The Lawfare Podcast

Katsiaryna Shmatsina, Eurasia Fellow at Lawfare , is joined by Beverly Ochieng, senior security analyst at Control Risks and non-resident expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), to examine how external powers compete for influence in Africa—and how African states are responding. They discuss the shifting priorities of the second Trump administration, including a “trade...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Senior Fellow Eric Columbus, Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina, and Public Service Fellow Loren Voss to talk through the week’s big news in national security, including: “Visiting Concessions.” President Trump once again turned his focus to the conflict in Ukraine, announcing last week that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin would be meet...

For today's episode,  Lawfare  Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman sits down with Holly Berkley Fletcher, a former senior CIA Africa analyst, to discuss the recent coup in Madagascar and the death of Kenyan opposition leader and political giant, Raila Odinga.  They discuss the reasons for the coup and how Madagascar's neighbors might respond. Berkley Fletcher also explained Odin...

In a  Lawfare Live , The Now on October 20,   Lawfare  Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with  Lawfare  Senior Editor Anna Bower to discuss  her article about how interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan reached out to her on Signal —and the conversation that followed. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a  Lawfare  Material Supporter at  www.patre...

In this episode, Lawfare ’s Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina sits down with Eric Ciaramella, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Mykhailo Soldatenko, a scholar of international law and a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School, to discuss the latest meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, armed neutrality for Ukraine, and how Ukraine can nudge the...

In a  live conversation on  YouTube,  Lawfare  Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with  Lawfare  Public Service Fellows Loren Voss and Michael Feinberg and   Senior Editors Roger Parloff and Eric Columbus to discuss the legal challenges to the National Guard deployment in Chicago, the indictment of John Bolton, a judge preventing the firing of federal emplo...

Yesterday marked the two-year anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Around 80,000 Afghans were relocated during the withdrawal, and many do not have a pathway to permanent citizenship here in the United States. To get a sense of those immigration challenges and the potential for congressional action on those issues, Bryce Klehm sat down with Shala Gafary, the Managing Attorney of Pr...

Lawfare  Fellow in Technology Policy and Law Eugenia Lostri sits down with Esteban Carisimo, a Postdoctoral Researcher at Northwestern University to talk about the digital repression in Venezuela after the recent elections. Carisimo co-authored a recent  report  on the effects of the Venezuelan crisis on internet infrastructure. They discuss how internet censorship impacts the prote...

Mosharaf Chowdhury, Associate Professor at the University of Michigan and Director of the ML Energy lab, and Dan Zhou, former Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Lincoln Lab, MIT Supercomputing Center, and MIT CSAIL, join Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare , to discuss the energy costs of AI.  They break down ex...

Lawfare  Public Service Fellow Michael Feinberg sits down with Jake Tapper, the lead Washington anchor for CNN, to discuss his new book, “ Race Against Terror: Chasing an Al Qaeda Killer at the Dawn of the Forever War .” The book chronicles the investigation, prosecution, and ultimate conviction of Spin Ghul, an Al Qaeda operative who became the first major international terrorist tried in a...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Benjamin Wittes, Kate Klonick, and newly-minted Senior Editor Molly Roberts to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including: “Peace by Piece.” The first phase of the Trump administration’s peace plan for Gaza went into effect on Monday, resulting in the return of the last living hostages held by Hamas to Israel, among o...

Lawfare  Contributor Mykhailo Soldatenko sits down with Serhii Plokhii, Harvard History Professor and a leading authority on the history of the Cold War and Ukraine, to discuss his new book, " The Nuclear Age: An Epic Race for Arms, Power and Survival ," that tells a history of nuclear proliferation and international efforts to tame it. They discuss the role of fear and prestige in a country'...

Erie Meyer, Senior Fellow at Georgetown Law’s Institute for Technology Law & Policy and Senior Fellow at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, and Laura Edelson, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Northeastern University, who are coauthors of the recent toolkit, “ Working with Technologists: Recommendations for State Enforcers and Regulators ,” join  Lawfare ’s Justin Sherman to disc...

In a  live conversation on  YouTube,  Lawfare  Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with  Lawfare  Public Service Fellow Loren Voss and   Senior Editors Anna Bower, Roger Parloff, Eric Columbus, and Molly Roberts to discuss the legal challenges to the National Guard deployment in Portland and Chicago, a hearing over the attempted deportation of Kilmar Abrego...

From January 19, 2024: Last week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reached a settlement with location data broker X-Mode Social. X-Mode collects over 10 billion location data points from all over the world every day, and sells it to clients in a range of industries, like advertisers, consulting firms, and private government contractors. The FTC argued that the data broker was conducting unfair b...

From October 10, 2023: This morning,  Lawfare  Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes connected with his old friend Noah Efron about the weekend's events in Israel. Noah is a professor at Bar-Ilan University, a prolific essayist and writer, and the host of The Promised Podcast, a podcast on Israeli life, politics, and culture. In an interview punctuated twice by missile attacks, they discussed...

David Sullivan, Executive Director of the Digital Trust & Safety Partnership, and Rayi Iyer, Managing Director of the Psychology of Technology Institute at USC’s Neely Center, join Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at  Lawfare , to discuss the evolution of the Trust & Safety field and its relevance to ongoing conve...

Jen Roberts, Associate Director of the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative, and Sarah Graham, Research Consultant with the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative, who are coauthors along with Nitansha Bansal of the recent paper, “ Mythical Beasts: Diving Into the Depths of the Global Spyware Market ,” join  Lawfare ’s Justin Sherman to discuss the global spyware indust...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Managing Editor Tyler McBrien, Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman, and Public Service Fellow Loren Voss to talk through (somehow only three of) the week’s big national security news stories, including: “The Dream of the ‘90s is Alive in Portland.” This past week, the Trump administration made good on its threats to pursue further domestic milit...

On today's podcast, Executive Editor Natalie Orpett is joined by Judge Philip Pro and Judge Jeremy Fogel. Both are retired federal court judges who are members of a new organization, the  Article III Coalition , which advocates for an independent judiciary. They talk about how the courts are faring amidst the enormous stresses of the day: a huge number of legal challenges to Trump administrat...

On today’s episode,  Lawfare  Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sits down with Philippe Sands, a professor of law at the University of London and the Samuel Pisar Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School to discuss his new book, “ 38 Londres Street: On Impunity, Pinochet in England, and a Nazi in Patagonia .” They discuss the intertwined stories of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and...

In a  live conversation on  YouTube,  Lawfare  Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with  Lawfare  Senior Editors Scott Anderson, Anna Bower, Eric Columbus, and Roger Parloff to discuss a hearing in the litigation over the National Guard deployment in Portland, states suing the federal government over immigration enforcement conditions being placed on emergency ma...

From May 2, 2023: Generative AI products have been tearing up the headlines recently. Among the many issues these products raise is whether or not their outputs are protected by Section 230, the foundational statute that shields websites from liability for third-party content. On this episode of  Arbiters of Truth ,  Lawfare ’s occasional series on the information ecosystem,  Lawfar...

From September 20, 2024: Bob Bauer, Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at New York University School of Law, and Liza Goitein, Senior Director of Liberty & National Security at the Brennan Center, join Kevin Frazier, Assistant Professor at St. Thomas University College of Law and a Tarbell Fellow at  Lawfare , to review the emergency powers afforded to the presid...

In this episode, Molly Reynolds, Senior Fellow at Brookings and contributing editor at Lawfare , sits down with Nick Bednar, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota and contributing editor at Lawfare , and Sam Berger, Senior Fellow on the Federal Fiscal Policy team at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. They discuss why government shutdowns happen, what determines what fu...