The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Podcast features discussions with experts, policymakers, and opinion leaders at the nexus of national security, law, and policy. It covers topics such as foreign policy, homeland security, intelligence, cybersecurity, and governance. The show aims to provide serious analysis in an era where others avoid it. Listeners can find more at www.lawfaremedia.org.
Episodes
Rational Security: The “Forbidden Fruit” Edition
This week, Scott was joined by his Lawfare colleagues Benjamin Wittes, Michael Feinberg, and Molly Roberts to talk through the week’s big news in national security, including:“Blanche Check.” DOJ may soon have a new permanent leader, as President Trump has now formally nominated Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to the role permanently. But to secure Trump’s support, Blanche has indulged some o
Lawfare Daily: How Escalations in Lebanon May Prolong the Iran War, with Joel Braunold
For today’s episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sits down with Joel Braunold, the Managing Director of the Center Project, for the latest in their regular series on recent developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and related issues.Together, they dig into recent escalations between Israel and Lebanon and their bearing on the broader Iran conflict, including tensions between Pr
Lawfare Daily: Why Immigrants are Challenging the Conditions of their Detention
The Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement policies have resulted in an unprecedented number of people being held in detention facilities. Now, lawsuits across the country are alleging horrific conditions in those facilities, including excessive force, unsanitary conditions, and denial of medical care. On today's podcast, Executive Editor Natalie Orpett speaks with Elora Mukherj
Lawfare Daily: Congressional Resolutions to End the War in Iran
On today's podcast, Executive Editor Natalie Orpett speaks with Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson about what Congress can do to direct the president to end the war in Iran. Scott's recent article in Lawfare, “What Congressional Resolutions Mean for the War in Iran,” explained why a likely presidential veto of a War Powers Resolution is not the end of the story. The War Powers Resolution gives Congre
Lawfare Daily: Lies, Laws, and Campaigns
Senior Editor Michael Feinberg sits down with Andrew Weissmann to discuss Weissmann’s new book, “Liar's Kingdom: How to Stop Trump's Deceit and Save America,” falsehoods in political discourse, and how to possibly disincentivize lies on the campaign trail.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time d
Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, June 5
In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower, Eric Columbus, Roger Parloff, and Molly Roberts to discuss argument at the D.C. Circuit over the White House ballroom, the status of the Trump administration’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” the superseding SPLC indictment, and more.You can find information on legal challenges to
Lawfare Archive: A Victory for Guatemalan Democracy
From February 12, 2024: On January 15, Bernardo Arévalo took office as the new president of Guatemala. The transfer of power had been far from assured: after Arévalo triumphed in August elections as an anti-corruption reformer, Guatemala’s political elite did their best to throw legal obstacles in his way and prevent him from taking power. His presidency represents a stunning victory for Guatemala
Lawfare Archive: Social Security, the ‘Death Master File,’ and Immigration Enforcement
From May 2, 2025: As the Trump administration seeks to escalate its immigration crackdown, the government has turned to a concerning source of information for data on immigrants: the Social Security Administration. Reports indicate that Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative and the Department of Homeland Security successfully pushed Social Security officials to provide access to what’s common
Lawfare Daily: The Jan. 6 Pardonee Crime Wave with Katherine Pompilio
In a new report for Lawfare, Associate Editor Katherine Pompilio finds that 97 of the more than 1,500 individuals granted clemency by President Trump for their roles in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack have been arrested for, charged with, or convicted of crimes separate from Jan. 6 since their participation in the Jan. 6 riot.On today’s episode, Pompilio joins Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes to
Rational Security: The “Mosquitos and Heat and Sweaty and Eww” Edition
This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina and Managing Editor Tyler McBrien, and Lawfare Contributing Editor and Vice President of Research, Security and Defense at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Ariane Tabatabai, to talk through the week’s big news in national security, including:“The Empire Strikes Out.” Russia’s ground offensive in Ukraine a
Lawfare Daily: Drone Wars in Ukraine
"Jackie" is the call signal of an American Army veteran who volunteered in 2022 with the Ukrainian military and has been fighting the Russians ever since. He's become a significant figure in the storied Third Army Corps, which is one of the elite units of the Ukrainian military and has pioneered major advances in drone warfare. He joins Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes at the Goat Rodeo stu
Lawfare Daily: Pope Leo XIV Takes on Silicon Valley with Christopher Hale and Renée DiResta
Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical treats AI as the defining social question of our time: not just a technical shift, but a moral fight over dignity, labor, truth, war, and power.In a Lawfare Live on Substack on Wednesday, May 27, Lawfare Contributing Editor Renée DiResta talked with Christopher Hale, author of the Substack newsletter “Letters from Leo,” about the Vatican entering the AI debate, what
Lawfare Daily: Inside the Upheaval of the Second Trump Administration with Emily Bazelon
On today’s episode, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sits down with Emily Bazelon, a staff writer at the New York Times Magazine, the Truman Capote Fellow for Creative Writing and Law at Yale Law School, and the co-host of Slate’s weekly podcast, “Political Gabfest.” They discuss three stories Bazelon and her colleagues recently published in the New York Times Magazine. For this tri
Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, May 29
In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower, Eric Columbus, Roger Parloff, and Molly Roberts to discuss three legal challenges to the Trump administration’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” a federal judge’s decision to stop the shuttering of the Kennedy Center, post-dismissal developments in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case, an
Lawfare Archive: White House Pressure, the Justice Department and the Election
From October 9, 2021: The majority staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee has issued an interim report, entitled “Subverting Justice: How the Former President and His Allies Pressured DOJ to Overturn the 2020 Election.” A lot of it covers ground we knew about previously, but it contains a raft of new details about the president's pressure on the Justice Department to support his election fraud cl
Lawfare Archive: The Public Integrity Section, Threats, and Criminal Contempt with John Keller
From May 27, 2025: John Keller, now a partner at Walden, Macht, Haran, & Williams, channeled his experience as the former Chief of the Public Integrity Section at the Department of Justice to discuss three recent developments with James Pearce, Lawfare Legal Fellow. They discussed proposed changes to the Public Integrity Section that could hamper the Justice Department’s ability to i
Lawfare Daily: How Ukraine Is Winning the Drone War
Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina sits down with Jimmy Rushton, a Kyiv-based journalist and security analyst who recently published, “How Ukraine gained the upper hand in the drone war against Russia,” in the Kyiv Independent. They talk about how the balance of power in the drone war seems to have shifted in Ukraine’s favor, Russia's latest missile strike on Kyiv, and what it all means for R
Rational Security: The “Potty Like It’s 1999” Edition
This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Anna Bower and Eric Columbus, and his Brookings colleague Molly Reynolds, to talk through a couple of the week’s big news stories in domestic politics, including:“The Grift That Keeps On Giving.” Last week, the Justice Department announced the creation of a so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund of nearly 1.8 billion taxpayer dollars, from which pur
Lawfare Daily: Russia’s ‘Tradecraft, Tactics, and Dirty Tricks,’ with Sean Wiswesser
Sean Wiswesser, author of the new book, “Tradecraft, Tactics, and Dirty Tricks: Russian Intelligence and Putin’s Secret War,” and a former senior operations officer with the CIA, joins Lawfare’s Justin Sherman to discuss the major Russian security organs and their training, characteristics of Russian “sticks-and-bricks” surveillance and counter-surveillance tradecraft, and the Russians’ use of coe
Lawfare Daily: Investigating the Investigators: Sophia Yan on Journalism in the PRC
Senior Editor Michael Feinberg sits down with Sophia Yan, a senior foreign correspondent with The Telegraph, to discuss her time reporting on the Chinese government, and how it leveraged its security services to investigate her in turn. Sophia recently wrote in-depth about this experience in “The secret Chinese surveillance programme tracking people like me,” in The Telegraph.To receive ad-free po
Lawfare Daily: How the World Sees Trump’s America with Eve Fairbanks and Madeleine Schwartz
On today’s episode, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sits down with Eve Fairbanks, a writer and journalist based in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Madeleine Schwartz, founder and editor-in-chief of The Dial, a magazine of international writing, to discuss The Dial’s forthcoming book, “How We See it: The World Looks at America in the Age of Trump” (out June 9 from The New
Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, May 22
In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower, Eric Columbus, and Roger Parloff discussed the Department of Justice’s newly-announced “Anti-Weaponization Fund” which purports to “hear and redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare,” oral argument in Anthropic v. U.S. Department of War before the Court
Lawfare Archive: Why Public Health is Critical to National Security
From April 2, 2025: Atul Gawande is a surgeon and a public health expert. He's also the former head of global health at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), an agency that the Trump administration has prioritized for dismantling since its first day in office. On today's episode, Executive Editor Natalie Orpett sat down with Gawande to discuss what USAID does, the consequences of
Lawfare Archive: Former Deputy Chief of the Justice Department's Capitol Siege Section Alexis Loeb on President Trump's Pardons
From January 23, 2025: Alexis Loeb, the former Deputy Chief of the Capitol Siege Section of the Department of Justice, sits down with Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff to talk about President Trump's blanket pardons and commutations for everyone her unit prosecuted. She discusses how she became involved with the cases; how they were handled by prosecutors, judges, and juries;
Lawfare Daily: Trump Sues Self, Settles
This week, the Department of Justice announced that Trump and his sons dropped their lawsuit against the IRS and Treasury in exchange for a $1.776 billion fund for Trump’s allies and blanket immunity from government suits for the Trump family.Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes talks with Senior Editor Eric Columbus about what the settlement means, where it came from, and what can be done abou
Rational Security: The “No Banner is Safe” Edition
This week, Scott sat down with co-host emeritus Benjamin Wittes and Brookings Senior Fellow Kari Heerman to talk through the week’s big news in national security, including:“With Friends Like Xi.” This past week, top U.S. officials and business CEOs traveled with President Trump to Beijing for his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The summit had a warm air to it, with Trump going so far as
Lawfare Daily: Ancient China and Modern Politics
Senior Editor Michael Feinberg sits down with Daniel Bell, a professor at the University of Hong Kong, who recently wrote, “Why Ancient Chinese Political Thought Matters: Four Dialogues on China’s Past, Present, and Future.” They discuss the ongoing influence of ancient Chinese political theory on the contemporary policies of the PRC and its domestic debates.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a&n
Lawfare Daily: ‘The Warhead’ with Jeffery Stern
Loren Voss, Senior Editor at Lawfare, sits down with Jeffrey Stern to discuss his new book "The Warhead: The Quest to Build the Perfect Weapon in the Age of Modern Warfare."They talk about the development of the Paveway bomb and the importance of precision weapons to modern warfare. Stern grapples with their complicated effects on warfare, both adding precision to warfare that can reduce civi
Lawfare Daily: The Costs (and Cultural Cachet) of the Cambridge Spies
Senior Editor Michael Feinberg sits down with Antonia Senior, whose new book on the history of the Cambridge spy ring, “Stalin's Apostles: The Cambridge Five and the Making of the Soviet Empire,” comes out in the United States at end of this month. They talk about the history of the spy ring, how they were recruited, how they were unmasked, and their lasting effect on the culture of espionage.To r
Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, May 15
In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower, Eric Columbus, and Roger Parloff to discuss Judge Boulee denying Fulton County’s motion for the return of the 2020 election ballots seized by the FBI, a judge ordering the National Endowment for Humanities to rescind DOGE-backed cancellation of grants, oral argument in Mark K
Lawfare Archive: How China Might Coerce Taiwan
From May 15, 2025: For today's episode, Lawfare Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman talked with Evan Braden Montgomery and Toshi Yoshihara, both Senior Fellows at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, to discuss their recent Lawfare article, "Beijing's Changing Invasion Calculus: How China Might Put Taiwan in its Crosshairs." Together they discuss how China mi
Lawfare Archive: A Very Special Grand Jury Report
From January 10, 2023: District Attorney of Fulton County Fani Willis has completed her special grand jury investigation of election tampering in 2020. The special purpose grand jury has completed its report and has been dissolved, and the supervising judge yesterday scheduled a hearing for January 24 to decide whether to make the report public. What will happen next? Will there be indictments? Ar
Lawfare Daily: Corruption, Coverups, and Crisis in Domestic Ukrainian Politics
Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina sits down with Danylo Mokryk, a war crimes investigator at the Kyiv Independent and the author of a YouTube blog about domestic Ukrainian Politics, to talk about the latest corruption saga engulfing the Ukrainian government—and why, despite so many arrows pointing toward Zelensky personally, no one is calling for his removal.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a&
Rational Security: The "Middle-Aged Dads" Edition
This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Senior Editor Michael Feinberg and Foreign Policy Editor Dana Stuster for a little chat with the guys about the week’s big national security news stories, including:“Minding Your Bs and Ts.” President Trump arrived in China this week alongside top U.S. officials and business executives for a much-anticipated summit with President Xi Jinping. U.
Lawfare Daily: Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) on Congress’s Role in Foreign Affairs
On today’s episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sits down with Rep. Sara Jacobs, who represents California’s 51st congressional district. As a member of the House armed services and foreign affairs committees, Rep. Jacobs has taken a lead role on an array of foreign affairs-related legislation. Before being elected to Congress, she worked for the U.S. Department of State and the United
Lawfare Daily: Terrorism and Insurgency in sub-Saharan Africa
For today's episode, Lawfare Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman sits down with Holly Berkley Fletcher, former CIA Africa analyst, and Alexander Palmer, fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to discuss the growth of terrorism and instability in East and West Africa, the fragility of regional governments, and how the United States and other outsi
Lawfare Daily: Russian PMCs Update with Candace Rondeaux
Candace Rondeaux, the founder and principal of Frontline Atlas, an independent geopolitical risk intelligence hub; a professor with the Future Security Initiative at Arizona State University; and a senior fellow in global security at New America joins Lawfare’s Justin Sherman to discuss the latest geopolitics, operations, and state of Russian private military companies (PMCs). They discuss the cur
Lawfare Daily: What the War Powers Resolution Means for Iran
In February, the Trump administration launched Operation Epic Fury in Iran—without congressional approval. The War Powers Resolution is supposed to constrain the president's ability to wage war. But is it? On today's podcast, Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett talks with Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson about what that law says, whether it's affecting the administration's conduct, and how
Lawfare Archive: Pam Samuelson on Copyright's Threat to Generative AI
From July 17, 2023: The only thing more impressive than the performance of generative AI systems like GPT-4 and Stable Diffusion is the sheer volume of training data that went into these systems. GPT was reportedly trained on, essentially, the entire Internet, while Stable Diffusion and other image-generation models rely on hundred of millions if not billions of existing pieces of artwork. Of cour
Lawfare Archive: Orin Kerr on the Digital Fourth Amendment
From January 9, 2025: Jack Goldsmith sits down with Orin Kerr, a Professor at Stanford Law School, to discuss his new book, “The Digital Fourth Amendment: Privacy and Policing in Our Online World.” They talk about how Kerr became interested in these issues, the history and physicality assumptions of the Fourth Amendment, and how and why the digital world is different. They also discuss how th
Lawfare Daily: The Supreme Court’s Long Shadow with Steve Vladeck and Kate Klonick
On May 7, Lawfare Senior Editor Kate Klonick sat down for a live discussion on Substack with Steve Vladeck, a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center, to discuss the impact of the New York Times’ “shadow papers” story, the continued omnipresence of the shadow docket, and the courts v. Court in this administration.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Sup
Rational Security: The “I’ve Never Done THAT Before!” Edition
This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Molly Roberts, Roger Parloff, and Tyler McBrien to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including:“Jim Spells Seashells By the Seashore.” Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted again this past week, this time for allegedly threatening the life of the president by spelling “8647” in shells at the beach and posting an
Lawfare Daily: An Insider’s Account of the Trump Administration’s Dismantling of USAID
On today’s podcast, Lawfare Associate Editor for Communications Anna Hickey talks to Nicholas Enrich, former acting assistant administrator of Global Health at USAID, about his book, “Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower's Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID.” Enrich details the agency's dismantling during the early months of the Trump administration and whether those doing th
Lawfare Daily: Patrick Radden Keefe on ‘London Falling’
Patrick Radden Keefe, a staff writer at the New Yorker and the author of “Say Nothing” and “Empire of Pain,” sits down with Lawfare Associate Editor Peter Beck to discuss his most recent book, “London Falling.” The two talk about Radden Keefe’s investigation of a London teenager’s fatal plunge into the Thames, the United Kingdom’s acquiescence to foreign influence, and his proc
Lawfare Daily: Chatting on Chatrie with Adam Unikowsky, Michael Dreeben, and Richard Salgado
Lawfare Senior Editor Kate Klonick speaks with former Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben; lecturer in law at Stanford, Richard Salgado; and attorney Adam Unikowsky, to discuss the geofencing Fourth Amendment case that was heard Monday, April 27 in the Supreme Court, Chatrie v. United States.They discuss the background of the case with their unique perspecti
Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, May 1
In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower, Molly Roberts, and Roger Parloff and Lawfare Contributing Editor Nicholas Bednar to discuss the second indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, a judge finding that he has jurisdiction over Maureen Comey’s litigation challenging the Justice Department’s firing of her la
Lawfare Archive: Carrie Cordero and Paul Rosenzweig Weigh in on Comey
From June 9, 2017: As the dust settles following former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Lawfare Podcast brings you expert views on what exactly happened yesterday and what it means for the Trump administration going forward. Benjamin Wittes sat down with Carrie Cordero, a former attorney at the National Security Division of the
Lawfare Archive: Bananas and Corporate Accountability for Human Rights
From June 26, 2024: On June 10, the jury reached a verdict in the federal trial against Chiquita Banana. It found that the company had financed a paramilitary group in Colombia in the late 1990s and early 2000s, resulting in the deaths of eight men, and it awarded the victims' families $38 million in damages. It's the culmination of a 17-year-long multi-district litigation that had faced significa
Scaling Laws: Identifying the Myths and Facts of AI's Environmental Impact with Gavin McCormick
In this episode of Scaling Laws, we explore how the "black box" of global greenhouse gas emissions is being cracked open by artificial intelligence and satellite imagery. Kevin Frazier is joined by Gavin McCormick, who leads Watt Time and ClimateTrace, a global coalition that has revolutionized the process of identifying and quantifying emissions. For decades, climate policy has relied on self-rep
Rational Security: The “Tavern Style” Edition
This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Executive Editor Natalie Orpett and Contributing Editors Ariane Tabatabai and Joel Braunold, to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including:“The Art of the Heel.” As it approaches the 60-day mark, the war of Iran appears to have entered the “war of attrition” stage. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed by both Iran and
Lawfare Daily: The Dangers of Privatized, Automated Immigration Enforcement
Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sits down with Chinmayi Sharma, an associate professor at Fordham Law School and a contributing editor at Lawfare, to discuss Sharma’s forthcoming law review article, “Immigration Enforcement Intermediaries.”They discuss the U.S. federal government’s increasingly privatized and automated system of immigration enforcement—which Sharma descri
Lawfare Daily: The Explosive Mystery That Rocked Rural Georgia
In 1979, a man using a pseudonym built a strange monument in Elberton, Georgia. Called “America’s Stonehenge" by some, the massive granite monolith known as the Georgia Guidestones attracted conspiracy theories and controversy until July 2022, when someone blew them up. Those two mysteries—who built the Guidestones and who destroyed them—are at the heart of a new narrative podcast series from
Lawfare Daily: The Shadowy World of Ransomware with Professor Anja Shortland
Lawfare Book Review Editor Jonathan Cedarbaum sits down with Anja Shortland, professor of political economy at King's College London, to discuss her new book, "Dark Screens: Hackers and Heroes in the Shadowy World of Ransomware." The book offers a history of the development of ransomware into perhaps the most important form of cyber crime, costing the global economy $75 billion a year.&n
Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, April 24
In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower, Eric Columbus, and Roger Parloff and Lawfare Public Service Fellow Troy Edwards to discuss the indictment of the SPLC, the DOJ dropping its investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell, the government’s renewed attempt to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and more.You can find infor
Lawfare Archive: Elle Reeve on "Black Pill" and Alt-Right Internet Culture
From December 17, 2024: CNN correspondent Elle Reeve has spent the last decade reporting on extremism in the United States. Her book, "Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society and Capture American Politics" provides an insider's glimpse into the "insidious"—and underestimated—world of alt-right internet culture that is now at the center of t
Lawfare Archive: When Lawyers Spread Disinformation
From August 5, 2022: A few weeks ago on Arbiters of Truth, our series on the online information system, we brought you a conversation with two emergency room doctors about their efforts to push back against members of their profession spreading falsehoods about the coronavirus. Today, we’re going to take a look at another profession that’s been struggling to counter lies and falsehoods within its
Lawfare Daily: The TPS Cases at the Supreme Court, with Geoffrey Pipoly and Andrew Tauber
Geoffrey Pipoly and Andrew Tauber, partners at the Bryan Cave law firm, speak with Senior Editor Roger Parloff about their case, known at the Supreme Court level as Trump v. Miot. In it, they have been fighting to preserve Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 350,000 Haitian immigrants. The Court is hearing the case on April 29, along with Mullin v. Dahlia Doe, which concerns the governm
Lawfare Daily: Breaking Down the Lebanon Ceasefire
On today's episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sits down with several leading experts to break down the recent ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel and what it might mean for their ongoing conflict, and the broader conflict with Iran.Joel Braunold is a contributing editor at Lawfare as well as the managing director of the Center Project. Dan Byman is a foreign policy editor at Lawfare
Lawfare Daily: ‘The Criminal State’ with Lawrence Douglas
On today’s episode, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sits down with Lawrence Douglas, the James J. Grosfeld Professor of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought at Amherst College to discuss Douglas’s new book, “The Criminal State: War, Atrocity, and the Dream of International Justice.”They talk about how and why international criminal justice shifted from a focus at Nuremberg o
Lawfare Daily: DOJ’s Very Online Civil Rights Head, with Quinta Jurecic and Anna Bower
In her recent profile of Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Department of Justice, The Atlantic’s Quinta Jurecic writes, “Dhillon’s leadership of the division is both the next step in the natural progression of a career spent needling liberals and a preview of what is to come if she continues to rise within the Justice Department.” But, Jurecic notes, Dhil
Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, April 17
In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower, Eric Columbus, and Roger Parloff to discuss the disbarment of John Eastman, the Justice Department dropping the last Jan. 6 criminal matters, a warrant issued in the first state criminal charges against an ICE agent, the firing of 6 immigration judges, and more. You can find
Lawfare Archive: Hunter Marston on the South China Sea
From October 25, 2024: Hunter Marston, PhD candidate at the Australian National University and Southeast Asia Associate at 9DashLine, joins Kevin Frazier, Assistant Professor at St. Thomas University College of Law and a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to explore the economic and geopolitical significance of the South China Sea. Hunter leans on his extensive knowledge of Southeast Asian politics a
Lawfare Archive: The New January 6 Reports
From January 6, 2025: On today’s podcast, Lawfare Senior Editor and Brookings Senior Fellow Molly Reynolds is joined by Quinta Jurecic, a Fellow at Brookings and Senior Editor at Lawfare, and Ryan Reilly, Justice Reporter at NBC News, to discuss a long-awaited report on Jan. 6 from the Department of Justice’s Inspector General, as well as a new report from House Republicans focusing
Lawfare Daily: The Justice Department Throws Out the Proud Boys and Oath Keeper Cases
The Justice Department has moved the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to drop the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys seditious conspiracy cases, the last remaining criminal matters arising from the Jan. 6 insurrection. Lawfare’s editor in chief, Benjamin Wittes, sits down with four contributors who had intimate involvement with the cases to discuss the decision: Senior Editor Roger Parloff, who covered both
Lawfare Daily: Crypto, Corruption, and Cons, with Ben McKenzie
Ben McKenzie, co-author of “Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud,” and writer and director of the new documentary, “Everyone Is Lying to You for Money,” sits down with Lawfare Senior Editor Michael Feinberg about his years-long deep dive into the cryptocurrency industry and why his research makes him skeptical of its literal and figurative value.To receive ad-
Lawfare Daily: Frank Dikötter on the Early Years of Chinese Communism
Lawfare Senior Editor Michael Feinberg and historian Frank Dikötter, the author of “Red Dawn Over China: How Communism Conquered a Quarter of Humanity,” discuss the early years of the Chinese communist movement, the American reaction to its successes, and how our current understanding of the era greatly differs from our previous assumptions.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare M
Lawfare Daily: Sam Altman with Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz
Senior Editor Kate Klonick interviews reporters Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz on their recent article in the New Yorker, titled “Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted?” In their 16,000-word piece, Farrow and Marantz create a cohesive narrative with receipts around Sam Altman, the products he's building at OpenAI, and how he's selling them not just to investors and the pub
Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, April 10
In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Molly Roberts, Eric Columbus, and Roger Parloff to discuss Judge Friedman rejecting the Defense Department’s revised press rules, the D.C. Circuit denying Anthropic’s petition for a stay pending review of the enforcement of its supply chain designation, Judge Sorokin rejecting the Justic
Lawfare Archive: Aram Gavoor on the Biden Administration’s AI National Security Memo
From October 28, 2024: Aram Gavoor, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at GW Law, joins Kevin Frazier, Senior Research Fellow in the Constitutional Studies Program at the University of Texas at Austin and a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to summarize and analyze the first-ever national security memo on AI. The two also discuss what this memo means for AI policy going forward, given the impending
Lawfare Archive: Election Anxieties and the U.S. Postal Service with Kevin Kosar and Anne Joseph O’Connell
From September 1, 2020: On August 13, President Trump said in a news interview that he opposed supplemental funding for the United States Postal Service because such funding is needed for the delivery of universal mail-in ballots for the 2020 election. His comments sparked panic about whether the Trump administration is slowing Postal Service delivery in order to sway the election. Images of blue
Scaling Laws: How to Use, Govern, and Lead on AI? Rep. Begich Points the Path Forward
Representative Nick Begich, Alaska's at-large member of Congress, joins Kevin Frazier, Director of the AI Innovation and Law Program at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Fellow at the Abundance Institute, to discuss the current state of AI policy on the Hill. As one of the few members of Congress with a background in tech, Rep. Begich offers a unique perspective on this evolving r
Rational Security: The “Deeply Iran-ic” Edition
This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Daniel Byman, Tyler McBrien, and Natalie Orpett to talk through aspects of the week’s biggest Iran-focused news stories, including:“Situational Iran-y.” The world came into Tuesday evening fearing a major escalation in the ongoing U.S. and Israeli conflict with Iran. But instead, President Trump made a last-minute choice to accept a two-week ce
Lawfare Daily: Katherine Pompilio on Tracking Government Non-Compliance in Habeas Corpus Cases
What does it look like when the government violates court orders in more than 350 separate immigration habeas cases?On today’s episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Molly Roberts sits down with Lawfare Associate Editor Katherine Pompilio to discuss Lawfare’s new interactive tracker, which documents what is known about instances in which the Trump administration has failed to comply with federal court ord
Lawfare Daily: Yaqiu Wang on Surveillance, Censorship, and Emerging Technologies in the PRC
Lawfare Senior Editor Michael Feinberg sits down with human rights advocate Yaqiu Wang to discuss the role of emerging technologies in China’s surveillance and censorship apparatus.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-ins
Lawfare Daily: Arne Westad on ‘The Coming Storm’
Lawfare Senior Editor Michael Feinberg and Professor Arne Westad of Yale University, author of “The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History,” discuss 19th- and 20th-century power politics, the contemporary rise of China, and how the former can inform reactions to the latter.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare.
Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, April 3
In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Molly Roberts, Anna Bower, and Roger Parloff and Lawfare Associate Editor Katherine Pompilio to discuss Lawfare’s new database which is tracking the non-compliance with court orders by the government, Pam Bondi being fired as attorney general, legal challenges to President Trump’s new el
Lawfare Archive: A World Without Caesars
From March 14, 2025: This episode of the Lawfare Podcast features Glen Weyl, economist and author at Microsoft Research; Jacob Mchangama, Executive Director of the Future of Free Speech Project at Vanderbilt; and Ravi Iyer, Managing Director of the USC Marshall School Neely Center. Together with Renee DiResta, Associate Research Professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georget
Lawfare Archive: How to Steal a Presidential Election
From March 4, 2024: As the 2024 presidential election approaches, a vital question is whether the legal architecture governing the election is well crafted to prevent corruption and abuse. In their new book, “How to Steal a Presidential Election,” Lawrence Lessig and Matthew Seligman argue that despite the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022, serious abuse of the presidential election rules remains
Lawfare Daily: The Privacy Law That's Supposed To Be Protecting Us Online Turns 40
The Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which is designed to protect users' privacy—including privacy online—turned 40 this year. On March 6, Lawfare hosted an event at Georgetown Law marking the event and featuring panel discussions with the authors of our paper series, Installing Updates to ECPA, in which experts from various disciplines reflected on the law, what’s changed over the last 40 y
Rational Security: The "Chicken Sh*t Bingo" Edition
This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Senior Editors Anna Bower, Kevin Frazier, and Kate Klonick to talk through the week’s big news in national security, including:“The X Post Facto Rule.” The Justice Department and lawyers representing Anthropic faced off last week in a Northern California courtroom over whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s X post and som related communicatio
Recommended
15 Minute Mysteries: The Deep Dive
15 minutes de grâce et de vérité
15 Minutes of Infamy
15 Minutes with Jesus: Christian Meditation, Guided Prayer, Bible Study, Emotional Healing, Devotional, Hear God’s Voice
180Podcast.
1856 Podcast-YMCA of South Hampton Roads
1984
1984, by George Orwell
19 Keys Presents High Level Conversations
19 Observations on mining and refining of critical minerals
1A
1Dime Radio
