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.org APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: Cuba is running out of fuel. Airlines can no longer reliably refuel on the island, blackouts are spreading, tourism is drying up, and analysts warn oil supplies could be exhausted within weeks. The government insists it will endure — but the country itself may be edging toward systemic collapse. I'll have the latest details, including new reporting from The Wall Street Journal and international reactions. Later in the show — an update on Tuesday's airspace shutdown over El Paso. Authorities are now disputing what actually caused the disruption, raising fresh questions about the initial explanation. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Acre Gold: Start building physical gold with simple monthly payments and enter to win two Ancient Collection gold bars at https://GetAcreGold.com/PDB.  Ridge Wallet: Upgrade your wallet today! Get 10% Off @Ridge with code PDB at https://www.Ridge.com/PDB #Ridgepod American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.org APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast features Gabriele Corso and Jeremy Wohlwend, co-founders of Boltz and authors of the Boltz Manifesto, discussing the rapid evolution of structural biology models from AlphaFold to their own open-source suite, Boltz-1 and Boltz-2. The central thesis is that while single-chain protein structure prediction is largely “solved” through evolutionary hints, the next frontier lies in modeling complex interactions (protein-ligand, protein-protein) and generative protein design, which Boltz aims to democratize via open-source foundations and scalable infrastructure.Full Video PodOn YouTube!Timestamps* 00:00 Introduction to Benchmarking and the “Solved” Protein Problem* 06:48 Evolutionary Hints and Co-evolution in Structure Prediction* 10:00 The Importance of Protein Function and Disease States* 15:31 Transitioning from AlphaFold 2 to AlphaFold 3 Capabilities* 19:48 Generative Modeling vs. Regression in Structural Biology* 25:00 The “Bitter Lesson” and Specialized AI Architectures* 29:14 Development Anecdotes: Training Boltz-1 on a Budget* 32:00 Validation Strategies and the Protein Data Bank (PDB)* 37:26 The Mission of Boltz: Democratizing Access and Open Source* 41:43 Building a Self-Sustaining Research Community* 44:40 Boltz-2 Advancements: Affinity Prediction and Design* 51:03 BoltzGen: Merging Structure and Sequence Prediction* 55:18 Large-Scale Wet Lab Validation Results* 01:02:44 Boltz Lab Product Launch: Agents and Infrastructure* 01:13:06 Future Directions: Developpability and the “Virtual Cell”* 01:17:35 Interacting with Skeptical Medicinal ChemistsKey SummaryEvolution of Structure Prediction & Evolutionary Hints* Co-evolutionary Landscapes: The speakers explain that breakthrough progress in single-chain protein prediction relied on decoding evolutionary correlations where mutations in one position necessitate mutations in another to conserve 3D structure.* Structure vs. Folding: They differentiate between structure prediction (getting the final answer) and folding (the kinetic process of reaching that state), noting that the field is still quite poor at modeling the latter.* Physics vs. Statistics: RJ posits that while models use evolutionary statistics to find the right “valley” in the energy landscape, they likely possess a “light understanding” of physics to refine the local minimum.The Shift to Generative Architectures* Generative Modeling: A key leap in AlphaFold 3 and Boltz-1 was moving from regression (predicting one static coordinate) to a generative diffusion approach that samples from a posterior distribution.* Handling Uncertainty: This shift allows models to represent multiple conformational states and avoid the “averaging” effect seen in regression models when the ground truth is ambiguous.* Specialized Architectures: Despite the “bitter lesson” of general-purpose transformers, the speakers argue that equivariant architectures remain vastly superior for biological data due to the inherent 3D geometric constraints of molecules.Boltz-2 and Generative Protein Design* Unified Encoding: Boltz-2 (and BoltzGen) treats structure and sequence prediction as a single task by encoding amino acid identities into the atomic composition of the predicted structure.* Design Specifics: Instead of a sequence, users feed the model blank tokens and a high-level “spec” (e.g., an antibody framework), and the model decodes both the 3D structure and the corresponding amino acids.* Affinity Prediction: While model confidence is a common metric, Boltz-2 focuses on affinity prediction—quantifying exactly how tightly a designed binder will stick to its target.Real-World Validation and Productization* Generalized Validation: To prove the model isn't just “regurgitating” known data, Boltz tested its designs on 9 targets with zero known interactions in the PDB, achieving nanomolar binders for two-thirds of them.* Boltz Lab Infrastructure: The newly launched Boltz Lab platform provides “agents” for protein and small molecule design, optimized to run 10x faster than open-source versions through proprietary GPU kernels.* Human-in-the-Loop: The platform is designed to convert skeptical medicinal chemists by allowing them to run parallel screens and use their intuition to filter model outputs.TranscriptRJ [00:05:35]: But the goal remains to, like, you know, really challenge the models, like, how well do these models generalize? And, you know, we've seen in some of the latest CASP competitions, like, while we've become really, really good at proteins, especially monomeric proteins, you know, other modalities still remain pretty difficult. So it's really essential, you know, in the field that there are, like, these efforts to gather, you know, benchmarks that are challenging. So it keeps us in line, you know, about what the models can do or not.Gabriel [00:06:26]: Yeah, it's interesting you say that, like, in some sense, CASP, you know, at CASP 14, a problem was solved and, like, pretty comprehensively, right? But at the same time, it was really only the beginning. So you can say, like, what was the specific problem you would argue was solved? And then, like, you know, what is remaining, which is probably quite open.RJ [00:06:48]: I think we'll steer away from the term solved, because we have many friends in the community who get pretty upset at that word. And I think, you know, fairly so. But the problem that was, you know, that a lot of progress was made on was the ability to predict the structure of single chain proteins. So proteins can, like, be composed of many chains. And single chain proteins are, you know, just a single sequence of amino acids. And one of the reasons that we've been able to make such progress is also because we take a lot of hints from evolution. So the way the models work is that, you know, they sort of decode a lot of hints. That comes from evolutionary landscapes. So if you have, like, you know, some protein in an animal, and you go find the similar protein across, like, you know, different organisms, you might find different mutations in them. And as it turns out, if you take a lot of the sequences together, and you analyze them, you see that some positions in the sequence tend to evolve at the same time as other positions in the sequence, sort of this, like, correlation between different positions. And it turns out that that is typically a hint that these two positions are close in three dimension. So part of the, you know, part of the breakthrough has been, like, our ability to also decode that very, very effectively. But what it implies also is that in absence of that co-evolutionary landscape, the models don't quite perform as well. And so, you know, I think when that information is available, maybe one could say, you know, the problem is, like, somewhat solved. From the perspective of structure prediction, when it isn't, it's much more challenging. And I think it's also worth also differentiating the, sometimes we confound a little bit, structure prediction and folding. Folding is the more complex process of actually understanding, like, how it goes from, like, this disordered state into, like, a structured, like, state. And that I don't think we've made that much progress on. But the idea of, like, yeah, going straight to the answer, we've become pretty good at.Brandon [00:08:49]: So there's this protein that is, like, just a long chain and it folds up. Yeah. And so we're good at getting from that long chain in whatever form it was originally to the thing. But we don't know how it necessarily gets to that state. And there might be intermediate states that it's in sometimes that we're not aware of.RJ [00:09:10]: That's right. And that relates also to, like, you know, our general ability to model, like, the different, you know, proteins are not static. They move, they take different shapes based on their energy states. And I think we are, also not that good at understanding the different states that the protein can be in and at what frequency, what probability. So I think the two problems are quite related in some ways. Still a lot to solve. But I think it was very surprising at the time, you know, that even with these evolutionary hints that we were able to, you know, to make such dramatic progress.Brandon [00:09:45]: So I want to ask, why does the intermediate states matter? But first, I kind of want to understand, why do we care? What proteins are shaped like?Gabriel [00:09:54]: Yeah, I mean, the proteins are kind of the machines of our body. You know, the way that all the processes that we have in our cells, you know, work is typically through proteins, sometimes other molecules, sort of intermediate interactions. And through that interactions, we have all sorts of cell functions. And so when we try to understand, you know, a lot of biology, how our body works, how disease work. So we often try to boil it down to, okay, what is going right in case of, you know, our normal biological function and what is going wrong in case of the disease state. And we boil it down to kind of, you know, proteins and kind of other molecules and their interaction. And so when we try predicting the structure of proteins, it's critical to, you know, have an understanding of kind of those interactions. It's a bit like seeing the difference between... Having kind of a list of parts that you would put it in a car and seeing kind of the car in its final form, you know, seeing the car really helps you understand what it does. On the other hand, kind of going to your question of, you know, why do we care about, you know, how the protein falls or, you know, how the car is made to some extent is that, you know, sometimes when something goes wrong, you know, there are, you know, cases of, you know, proteins misfolding. In some diseases and so on, if we don't understand this folding process, we don't really know how to intervene.RJ [00:11:30]: There's this nice line in the, I think it's in the Alpha Fold 2 manuscript, where they sort of discuss also like why we even hopeful that we can target the problem in the first place. And then there's this notion that like, well, four proteins that fold. The folding process is almost instantaneous, which is a strong, like, you know, signal that like, yeah, like we should, we might be... able to predict that this very like constrained thing that, that the protein does so quickly. And of course that's not the case for, you know, for, for all proteins. And there's a lot of like really interesting mechanisms in the cells, but yeah, I remember reading that and thought, yeah, that's somewhat of an insightful point.Gabriel [00:12:10]: I think one of the interesting things about the protein folding problem is that it used to be actually studied. And part of the reason why people thought it was impossible, it used to be studied as kind of like a classical example. Of like an MP problem. Uh, like there are so many different, you know, type of, you know, shapes that, you know, this amino acid could take. And so, this grows combinatorially with the size of the sequence. And so there used to be kind of a lot of actually kind of more theoretical computer science thinking about and studying protein folding as an MP problem. And so it was very surprising also from that perspective, kind of seeing. Machine learning so clear, there is some, you know, signal in those sequences, through evolution, but also through kind of other things that, you know, us as humans, we're probably not really able to, uh, to understand, but that is, models I've, I've learned.Brandon [00:13:07]: And so Andrew White, we were talking to him a few weeks ago and he said that he was following the development of this and that there were actually ASICs that were developed just to solve this problem. So, again, that there were. There were many, many, many millions of computational hours spent trying to solve this problem before AlphaFold. And just to be clear, one thing that you mentioned was that there's this kind of co-evolution of mutations and that you see this again and again in different species. So explain why does that give us a good hint that they're close by to each other? Yeah.RJ [00:13:41]: Um, like think of it this way that, you know, if I have, you know, some amino acid that mutates, it's going to impact everything around it. Right. In three dimensions. And so it's almost like the protein through several, probably random mutations and evolution, like, you know, ends up sort of figuring out that this other amino acid needs to change as well for the structure to be conserved. Uh, so this whole principle is that the structure is probably largely conserved, you know, because there's this function associated with it. And so it's really sort of like different positions compensating for, for each other. I see.Brandon [00:14:17]: Those hints in aggregate give us a lot. Yeah. So you can start to look at what kinds of information about what is close to each other, and then you can start to look at what kinds of folds are possible given the structure and then what is the end state.RJ [00:14:30]: And therefore you can make a lot of inferences about what the actual total shape is. Yeah, that's right. It's almost like, you know, you have this big, like three dimensional Valley, you know, where you're sort of trying to find like these like low energy states and there's so much to search through. That's almost overwhelming. But these hints, they sort of maybe put you in. An area of the space that's already like, kind of close to the solution, maybe not quite there yet. And, and there's always this question of like, how much physics are these models learning, you know, versus like, just pure like statistics. And like, I think one of the thing, at least I believe is that once you're in that sort of approximate area of the solution space, then the models have like some understanding, you know, of how to get you to like, you know, the lower energy, uh, low energy state. And so maybe you have some, some light understanding. Of physics, but maybe not quite enough, you know, to know how to like navigate the whole space. Right. Okay.Brandon [00:15:25]: So we need to give it these hints to kind of get into the right Valley and then it finds the, the minimum or something. Yeah.Gabriel [00:15:31]: One interesting explanation about our awful free works that I think it's quite insightful, of course, doesn't cover kind of the entirety of, of what awful does that is, um, they're going to borrow from, uh, Sergio Chinico for MIT. So he sees kind of awful. Then the interesting thing about awful is God. This very peculiar architecture that we have seen, you know, used, and this architecture operates on this, you know, pairwise context between amino acids. And so the idea is that probably the MSA gives you this first hint about what potential amino acids are close to each other. MSA is most multiple sequence alignment. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. This evolutionary information. Yeah. And, you know, from this evolutionary information about potential contacts, then is almost as if the model is. of running some kind of, you know, diastro algorithm where it's sort of decoding, okay, these have to be closed. Okay. Then if these are closed and this is connected to this, then this has to be somewhat closed. And so you decode this, that becomes basically a pairwise kind of distance matrix. And then from this rough pairwise distance matrix, you decode kind of theBrandon [00:16:42]: actual potential structure. Interesting. So there's kind of two different things going on in the kind of coarse grain and then the fine grain optimizations. Interesting. Yeah. Very cool.Gabriel [00:16:53]: Yeah. You mentioned AlphaFold3. So maybe we have a good time to move on to that. So yeah, AlphaFold2 came out and it was like, I think fairly groundbreaking for this field. Everyone got very excited. A few years later, AlphaFold3 came out and maybe for some more history, like what were the advancements in AlphaFold3? And then I think maybe we'll, after that, we'll talk a bit about the sort of how it connects to Bolt. But anyway. Yeah. So after AlphaFold2 came out, you know, Jeremy and I got into the field and with many others, you know, the clear problem that, you know, was, you know, obvious after that was, okay, now we can do individual chains. Can we do interactions, interaction, different proteins, proteins with small molecules, proteins with other molecules. And so. So why are interactions important? Interactions are important because to some extent that's kind of the way that, you know, these machines, you know, these proteins have a function, you know, the function comes by the way that they interact with other proteins and other molecules. Actually, in the first place, you know, the individual machines are often, as Jeremy was mentioning, not made of a single chain, but they're made of the multiple chains. And then these multiple chains interact with other molecules to give the function to those. And on the other hand, you know, when we try to intervene of these interactions, think about like a disease, think about like a, a biosensor or many other ways we are trying to design the molecules or proteins that interact in a particular way with what we would call a target protein or target. You know, this problem after AlphaVol2, you know, became clear, kind of one of the biggest problems in the field to, to solve many groups, including kind of ours and others, you know, started making some kind of contributions to this problem of trying to model these interactions. And AlphaVol3 was, you know, was a significant advancement on the problem of modeling interactions. And one of the interesting thing that they were able to do while, you know, some of the rest of the field that really tried to try to model different interactions separately, you know, how protein interacts with small molecules, how protein interacts with other proteins, how RNA or DNA have their structure, they put everything together and, you know, train very large models with a lot of advances, including kind of changing kind of systems. Some of the key architectural choices and managed to get a single model that was able to set this new state-of-the-art performance across all of these different kind of modalities, whether that was protein, small molecules is critical to developing kind of new drugs, protein, protein, understanding, you know, interactions of, you know, proteins with RNA and DNAs and so on.Brandon [00:19:39]: Just to satisfy the AI engineers in the audience, what were some of the key architectural and data, data changes that made that possible?Gabriel [00:19:48]: Yeah, so one critical one that was not necessarily just unique to AlphaFold3, but there were actually a few other teams, including ours in the field that proposed this, was moving from, you know, modeling structure prediction as a regression problem. So where there is a single answer and you're trying to shoot for that answer to a generative modeling problem where you have a posterior distribution of possible structures and you're trying to sample this distribution. And this achieves two things. One is it starts to allow us to try to model more dynamic systems. As we said, you know, some of these structures can actually take multiple structures. And so, you know, you can now model that, you know, through kind of modeling the entire distribution. But on the second hand, from more kind of core modeling questions, when you move from a regression problem to a generative modeling problem, you are really tackling the way that you think about uncertainty in the model in a different way. So if you think about, you know, I'm undecided between different answers, what's going to happen in a regression model is that, you know, I'm going to try to make an average of those different kind of answers that I had in mind. When you have a generative model, what you're going to do is, you know, sample all these different answers and then maybe use separate models to analyze those different answers and pick out the best. So that was kind of one of the critical improvement. The other improvement is that they significantly simplified, to some extent, the architecture, especially of the final model that takes kind of those pairwise representations and turns them into an actual structure. And that now looks a lot more like a more traditional transformer than, you know, like a very specialized equivariant architecture that it was in AlphaFold3.Brandon [00:21:41]: So this is a bitter lesson, a little bit.Gabriel [00:21:45]: There is some aspect of a bitter lesson, but the interesting thing is that it's very far from, you know, being like a simple transformer. This field is one of the, I argue, very few fields in applied machine learning where we still have kind of architecture that are very specialized. And, you know, there are many people that have tried to replace these architectures with, you know, simple transformers. And, you know, there is a lot of debate in the field, but I think kind of that most of the consensus is that, you know, the performance... that we get from the specialized architecture is vastly superior than what we get through a single transformer. Another interesting thing that I think on the staying on the modeling machine learning side, which I think it's somewhat counterintuitive seeing some of the other kind of fields and applications is that scaling hasn't really worked kind of the same in this field. Now, you know, models like AlphaFold2 and AlphaFold3 are, you know, still very large models.RJ [00:29:14]: in a place, I think, where we had, you know, some experience working in, you know, with the data and working with this type of models. And I think that put us already in like a good place to, you know, to produce it quickly. And, you know, and I would even say, like, I think we could have done it quicker. The problem was like, for a while, we didn't really have the compute. And so we couldn't really train the model. And actually, we only trained the big model once. That's how much compute we had. We could only train it once. And so like, while the model was training, we were like, finding bugs left and right. A lot of them that I wrote. And like, I remember like, I was like, sort of like, you know, doing like, surgery in the middle, like stopping the run, making the fix, like relaunching. And yeah, we never actually went back to the start. We just like kept training it with like the bug fixes along the way, which was impossible to reproduce now. Yeah, yeah, no, that model is like, has gone through such a curriculum that, you know, learned some weird stuff. But yeah, somehow by miracle, it worked out.Gabriel [00:30:13]: The other funny thing is that the way that we were training, most of that model was through a cluster from the Department of Energy. But that's sort of like a shared cluster that many groups use. And so we were basically training the model for two days, and then it would go back to the queue and stay a week in the queue. Oh, yeah. And so it was pretty painful. And so we actually kind of towards the end with Evan, the CEO of Genesis, and basically, you know, I was telling him a bit about the project and, you know, kind of telling him about this frustration with the compute. And so luckily, you know, he offered to kind of help. And so we, we got the help from Genesis to, you know, finish up the model. Otherwise, it probably would have taken a couple of extra weeks.Brandon [00:30:57]: Yeah, yeah.Brandon [00:31:02]: And then, and then there's some progression from there.Gabriel [00:31:06]: Yeah, so I would say kind of that, both one, but also kind of these other kind of set of models that came around the same time, were kind of approaching were a big leap from, you know, kind of the previous kind of open source models, and, you know, kind of really kind of approaching the level of AlphaVault 3. But I would still say that, you know, even to this day, there are, you know, some... specific instances where AlphaVault 3 works better. I think one common example is antibody antigen prediction, where, you know, AlphaVault 3 still seems to have an edge in many situations. Obviously, these are somewhat different models. They are, you know, you run them, you obtain different results. So it's, it's not always the case that one model is better than the other, but kind of in aggregate, we still, especially at the time.Brandon [00:32:00]: So AlphaVault 3 is, you know, still having a bit of an edge. We should talk about this more when we talk about Boltzgen, but like, how do you know one is, one model is better than the other? Like you, so you, I make a prediction, you make a prediction, like, how do you know?Gabriel [00:32:11]: Yeah, so easily, you know, the, the great thing about kind of structural prediction and, you know, once we're going to go into the design space of designing new small molecule, new proteins, this becomes a lot more complex. But a great thing about structural prediction is that a bit like, you know, CASP was doing, basically the way that you can evaluate them is that, you know, you train... You know, you train a model on a structure that was, you know, released across the field up until a certain time. And, you know, one of the things that we didn't talk about that was really critical in all this development is the PDB, which is the Protein Data Bank. It's this common resources, basically common database where every biologist publishes their structures. And so we can, you know, train on, you know, all the structures that were put in the PDB until a certain date. And then... And then we basically look for recent structures, okay, which structures look pretty different from anything that was published before, because we really want to try to understand generalization.Brandon [00:33:13]: And then on this new structure, we evaluate all these different models. And so you just know when AlphaFold3 was trained, you know, when you're, you intentionally trained to the same date or something like that. Exactly. Right. Yeah.Gabriel [00:33:24]: And so this is kind of the way that you can somewhat easily kind of compare these models, obviously, that assumes that, you know, the training. You've always been very passionate about validation. I remember like DiffDoc, and then there was like DiffDocL and DocGen. You've thought very carefully about this in the past. Like, actually, I think DocGen is like a really funny story that I think, I don't know if you want to talk about that. It's an interesting like... Yeah, I think one of the amazing things about putting things open source is that we get a ton of feedback from the field. And, you know, sometimes we get kind of great feedback of people. Really like... But honestly, most of the times, you know, to be honest, that's also maybe the most useful feedback is, you know, people sharing about where it doesn't work. And so, you know, at the end of the day, it's critical. And this is also something, you know, across other fields of machine learning. It's always critical to set, to do progress in machine learning, set clear benchmarks. And as, you know, you start doing progress of certain benchmarks, then, you know, you need to improve the benchmarks and make them harder and harder. And this is kind of the progression of, you know, how the field operates. And so, you know, the example of DocGen was, you know, we published this initial model called DiffDoc in my first year of PhD, which was sort of like, you know, one of the early models to try to predict kind of interactions between proteins, small molecules, that we bought a year after AlphaFold2 was published. And now, on the one hand, you know, on these benchmarks that we were using at the time, DiffDoc was doing really well, kind of, you know, outperforming kind of some of the traditional physics-based methods. But on the other hand, you know, when we started, you know, kind of giving these tools to kind of many biologists, and one example was that we collaborated with was the group of Nick Polizzi at Harvard. We noticed, started noticing that there was this clear, pattern where four proteins that were very different from the ones that we're trained on, the models was, was struggling. And so, you know, that seemed clear that, you know, this is probably kind of where we should, you know, put our focus on. And so we first developed, you know, with Nick and his group, a new benchmark, and then, you know, went after and said, okay, what can we change? And kind of about the current architecture to improve this pattern and generalization. And this is the same that, you know, we're still doing today, you know, kind of, where does the model not work, you know, and then, you know, once we have that benchmark, you know, let's try to, through everything we, any ideas that we have of the problem.RJ [00:36:15]: And there's a lot of like healthy skepticism in the field, which I think, you know, is, is, is great. And I think, you know, it's very clear that there's a ton of things, the models don't really work well on, but I think one thing that's probably, you know, undeniable is just like the pace of, pace of progress, you know, and how, how much better we're getting, you know, every year. And so I think if you, you know, if you assume, you know, any constant, you know, rate of progress moving forward, I think things are going to look pretty cool at some point in the future.Gabriel [00:36:42]: ChatGPT was only three years ago. Yeah, I mean, it's wild, right?RJ [00:36:45]: Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's one of those things. Like, you've been doing this. Being in the field, you don't see it coming, you know? And like, I think, yeah, hopefully we'll, you know, we'll, we'll continue to have as much progress we've had the past few years.Brandon [00:36:55]: So this is maybe an aside, but I'm really curious, you get this great feedback from the, from the community, right? By being open source. My question is partly like, okay, yeah, if you open source and everyone can copy what you did, but it's also maybe balancing priorities, right? Where you, like all my customers are saying. I want this, there's all these problems with the model. Yeah, yeah. But my customers don't care, right? So like, how do you, how do you think about that? Yeah.Gabriel [00:37:26]: So I would say a couple of things. One is, you know, part of our goal with Bolts and, you know, this is also kind of established as kind of the mission of the public benefit company that we started is to democratize the access to these tools. But one of the reasons why we realized that Bolts needed to be a company, it couldn't just be an academic project is that putting a model on GitHub is definitely not enough to get, you know, chemists and biologists, you know, across, you know, both academia, biotech and pharma to use your model to, in their therapeutic programs. And so a lot of what we think about, you know, at Bolts beyond kind of the, just the models is thinking about all the layers. The layers that come on top of the models to get, you know, from, you know, those models to something that can really enable scientists in the industry. And so that goes, you know, into building kind of the right kind of workflows that take in kind of, for example, the data and try to answer kind of directly that those problems that, you know, the chemists and the biologists are asking, and then also kind of building the infrastructure. And so this to say that, you know, even with models fully open. You know, we see a ton of potential for, you know, products in the space and the critical part about a product is that even, you know, for example, with an open source model, you know, running the model is not free, you know, as we were saying, these are pretty expensive model and especially, and maybe we'll get into this, you know, these days we're seeing kind of pretty dramatic inference time scaling of these models where, you know, the more you run them, the better the results are. But there, you know, you see. You start getting into a point that compute and compute costs becomes a critical factor. And so putting a lot of work into building the right kind of infrastructure, building the optimizations and so on really allows us to provide, you know, a much better service potentially to the open source models. That to say, you know, even though, you know, with a product, we can provide a much better service. I do still think, and we will continue to put a lot of our models open source because the critical kind of role. I think of open source. Models is, you know, helping kind of the community progress on the research and, you know, from which we, we all benefit. And so, you know, we'll continue to on the one hand, you know, put some of our kind of base models open source so that the field can, can be on top of it. And, you know, as we discussed earlier, we learn a ton from, you know, the way that the field uses and builds on top of our models, but then, you know, try to build a product that gives the best experience possible to scientists. So that, you know, like a chemist or a biologist doesn't need to, you know, spin off a GPU and, you know, set up, you know, our open source model in a particular way, but can just, you know, a bit like, you know, I, even though I am a computer scientist, machine learning scientist, I don't necessarily, you know, take a open source LLM and try to kind of spin it off. But, you know, I just maybe open a GPT app or a cloud code and just use it as an amazing product. We kind of want to give the same experience. So this front world.Brandon [00:40:40]: I heard a good analogy yesterday that a surgeon doesn't want the hospital to design a scalpel, right?Brandon [00:40:48]: So just buy the scalpel.RJ [00:40:50]: You wouldn't believe like the number of people, even like in my short time, you know, between AlphaFold3 coming out and the end of the PhD, like the number of people that would like reach out just for like us to like run AlphaFold3 for them, you know, or things like that. Just because like, you know, bolts in our case, you know, just because it's like. It's like not that easy, you know, to do that, you know, if you're not a computational person. And I think like part of the goal here is also that, you know, we continue to obviously build the interface with computational folks, but that, you know, the models are also accessible to like a larger, broader audience. And then that comes from like, you know, good interfaces and stuff like that.Gabriel [00:41:27]: I think one like really interesting thing about bolts is that with the release of it, you didn't just release a model, but you created a community. Yeah. Did that community, it grew very quickly. Did that surprise you? And like, what is the evolution of that community and how is that fed into bolts?RJ [00:41:43]: If you look at its growth, it's like very much like when we release a new model, it's like, there's a big, big jump, but yeah, it's, I mean, it's been great. You know, we have a Slack community that has like thousands of people on it. And it's actually like self-sustaining now, which is like the really nice part because, you know, it's, it's almost overwhelming, I think, you know, to be able to like answer everyone's questions and help. It's really difficult, you know. The, the few people that we were, but it ended up that like, you know, people would answer each other's questions and like, sort of like, you know, help one another. And so the Slack, you know, has been like kind of, yeah, self, self-sustaining and that's been, it's been really cool to see.RJ [00:42:21]: And, you know, that's, that's for like the Slack part, but then also obviously on GitHub as well. We've had like a nice, nice community. You know, I think we also aspire to be even more active on it, you know, than we've been in the past six months, which has been like a bit challenging, you know, for us. But. Yeah, the community has been, has been really great and, you know, there's a lot of papers also that have come out with like new evolutions on top of bolts and it's surprised us to some degree because like there's a lot of models out there. And I think like, you know, sort of people converging on that was, was really cool. And, you know, I think it speaks also, I think, to the importance of like, you know, when, when you put code out, like to try to put a lot of emphasis and like making it like as easy to use as possible and something we thought a lot about when we released the code base. You know, it's far from perfect, but, you know.Brandon [00:43:07]: Do you think that that was one of the factors that caused your community to grow is just the focus on easy to use, make it accessible? I think so.RJ [00:43:14]: Yeah. And we've, we've heard it from a few people over the, over the, over the years now. And, you know, and some people still think it should be a lot nicer and they're, and they're right. And they're right. But yeah, I think it was, you know, at the time, maybe a little bit easier than, than other things.Gabriel [00:43:29]: The other thing part, I think led to, to the community and to some extent, I think, you know, like the somewhat the trust in the community. Kind of what we, what we put out is the fact that, you know, it's not really been kind of, you know, one model, but, and maybe we'll talk about it, you know, after Boltz 1, you know, there were maybe another couple of models kind of released, you know, or open source kind of soon after. We kind of continued kind of that open source journey or at least Boltz 2, where we are not only improving kind of structure prediction, but also starting to do affinity predictions, understanding kind of the strength of the interactions between these different models, which is this critical component. critical property that you often want to optimize in discovery programs. And then, you know, more recently also kind of protein design model. And so we've sort of been building this suite of, of models that come together, interact with one another, where, you know, kind of, there is almost an expectation that, you know, we, we take very at heart of, you know, always having kind of, you know, across kind of the entire suite of different tasks, the best or across the best. model out there so that it's sort of like our open source tool can be kind of the go-to model for everybody in the, in the industry. I really want to talk about Boltz 2, but before that, one last question in this direction, was there anything about the community which surprised you? Were there any, like, someone was doing something and you're like, why would you do that? That's crazy. Or that's actually genius. And I never would have thought about that.RJ [00:45:01]: I mean, we've had many contributions. I think like some of the. Interesting ones, like, I mean, we had, you know, this one individual who like wrote like a complex GPU kernel, you know, for part of the architecture on a piece of, the funny thing is like that piece of the architecture had been there since AlphaFold 2, and I don't know why it took Boltz for this, you know, for this person to, you know, to decide to do it, but that was like a really great contribution. We've had a bunch of others, like, you know, people figuring out like ways to, you know, hack the model to do something. They click peptides, like, you know, there's, I don't know if there's any other interesting ones come to mind.Gabriel [00:45:41]: One cool one, and this was, you know, something that initially was proposed as, you know, as a message in the Slack channel by Tim O'Donnell was basically, he was, you know, there are some cases, especially, for example, we discussed, you know, antibody-antigen interactions where the models don't necessarily kind of get the right answer. What he noticed is that, you know, the models were somewhat stuck into predicting kind of the antibodies. And so he basically ran the experiments in this model, you can condition, basically, you can give hints. And so he basically gave, you know, random hints to the model, basically, okay, you should bind to this residue, you should bind to the first residue, or you should bind to the 11th residue, or you should bind to the 21st residue, you know, basically every 10 residues scanning the entire antigen.Brandon [00:46:33]: Residues are the...Gabriel [00:46:34]: The amino acids. The amino acids, yeah. So the first amino acids. The 11 amino acids, and so on. So it's sort of like doing a scan, and then, you know, conditioning the model to predict all of them, and then looking at the confidence of the model in each of those cases and taking the top. And so it's sort of like a very somewhat crude way of doing kind of inference time search. But surprisingly, you know, for antibody-antigen prediction, it actually kind of helped quite a bit. And so there's some, you know, interesting ideas that, you know, obviously, as kind of developing the model, you say kind of, you know, wow. This is why would the model, you know, be so dumb. But, you know, it's very interesting. And that, you know, leads you to also kind of, you know, start thinking about, okay, how do I, can I do this, you know, not with this brute force, but, you know, in a smarter way.RJ [00:47:22]: And so we've also done a lot of work on that direction. And that speaks to, like, the, you know, the power of scoring. We're seeing that a lot. I'm sure we'll talk about it more when we talk about BullsGen. But, you know, our ability to, like, take a structure and determine that that structure is, like... Good. You know, like, somewhat accurate. Whether that's a single chain or, like, an interaction is a really powerful way of improving, you know, the models. Like, sort of like, you know, if you can sample a ton and you assume that, like, you know, if you sample enough, you're likely to have, like, you know, the good structure. Then it really just becomes a ranking problem. And, you know, now we're, you know, part of the inference time scaling that Gabby was talking about is very much that. It's like, you know, the more we sample, the more we, like, you know, the ranking model. The ranking model ends up finding something it really likes. And so I think our ability to get better at ranking, I think, is also what's going to enable sort of the next, you know, next big, big breakthroughs. Interesting.Brandon [00:48:17]: But I guess there's a, my understanding, there's a diffusion model and you generate some stuff and then you, I guess, it's just what you said, right? Then you rank it using a score and then you finally... And so, like, can you talk about those different parts? Yeah.Gabriel [00:48:34]: So, first of all, like, the... One of the critical kind of, you know, beliefs that we had, you know, also when we started working on Boltz 1 was sort of like the structure prediction models are somewhat, you know, our field version of some foundation models, you know, learning about kind of how proteins and other molecules interact. And then we can leverage that learning to do all sorts of other things. And so with Boltz 2, we leverage that learning to do affinity predictions. So understanding kind of, you know, if I give you this protein, this molecule. How tightly is that interaction? For Boltz 1, what we did was taking kind of that kind of foundation models and then fine tune it to predict kind of entire new proteins. And so the way basically that that works is sort of like instead of for the protein that you're designing, instead of fitting in an actual sequence, you fit in a set of blank tokens. And you train the models to, you know, predict both the structure of kind of that protein. The structure also, what the different amino acids of that proteins are. And so basically the way that Boltz 1 operates is that you feed a target protein that you may want to kind of bind to or, you know, another DNA, RNA. And then you feed the high level kind of design specification of, you know, what you want your new protein to be. For example, it could be like an antibody with a particular framework. It could be a peptide. It could be many other things. And that's with natural language or? And that's, you know, basically, you know, prompting. And we have kind of this sort of like spec that you specify. And, you know, you feed kind of this spec to the model. And then the model translates this into, you know, a set of, you know, tokens, a set of conditioning to the model, a set of, you know, blank tokens. And then, you know, basically the codes as part of the diffusion models, the codes. It's a new structure and a new sequence for your protein. And, you know, basically, then we take that. And as Jeremy was saying, we are trying to score it and, you know, how good of a binder it is to that original target.Brandon [00:50:51]: You're using basically Boltz to predict the folding and the affinity to that molecule. So and then that kind of gives you a score? Exactly.Gabriel [00:51:03]: So you use this model to predict the folding. And then you do two things. One is that you predict the structure and with something like Boltz2, and then you basically compare that structure with what the model predicted, what Boltz2 predicted. And this is sort of like in the field called consistency. It's basically you want to make sure that, you know, the structure that you're predicting is actually what you're trying to design. And that gives you a much better confidence that, you know, that's a good design. And so that's the first filtering. And the second filtering that we did as part of kind of the Boltz2 pipeline that was released is that we look at the confidence that the model has in the structure. Now, unfortunately, kind of going to your question of, you know, predicting affinity, unfortunately, confidence is not a very good predictor of affinity. And so one of the things that we've actually done a ton of progress, you know, since we released Boltz2.Brandon [00:52:03]: And kind of we have some new results that we are going to kind of announce soon is kind of, you know, the ability to get much better hit rates when instead of, you know, trying to rely on confidence of the model, we are actually directly trying to predict the affinity of that interaction. Okay. Just backing up a minute. So your diffusion model actually predicts not only the protein sequence, but also the folding of it. Exactly.Gabriel [00:52:32]: And actually, you can... One of the big different things that we did compared to other models in the space, and, you know, there were some papers that had already kind of done this before, but we really scaled it up was, you know, basically somewhat merging kind of the structure prediction and the sequence prediction into almost the same task. And so the way that Boltz2 works is that you are basically the only thing that you're doing is predicting the structure. So the only sort of... Supervision is we give you a supervision on the structure, but because the structure is atomic and, you know, the different amino acids have a different atomic composition, basically from the way that you place the atoms, we also understand not only kind of the structure that you wanted, but also the identity of the amino acid that, you know, the models believed was there. And so we've basically, instead of, you know, having these two supervision signals, you know, one discrete, one continuous. That somewhat, you know, don't interact well together. We sort of like build kind of like an encoding of, you know, sequences in structures that allows us to basically use exactly the same supervision signal that we were using to Boltz2 that, you know, you know, largely similar to what AlphaVol3 proposed, which is very scalable. And we can use that to design new proteins. Oh, interesting.RJ [00:53:58]: Maybe a quick shout out to Hannes Stark on our team who like did all this work. Yeah.Gabriel [00:54:04]: Yeah, that was a really cool idea. I mean, like looking at the paper and there's this is like encoding or you just add a bunch of, I guess, kind of atoms, which can be anything, and then they get sort of rearranged and then basically plopped on top of each other so that and then that encodes what the amino acid is. And there's sort of like a unique way of doing this. It was that was like such a really such a cool, fun idea.RJ [00:54:29]: I think that idea was had existed before. Yeah, there were a couple of papers.Gabriel [00:54:33]: Yeah, I had proposed this and and Hannes really took it to the large scale.Brandon [00:54:39]: In the paper, a lot of the paper for Boltz2Gen is dedicated to actually the validation of the model. In my opinion, all the people we basically talk about feel that this sort of like in the wet lab or whatever the appropriate, you know, sort of like in real world validation is the whole problem or not the whole problem, but a big giant part of the problem. So can you talk a little bit about the highlights? From there, that really because to me, the results are impressive, both from the perspective of the, you know, the model and also just the effort that went into the validation by a large team.Gabriel [00:55:18]: First of all, I think I should start saying is that both when we were at MIT and Thomas Yacolas and Regina Barzillai's lab, as well as at Boltz, you know, we are not a we're not a biolab and, you know, we are not a therapeutic company. And so to some extent, you know, we were first forced to, you know, look outside of, you know, our group, our team to do the experimental validation. One of the things that really, Hannes, in the team pioneer was the idea, OK, can we go not only to, you know, maybe a specific group and, you know, trying to find a specific system and, you know, maybe overfit a bit to that system and trying to validate. But how can we test this model? So. Across a very wide variety of different settings so that, you know, anyone in the field and, you know, printing design is, you know, such a kind of wide task with all sorts of different applications from therapeutic to, you know, biosensors and many others that, you know, so can we get a validation that is kind of goes across many different tasks? And so he basically put together, you know, I think it was something like, you know, 25 different. You know, academic and industry labs that committed to, you know, testing some of the designs from the model and some of this testing is still ongoing and, you know, giving results kind of back to us in exchange for, you know, hopefully getting some, you know, new great sequences for their task. And he was able to, you know, coordinate this, you know, very wide set of, you know, scientists and already in the paper, I think we. Shared results from, I think, eight to 10 different labs kind of showing results from, you know, designing peptides, designing to target, you know, ordered proteins, peptides targeting disordered proteins, which are results, you know, of designing proteins that bind to small molecules, which are results of, you know, designing nanobodies and across a wide variety of different targets. And so that's sort of like. That gave to the paper a lot of, you know, validation to the model, a lot of validation that was kind of wide.Brandon [00:57:39]: And so those would be therapeutics for those animals or are they relevant to humans as well? They're relevant to humans as well.Gabriel [00:57:45]: Obviously, you need to do some work into, quote unquote, humanizing them, making sure that, you know, they have the right characteristics to so they're not toxic to humans and so on.RJ [00:57:57]: There are some approved medicine in the market that are nanobodies. There's a general. General pattern, I think, in like in trying to design things that are smaller, you know, like it's easier to manufacture at the same time, like that comes with like potentially other challenges, like maybe a little bit less selectivity than like if you have something that has like more hands, you know, but the yeah, there's this big desire to, you know, try to design many proteins, nanobodies, small peptides, you know, that just are just great drug modalities.Brandon [00:58:27]: Okay. I think we were left off. We were talking about validation. Validation in the lab. And I was very excited about seeing like all the diverse validations that you've done. Can you go into some more detail about them? Yeah. Specific ones. Yeah.RJ [00:58:43]: The nanobody one. I think we did. What was it? 15 targets. Is that correct? 14. 14 targets. Testing. So we typically the way this works is like we make a lot of designs. All right. On the order of like tens of thousands. And then we like rank them and we pick like the top. And in this case, and was 15 right for each target and then we like measure sort of like the success rates, both like how many targets we were able to get a binder for and then also like more generally, like out of all of the binders that we designed, how many actually proved to be good binders. Some of the other ones I think involved like, yeah, like we had a cool one where there was a small molecule or design a protein that binds to it. That has a lot of like interesting applications, you know, for example. Like Gabri mentioned, like biosensing and things like that, which is pretty cool. We had a disordered protein, I think you mentioned also. And yeah, I think some of those were some of the highlights. Yeah.Gabriel [00:59:44]: So I would say that the way that we structure kind of some of those validations was on the one end, we have validations across a whole set of different problems that, you know, the biologists that we were working with came to us with. So we were trying to. For example, in some of the experiments, design peptides that would target the RACC, which is a target that is involved in metabolism. And we had, you know, a number of other applications where we were trying to design, you know, peptides or other modalities against some other therapeutic relevant targets. We designed some proteins to bind small molecules. And then some of the other testing that we did was really trying to get like a more broader sense. So how does the model work, especially when tested, you know, on somewhat generalization? So one of the things that, you know, we found with the field was that a lot of the validation, especially outside of the validation that was on specific problems, was done on targets that have a lot of, you know, known interactions in the training data. And so it's always a bit hard to understand, you know, how much are these models really just regurgitating kind of what they've seen or trying to imitate. What they've seen in the training data versus, you know, really be able to design new proteins. And so one of the experiments that we did was to take nine targets from the PDB, filtering to things where there is no known interaction in the PDB. So basically the model has never seen kind of this particular protein bound or a similar protein bound to another protein. So there is no way that. The model from its training set can sort of like say, okay, I'm just going to kind of tweak something and just imitate this particular kind of interaction. And so we took those nine proteins. We worked with adaptive CRO and basically tested, you know, 15 mini proteins and 15 nanobodies against each one of them. And the very cool thing that we saw was that on two thirds of those targets, we were able to, from this 15 design, get nanomolar binders, nanomolar, roughly speaking, just a measure of, you know, how strongly kind of the interaction is, roughly speaking, kind of like a nanomolar binder is approximately the kind of binding strength or binding that you need for a therapeutic. Yeah. So maybe switching directions a bit. Bolt's lab was just announced this week or was it last week? Yeah. This is like your. First, I guess, product, if that's if you want to call it that. Can you talk about what Bolt's lab is and yeah, you know, what you hope that people take away from this? Yeah.RJ [01:02:44]: You know, as we mentioned, like I think at the very beginning is the goal with the product has been to, you know, address what the models don't on their own. And there's largely sort of two categories there. I'll split it in three. The first one. It's one thing to predict, you know, a single interaction, for example, like a single structure. It's another to like, you know, very effectively search a space, a design space to produce something of value. What we found, like sort of building on this product is that there's a lot of steps involved, you know, in that there's certainly need to like, you know, accompany the user through, you know, one of those steps, for example, is like, you know, the creation of the target itself. You know, how do we make sure that the model has like a good enough understanding of the target? So we can like design something and there's all sorts of tricks, you know, that you can do to improve like a particular, you know, structure prediction. And so that's sort of like, you know, the first stage. And then there's like this stage of like, you know, designing and searching the space efficiently. You know, for something like BullsGen, for example, like you, you know, you design many things and then you rank them, for example, for small molecule process, a little bit more complicated. We actually need to also make sure that the molecules are synthesizable. And so the way we do that is that, you know, we have a generative model that learns. To use like appropriate building blocks such that, you know, it can design within a space that we know is like synthesizable. And so there's like, you know, this whole pipeline really of different models involved in being able to design a molecule. And so that's been sort of like the first thing we call them agents. We have a protein agent and we have a small molecule design agents. And that's really like at the core of like what powers, you know, the BullsLab platform.Brandon [01:04:22]: So these agents, are they like a language model wrapper or they're just like your models and you're just calling them agents? A lot. Yeah. Because they, they, they sort of perform a function on behalf of.RJ [01:04:33]: They're more of like a, you know, a recipe, if you wish. And I think we use that term sort of because of, you know, sort of the complex pipelining and automation, you know, that goes into like all this plumbing. So that's the first part of the product. The second part is the infrastructure. You know, we need to be able to do this at very large scale for any one, you know, group that's doing a design campaign. Let's say you're designing, you know, I'd say a hundred thousand possible candidates. Right. To find the good one that is, you know, a very large amount of compute, you know, for small molecules, it's on the order of like a few seconds per designs for proteins can be a bit longer. And so, you know, ideally you want to do that in parallel, otherwise it's going to take you weeks. And so, you know, we've put a lot of effort into like, you know, our ability to have a GPU fleet that allows any one user, you know, to be able to do this kind of like large parallel search.Brandon [01:05:23]: So you're amortizing the cost over your users. Exactly. Exactly.RJ [01:05:27]: And, you know, to some degree, like it's whether you. Use 10,000 GPUs for like, you know, a minute is the same cost as using, you know, one GPUs for God knows how long. Right. So you might as well try to parallelize if you can. So, you know, a lot of work has gone, has gone into that, making it very robust, you know, so that we can have like a lot of people on the platform doing that at the same time. And the third one is, is the interface and the interface comes in, in two shapes. One is in form of an API and that's, you know, really suited for companies that want to integrate, you know, these pipelines, these agents.RJ [01:06:01]: So we're already partnering with, you know, a few distributors, you know, that are gonna integrate our API. And then the second part is the user interface. And, you know, we, we've put a lot of thoughts also into that. And this is when I, I mentioned earlier, you know, this idea of like broadening the audience. That's kind of what the, the user interface is about. And we've built a lot of interesting features in it, you know, for example, for collaboration, you know, when you have like potentially multiple medicinal chemists or. We're going through the results and trying to pick out, okay, like what are the molecules that we're going to go and test in the lab? It's powerful for them to be able to, you know, for example, each provide their own ranking and then do consensus building. And so there's a lot of features around launching these large jobs, but also around like collaborating on analyzing the results that we try to solve, you know, with that part of the platform. So Bolt's lab is sort of a combination of these three objectives into like one, you know, sort of cohesive platform. Who is this accessible to? Everyone. You do need to request access today. We're still like, you know, sort of ramping up the usage, but anyone can request access. If you are an academic in particular, we, you know, we provide a fair amount of free credit so you can play with the platform. If you are a startup or biotech, you may also, you know, reach out and we'll typically like actually hop on a call just to like understand what you're trying to do and also provide a lot of free credit to get started. And of course, also with larger companies, we can deploy this platform in a more like secure environment. And so that's like more like customizing. You know, deals that we make, you know, with the partners, you know, and that's sort of the ethos of Bolt. I think this idea of like servicing everyone and not necessarily like going after just, you know, the really large enterprises. And that starts from the open source, but it's also, you know, a key design principle of the product itself.Gabriel [01:07:48]: One thing I was thinking about with regards to infrastructure, like in the LLM space, you know, the cost of a token has gone down by I think a factor of a thousand or so over the last three years, right? Yeah. And is it possible that like essentially you can exploit economies of scale and infrastructure that you can make it cheaper to run these things yourself than for any person to roll their own system? A hundred percent. Yeah.RJ [01:08:08]: I mean, we're already there, you know, like running Bolts on our platform, especially on a large screen is like considerably cheaper than it would probably take anyone to put the open source model out there and run it. And on top of the infrastructure, like one of the things that we've been working on is accelerating the models. So, you know. Our small molecule screening pipeline is 10x faster on Bolts Lab than it is in the open source, you know, and that's also part of like, you know, building a product, you know, of something that scales really well. And we really wanted to get to a point where like, you know, we could keep prices very low in a way that it would be a no-brainer, you know, to use Bolts through our platform.Gabriel [01:08:52]: How do you think about validation of your like agentic systems? Because, you know, as you were saying earlier. Like we're AlphaFold style models are really good at, let's say, monomeric, you know, proteins where you have, you know, co-evolution data. But now suddenly the whole point of this is to design something which doesn't have, you know, co-evolution data, something which is really novel. So now you're basically leaving the domain that you thought was, you know, that you know you are good at. So like, how do you validate that?RJ [01:09:22]: Yeah, I like every complete, but there's obviously, you know, a ton of computational metrics. That we rely on, but those are only take you so far. You really got to go to the lab, you know, and test, you know, okay, with this method A and this method B, how much better are we? You know, how much better is my, my hit rate? How stronger are my binders? Also, it's not just about hit rate. It's also about how good the binders are. And there's really like no way, nowhere around that. I think we're, you know, we've really ramped up the amount of experimental validation that we do so that we like really track progress, you know, as scientifically sound, you know. Yeah. As, as possible out of this, I think.Gabriel [01:10:00]: Yeah, no, I think, you know, one thing that is unique about us and maybe companies like us is that because we're not working on like maybe a couple of therapeutic pipelines where, you know, our validation would be focused on those. We, when we do an experimental validation, we try to test it across tens of targets. And so that on the one end, we can get a much more statistically significant result and, and really allows us to make progress. From the methodological side without being, you know, steered by, you know, overfitting on any one particular system. And of course we choose, you know, w

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: First up—new details are emerging on what Iran is actually offering in nuclear talks with the United States, and it's a far narrower proposal than it first appeared, even as President Trump threatens to deploy a second aircraft carrier strike group if negotiations stall. Later in the show—the United States continues to take aim at Russia's shadow fleet, boarding a sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean as Washington ramps up enforcement of sanctions. Plus—China issues fresh warnings to Taiwan, reaffirming its support for so-called “reunification forces” and vowing to crack down on what Beijing calls separatists. And in today's Back of the Brief—Washington edges closer to another partial government shutdown as lawmakers remain deadlocked over funding for the Department of Homeland Security. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Glorify: Feel closer to God this year with Glorify—get full access for just $29.99 when you download the app now at https://glorify-app.com/PDB  American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.org APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB BRUNT Workwear: Get $10 Off at BRUNT with code PDB at https://www.bruntworkwear.com/PDB#Bruntpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: First up — cartel-operated drones breach U.S. airspace, triggering an emergency shutdown at El Paso International Airport and forcing the Department of Defense to step in. We'll break down what happened, why flights were grounded, and what this signals about evolving threats along the southern border. Later in the show — a new report says the White House is considering seizing Iranian oil tankers at sea as part of its pressure campaign against Tehran. We'll examine what the administration may be planning, the risks of retaliation in the Strait of Hormuz, and how this could impact global energy markets. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief.  YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Glorify: Feel closer to God this year with Glorify—get full access for just $29.99 when you download the app now at https://glorify-app.com/PDB  American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.org APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB BRUNT Workwear: Get $10 Off at BRUNT with code PDB at https://www.bruntworkwear.com/PDB#Bruntpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: While the United States response remains muted, newly released Epstein-related documents are triggering investigations, resignations, and political turmoil across Europe, with fallout reaching the highest levels of government and even the royal family in the United Kingdom. The latest on the attempted assassination of a senior Russian general, as Moscow points the finger not only at Ukraine, but also at Poland, raising fresh questions about escalation and attribution. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Ethos Life Insurance: Protect your family's future with fast, online life insurance from Ethos—get your free quote in minutes at https://Ethos.com/PDB  CBDistillery: Visit https://CBDistillery.com and use promo code PDB for 25% off your entire order! QUO: Make this the year where no opportunity slips away. Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to https://Quo.com/PDB Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: First up—public anger is flaring again across Iran, and this time the warning signs aren't just on the streets, but inside the regime itself, as unrest spreads across society and signs emerge that Iran's leadership may be preparing for instability. Later in the show—as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to meet with President Trump, new reports suggest Israel has warned Washington it may act alone if Iran crosses a ballistic missile red line. Plus—Russia's foreign minister accuses the White House of backing out of alleged agreements tied to Ukraine, taking aim at President Trump and accusing him of so-called “Bidenism.” And in today's Back of the Brief—a chilling reminder of Beijing's tightening grip on Hong Kong, as media tycoon and democracy advocate Jimmy Lai is sentenced to twenty years in prison. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Ethos Life Insurance: Protect your family's future with fast, online life insurance from Ethos—get your free quote in minutes at https://Ethos.com/PDB  CBDistillery: Visit https://CBDistillery.com and use promo code PDB for 25% off your entire order! QUO: Make this the year where no opportunity slips away. Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to https://Quo.com/PDB Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: First up— Iran's Revolutionary Guard seizes two foreign-crewed oil tankers near critical shipping lanes, just days after IRGC gunboats attempted to board a U.S.-flagged vessel in the Strait of Hormuz. Later in the show— Xi Jinping's military purge deepens as Beijing removes three lawmakers tied to China's defense sector following a probe into a top general. Plus— on the day the final nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia was set to expire, Washington and Moscow signal they may continue observing New START limits anyway. And in today's Back of the Brief— German police detain two men suspected of plotting to sabotage naval vessels in Hamburg, heightening concerns about covert Russian operations inside Europe. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief.  YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief CBDistillery: Visit https://CBDistillery.comand use promo code PDB for 25% off your entire order! PDS Debt: You're 30 seconds away from being debt free with PDS Debt. Get your free assessment and find the best option for you at https://PDSDebt.com/PDB Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin:  First—Behind the Kremlin's battlefield posture, Russia's economic foundation is quietly deteriorating. New data shows Moscow's budget deficit on pace to nearly triple this year, as oil and gas revenues — the lifeblood of the Russian state — plunge to their lowest levels of the Putin era. Later in the show—A top Russian military intelligence officer was shot and seriously wounded in Moscow on Friday, marking the latest attack on Russia's top brass inside the capital. I'll break down what happened, who Moscow is blaming, and how this could impact peace efforts. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief CBDistillery: Visit https://CBDistillery.com and use promo code PDB for 25% off your entire order! PDS Debt: You're 30 seconds away from being debt free with PDS Debt. Get your free assessment and find the best option for you at https://PDSDebt.com/PDB Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: First up—China unveils a Star Wars–style “space aircraft carrier,” complete with sweeping claims about hypersonic strikes and near-space dominance. We take a closer look at what Beijing is claiming—and separate fact from science fiction. Later in the show—the latest on talks between the United States, Russia, and Ukraine, with officials in Kyiv calling the discussions tough but constructive following a major prisoner exchange. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief PDS Debt: You're 30 seconds away from being debt free with PDS Debt. Get your free assessment and find the best option for you at https://PDSDebt.com/PDB Ava: See how millions are boosting their credit with Ava—download the Ava app & use code BAKER for 20% off your first year. Goldbelly: Discover iconic meals from legendary restaurants delivered nationwide with Goldbelly—get 20% off your first order at https://Goldbelly.com with promo code PDB. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: First up— Iran is on edge after a series of explosions and fires erupted across the country within days. Deadly blasts in multiple cities and a massive market fire in Tehran have fueled fear and uncertainty, as many Iranians openly doubt official explanations. Later in the show— President Donald Trump speaks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping about Ukraine, trade, and Taiwan, as Washington and Beijing prepare for a high-stakes United States state visit to China. Plus— more on a deadly insurgency in southwest Pakistan, where security forces used helicopters and drones to retake a town after days of fighting. And in today's Back of the Brief— a drawdown in Minneapolis, as the Trump administration moves to pull hundreds of federal officers out of Minnesota, scaling back the federal presence. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief PDS Debt: You're 30 seconds away from being debt free with PDS Debt. Get your free assessment and find the best option for you at https://PDSDebt.com/PDB Ava: See how millions are boosting their credit with Ava—download the Ava app & use code BAKER for 20% off your first year. Goldbelly: Discover iconic meals from legendary restaurants delivered nationwide with Goldbelly—get 20% off your first order at https://Goldbelly.com with promo code PDB. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: First up—a Russian cargo aircraft tied to Moscow's defense industry lands at a Cuban military base, raising fresh questions about renewed military coordination between Havana and the Kremlin. The flight is drawing comparisons to the secretive aircraft movements seen just weeks before Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro was taken into custody. I'll walk through what we know and why it matters. Later in the show—despite the shootdown of an Iranian drone just one day earlier, new reporting suggests Washington and Tehran are quietly preparing to resume nuclear talks in Oman. Iran is signaling it may be open to limited compromises, even as tensions remain high across the region. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief.  YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Goldbelly: Discover iconic meals from legendary restaurants delivered nationwide with Goldbelly—get 20% off your first order at https://Goldbelly.com with promo code PDB. American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.org APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB  Ridge Wallet: Upgrade your wallet today! Get 10% Off @Ridge with code PDB at https://www.Ridge.com/PDB #Ridgepod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: U.S. forces enter direct military contact with Iran after shooting down an Iranian drone approaching a U.S. aircraft carrier, followed by a second tense encounter in the Strait of Hormuz involving a U.S.-flagged merchant vessel. Ukraine agrees to a new multi-tiered ceasefire enforcement plan with Europe and the United States, even as Russia continues to hammer Ukraine's energy infrastructure with drones and missiles. The last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia is set to expire, raising new questions about the future of nuclear limits and strategic stability. And in today's Back of the Brief—the partial U.S. government shutdown comes to an end, with long-term funding for the Department of Homeland Security still unresolved. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Goldbelly: Discover iconic meals from legendary restaurants delivered nationwide with Goldbelly—get 20% off your first order at https://Goldbelly.com with promo code PDB. American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.org APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB  Ridge Wallet: Upgrade your wallet today! Get 10% Off @Ridge with code PDB at https://www.Ridge.com/PDB #Ridgepod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: First up—new reporting reveals Iran's leadership is privately warning that fear is no longer keeping the public in check, and that even a limited U.S. strike could push the regime toward a breaking point. Behind closed doors, officials are expressing alarm over public anger and internal instability, raising new questions about how close Tehran may be to the edge. Later in the show—the White House announces a new trade deal with India, as President Donald Trump moves to slash tariffs after New Delhi agrees to stop buying Russian oil, marking a significant shift in global trade and energy dynamics. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief ZBiotics: Visit https://zbiotics.com/PDB for 15% off StopBox: Get firearm security redesigned and save 15% off @StopBoxUSA with code BAKER at https://www.stopboxusa.com/BAKER#stopboxpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: First up—President Trump drops the hammer on Cuba, taking direct aim at the regime by moving to choke off its oil lifeline and escalate economic pressure on Havana. Later in the show—behind-the-scenes diplomacy may be picking up between Washington and Tehran, as mediators work to arrange a possible meeting in Ankara. Plus, a deadly wave of attacks in Pakistan sparks a sweeping security crackdown, with 145 militants killed over two days of fighting and new concerns emerging over the fragile peace with India. And in today's Back of the Brief—we follow up on a story we brought you last week, as SpaceX says it has successfully shut down Russian forces' use of stolen Starlink terminals on the battlefield in Ukraine. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief.  YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief ZBiotics: Visit https://zbiotics.com/PDB for 15% off StopBox: Get firearm security redesigned and save 15% off @StopBoxUSA with code BAKER at https://www.stopboxusa.com/BAKER#stopboxpod Stash Financial: Don't Let your money sit around. Go to https://get.stash.com/PDB to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Situation Report: American military power is gathering at Iran's doorstep, as U.S. warships and air assets move into position across the Middle East. Mike is joined by Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies to break down what Washington may be preparing for—and what signals this deployment is sending to Tehran. Later, we examine a sobering new study detailing the human cost of Russia's war in Ukraine. Seth Jones, one of the study's authors, joins us with insights on battlefield losses and what they mean going forward. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Cardiff: Get fast business funding without bank delays—apply in minutes with Cardiff and access up to $500,000 in same‑day funding at https://Cardiff.co/PDB  Nobl Travel: Protect your gear and travel smarter—NOBL's zipper-free carry-on is up to 58% off at https://NOBLTravel.com Joi + Blokes: Go to http://joiandblokes.com/PDB and use code PDB for 50% off your labs and 20% off all supplements Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: Behind the scenes, regional powers are scrambling to keep the United States and Iran from sliding toward open conflict—yet diplomatic efforts are failing and Tehran is refusing to budge on key demands, raising the risk of a broader crisis.  Later in the show—Taiwan stages a show of force with combat-readiness drills using U.S.-supplied weapons as pressure from China mounts. Plus—officers who fired shots in the fatal Minneapolis shooting of Alex Pretti have been placed on leave amid new video showing a clash with federal agents 11 days before his death.  And in today's Back of the Brief—President Trump says a shutdown deal with Democrats is close, though passage in the House remains uncertain. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.orgAPR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB. Joi + Blokes: Go to http://joiandblokes.com/PDB and use code PDB for 50% off your labs and 20% off all supplements Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin:  First—the White House is dramatically expanding its playbook against Iran, with President Trump reportedly considering some of the most aggressive military options in years. The most consequential: the possibility of U.S. special operations raids inside Iranian territory. We'll have the details. Later in the show—After weeks of punishing attacks on Ukraine's power grid, Russia has temporarily halted airstrikes on Kyiv at President Trump's urging. But with fighting continuing elsewhere and no ceasefire in place, Ukraine remains deeply skeptical about Moscow's intentions. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.org APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB. Joi + Blokes: Go to http://joiandblokes.com/PDB and use code PDB for 50% off your labs and 20% off all supplements Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: First up—nearly four years into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a new report finds Moscow's battlefield losses now exceed the combined casualties from all of its conflicts since World War Two, offering a stark picture of the war's true cost to the Kremlin. Later in the show—the United States moves to ease sanctions on Venezuela's oil industry, part of Washington's effort to reopen and stabilize the economy following the removal of Nicolás Maduro. Plus—President Trump ramps up warnings to Iran, threatening severe consequences if Tehran refuses to reach a new deal amid rising regional tensions. And in today's Back of the Brief—a public clash erupts between Poland's foreign minister and Elon Musk after reports suggest Russia may be exploiting Starlink on the battlefield in Ukraine. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Cardiff: Get fast business funding without bank delays—apply in minutes with Cardiff and access up to $500,000 in same‑day funding at https://Cardiff.co/PDB  DeleteMe: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/PDB and use promocode PDB at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: First up—according to new reporting, the CIA is launching a new operation inside post-regime Venezuela, putting U.S. intelligence at the center of Washington's early efforts on the ground as the country transitions following the collapse of Nicolás Maduro's regime.  Later in the show—the European Union has officially designated Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization in response to Tehran's violent crackdown on nationwide protests, a move that places the IRGC on par with groups like al-Qaida and ISIS and signals a hardening of European policy toward Iran.  To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Cardiff: Get fast business funding without bank delays—apply in minutes with Cardiff and access up to $500,000 in same‑day funding at https://Cardiff.co/PDB  DeleteMe: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/PDB and use promo code PDB at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: We break down the explosive U.S. military buildup around Iran as warships, strike aircraft, and air defenses arrive across the Middle East — giving President Trump powerful options on Tehran amid signs Iranian leaders may be signaling a willingness to negotiate rather than confront. A federal immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis has ignited protests and political backlash after the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis ICU nurse by a Border Patrol agent, prompting President Trump to send Border Czar Tom Homan to take charge and reset the federal response amid leadership changes on the ground.  To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief.  YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Joi + Blokes: Go to http://joiandblokes.com/PDB and use code PDB for 50% off your labs and 20% off all supplements Nobl Travel: Protect your gear and travel smarter—NOBL's zipper-free carry-on is up to 58% off at https://NOBLTravel.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: First up—sharp words out of Caracas, where Venezuela's acting leader is openly defying the Trump administration and rejecting claims she's governing at Washington's direction. Later in the show—we return to a story we've been tracking for some time: Israel's quiet support for armed Palestinian militias inside Gaza, with new reporting shedding light on its effort to weaken Hamas from within. Plus—a somber milestone in the Gaza conflict, as Israel recovers the remains of the last remaining hostage, clearing a major hurdle in the ongoing peace plan. And in today's Back of the Brief—TikTok survives Washington's ban threat, agreeing to create new U.S.-based operations in an effort to ease national security concerns. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Joi + Blokes: Go to http://joiandblokes.com/PDB and use code PDB for 50% off your labs and 20% off all supplements Nobl Travel: Protect your gear and travel smarter—NOBL's zipper-free carry-on is up to 58% off at https://NOBLTravel.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices