Rational Security

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Editor in Chief and co-host emeritus Benjamin Wittes and Senior Editors Anna Bower and Michael Feinberg to talk through the latest in national security news, including: “Humphrey’s Executioner.” On June 29, the Supreme Court closed out its term with a trio of decisions on the president’s power to fire officials at supposedly independent agencie...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Kevin Frazier, Roger Parloff, and Molly Roberts to talk through some of the week’s big news in AI, including: “Citizen Cain’t.” When the NAACP sued Elon Musk’s xAI under the Clean Air Act—alleging that the company built dozens of gas-fired turbines to power a data center in Mississippi without relevant air permits and exposing nearby, predomina...

This week, Scott sat down with cohost emeritus and Lawfare Research Director Alan Rozenshtein, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien, Lawfare Public Service Fellow Julia Curlee, 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 national security news stories, including: “Fis...

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...

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...

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 pu...

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 a...

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...

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 a...

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...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Eric Columbus, Molly Roberts, and Loren Voss to talk through a few of the week’s big news stories, including: •“Meet Joe Flack.” The Justice Department’s ongoing investigation into the alleged “grand conspiracy” against President Trump in relation to the 2016 elections and their aftermath has entered a new phase this week with the appointment o...

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 c...

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 communicati...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Molly Roberts, Tyler McBrien, and Renée DiResta to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including: “The Meta-verse of Madness.” On Tuesday, a New Mexico jury reached a $375 million verdict against Meta after a seven-week trial that focused on whether the social media company knowingly harmed children’s mental health and f...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Benjamin Wittes, Natalie Orpett, and Ariane Tabatabai to talk through the week’s big news in national security, including: “Keeping It On the Strait and Narrow.” Three weeks into the U.S. and Israel’s air campaign against Iran, ship traffic through the critical Strait of Hormuz remains at a virtual stop, sending crude oil prices north of $100 a...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Kate Klonick, Molly Roberts, and Troy Edwards to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including: “MisAnthropic.” On Monday, Anthropic filed a civil complaint in the Northern District of California and a petition for hearing at the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit over the Department of Defense’s designation of the fr...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Benjamin Wittes, Daniel Byman, and Ari Tabatabai for an in-depth discussion of the U.S. military operations against Iran, including: “Isn’t it Iran-ic.” Trump’s decision to join Israel in removing Ayatollah Khamanei reflects a deep reversal by the president, who has spent years criticizing his predecessors’ own experiences with regime change an...

This week, Scott was joined by Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien, Lawfare Senior Editor Molly Roberts, and University of Virginia Professor of Law Paul Stephan to talk through the week’s big news in national security, including: “Textual Healing.” On Friday, a 6-3 Supreme Court majority brought an end to at least the current iteration of President Trump’s controversial tariff policies, ruling...

This week, Scott sat down with his foreign-policy-minded colleagues Daniel Byman, Michael Feinberg, and Ari Tabatabai to talk through some recent big news stories around the world, including: “Beer Hall Push-back.” Over the weekend, a raft of bipartisan U.S. and European officials headed to Bavaria for the annual Munich Security Conference. Last year, Vice President J.D. Vance gave a barnburner of...

This week, Scott sat down with Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes, who recently returned from Ukraine, and Lawfare ’s Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina, to go through the latest developments in that country, including: “Cold War.” Russia’s ongoing winter campaign against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has created a humanitarian crisis in many parts of the country. In Kyiv, at least one major power...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Molly Roberts, Michael Feinberg, and Troy Edwards to talk through the week’s big warrant-related national security news, including: “Tulsi Went Down to Georgia, She Was Looking for a Vote to Steal.” This past week, the FBI executed a warrant to search Fulton County’s election center for ballots and equipment related to the 2020 election, with t...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Alan Rozenshtein, Eric Columbus, and Molly Roberts for a deep dive into two of the week’s big national security news stories: “Slipping Down the Slope.” Last week’s killing of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has triggered what increasingly appears to be a national backlash against the Trump a...

This week, Scott sat down with co-host emeritus Shane Harris and Lawfare colleagues Anna Bower and Loren Voss to talk through yet another big week in national security, including: “Minnesota N(ICE).” Amidst ongoing tensions over the Trump administration’s hyper aggressive immigration enforcement tactics in Minnesota, the Justice Department has issued subpoenas to at least five state Democratic off...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Tyler McBrien, Michael Feinberg, and Ariane Tabatabai to talk through the week’s big news in national security, including: “Between Iraq and a Hard Place.” Iran is engaged in perhaps its most serious bout of domestic unrest in a decade, spurred on by a failing economy and the seeming political weakness of the regime after its devastating milita...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Benjamin Wittes, Natalie Orpett, and Molly Roberts for a special deep-dive into the intervention in Venezuela, including: “A Hop, Skip, and Jump Across the Rubicon.” This past weekend, the Trump administration took the step that Trump has been threatening for months: he deployed special operations to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro a...