The Lawfare Podcast

From September 21, 2021: A new  book  by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa contains reporting about several controversial actions by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley in late 2000 and early 2021, regarding conversations with his Chinese counterparts, his discussion with senior military officers about following standard nuclear procedures (if need be), and reaching out to othe...

Lawfare  Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with  Lawfare  Senior Editors Scott Anderson, Alan Rozenshtein, and Quinta Jurecic and Executive Director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection Mary McCord about Donald Trump's picks for his Cabinet and senior-level administration positions, including Matt Gaetz as attorney general and Pete Hegseth as secretary...

Madeleine Baran and Parker Yesko, investigative reporters with the New Yorker’s In the Dark podcast, join  Lawfare  Managing Editor Tyler McBrien to discuss  In the Dark: Season 3 , which tells the story of a small group of Marines who killed 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq, on Nov. 19, 2005. They also discussed “ The War Crimes That the Military Buried ,” a new databas...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Anna Bower, Eugenia Lostri, and Roger Parloff to discuss the week’s big national security news, including: “Putting the Dismal in Dismissal.” Donald Trump’s election as president for a second time puts the state and federal criminal charges against him—and potentially some of his supporters and co-conspirators—in unprecedented historical territ...

On this episode,  Lawfare  Contributing Editor Justin Sherman sits down with Jacqueline Ford and Ronnie Solomon, attorneys in the FTC Division of Privacy & Identity Protection, to discuss the FTC’s new 6(b)  staff report  on the data practices of nine social media and video streaming companies, from Twitch to Discord to YouTube. They discussed the report’s findings on...

Eugenia Lostri, Senior Editor at  Lawfare , sat down with Jonathan Horowitz, Deputy Head of the Legal Department to the ICRC’s Delegation for the United States and Canada, to discuss his recent article, “ The Business of Battle: The Role of Private Tech in Conflict .” They talked about how international humanitarian law principles can affect the private digital sector, the risks that tec...

As the U.S. tries to come to grips with a resurgence of political violence in recent years, it's instructive to look at how the norm against political violence eroded during the late Roman Republic and contributed to ultimately autocratic rule. Catherine Steel, Professor of Classics at the University of Glasgow, specializes in the political history of the Roman Republic and its instituti...

Jack Goldsmith sits down with Keith Whittington, David Boies Professor of Law at Yale Law School, to discuss his new book , “The Impeachment Power: The Law, Politics, and Purpose of an Extraordinary Constitutional Tool.” They discuss what the Constitution says about the impeachment power, how we should think about high crimes and misdemeanors, why impeachment shows that Congress is the preeminent...

From February 10, 2018: In his recent New York Times bestseller “Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic,” David Frum, senior editor of The Atlantic, lays out a compelling account of how President Donald Trump’s tendencies could push the United States toward the illiberalism that many Americans believe the republican system of government to be immune to. In an event on Feb. 7 at the B...

From November 12, 2016: This week, the  Lawfare Podcast  brings you a joint episode of the show together with  Rational Security.  The usual  Rational Security  gang—Shane, Ben, Tamara, and Susan—reflect on the results of the election and ask: What national security themes drove Donald Trump's supporters? What challenges does Trump face forming a government? And how w...

Lawfare  Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with  Lawfare  Senior Editors Molly Reynolds and Quinta Jurecic to discuss how Congress may change given the results of the 2024 election, what congressional oversight might look like during President-elect Donald Trump’s second term, how Congress will work with Trump’s administration, and more in a  live recording on  Lawf...

Today, Lawfare General Counsel and Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson and Lawfare Contributing Editor Brandon Van Grack sat down with Devin DeBacker, the Chief of the Foreign Investment Review Section at the U.S. Department of Justice, to talk about the new program his office is setting up regulating foreign transactions involving bulk data on Americans. Together, they discussed the contours of the n...

This episode of “Lawfare Live: Trump’s Trials and Tribulations,” was recorded on November 7 in front of a live audience on  YouTube  and Zoom. Lawfare  Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to  Lawfare  Senior Editors Scott R. Anderson, Anna Bower, and Roger Parloff about how Donald Trump winning the 2024 presidential election will impact the criminal cases against him, hi...

On Tuesday, November 5, former President Trump won the 2024 presidential election, becoming the second president to win a non-consecutive second term.  Lawfare  Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with  Lawfare  Senior Editors Alan Rozenshtein, Scott R. Anderson, Anna Bower, and Quinta Jurecic to discuss what happens now. They talk about what a second Trump administration...

For today’s special episode, Lawfare General Counsel and Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson held a series of conversations with contributors to a special series of articles on “ The Dangers of Deploying the Military on U.S. Soil ” that Lawfare recently published on its website, in coordination with our friends at Protect Democracy. Participants include: Alex Tausanovitch, Policy Advocate at Protect D...

It’s Election Day, but we’re not talking about the campaign. Shane Harris welcomes Tim Naftali back to the show to talk about Americans’ fascination with the presidency. When did the “modern presidency” begin? When did voters and the press become fixated on presidents’ private lives? And what do we get wrong about the nation’s highest office?  Naftali, a presidential historian, was last on Ch...

Dakota Cary, Strategic Advisory Consultant at SentinelOne, joins  Lawfare  Senior Editor Eugenia Lostri, to discuss his  article  on U.S. attempts to deter Chinese hacking group Volt Typhoon. They talk about why Volt Typhoon won’t stop its intrusions against critical infrastructure, whether other hacking groups can be deterred, and where we should focus our attention to counter...

An old Soviet bioweapons lab shows new sign of life—and growth. Thousands of North Korean soldiers are in Russia to fight against Ukraine. And Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to have Elon Musk's direct line. What's going on in Russia?  Lawfare 's Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sits down with Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman and Tim Mak of The Counteroffensive to talk through the new...

From May 1, 2018: Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, authors of the new book “How Democracies Die,” join Benjamin Wittes for a conversation about the conditions under which democracies survive and how American democracy can survive its experiment with populism. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a  Lawfare  Material Supporter at  www.patreon.com/lawfare . You can also support&nbsp...

This episode of “Lawfare Live: National Security and the 2024 Election,” was recorded on October 29 in front of a live audience on  YouTube  and Zoom.  Lawfare  Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to  Lawfare  Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson, Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings Elaine Kamarck, Visiting Fellow at Brookings and director of the Katzmann In...

Lawfare Senior Editor Anna Bower and Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sit down with Senior Editor Roger Parloff to discuss David Clements, who has led religiously inspired "trainings" across the U.S. teaching citizens how to stop local election officials from certifying elections the trainees consider fraudulent. Anna describes a training she attended, and Ben discusses, and plays clips from, his t...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Alan Rozenshtein, Benjamin Wittes, and Molly Reynolds to talk through the week’s big national security news, including: “An Eye for an Iran.” After weeks of waiting, Israel finally launched the strikes on Iran it had long promised in response to the volley of missiles Iran hit it with earlier this month. Compared to expectations, the strikes we...

Nick Quested, Emmy Award-winning director, discusses with Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff his recent film, " 64 Days: The Insurrection Playbook ," about the 64 days leading up to the Jan. 6 Capitol Siege.  They discuss how he came to make the film, his interviews with Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio months before, days before, and then hours after the insurrection. They also discuss the...

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has taken a leading role in coordinating efforts to secure the 2024 election—from ensuring the physical security of election workers, to protecting election systems from cyber threats, to identifying foreign influence campaigns and preparing for deepfakes. With a week until Election Day, Senior Editors Quinta Jurecic and Eugenia Lostri sp...

Mark Pomar served as assistant director of the Russian Service at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, director of the USSR Division at the Voice of America, executive director of the Board for International Broadcasting. He joined David Priess to talk about the origins of US government-funded international broadcasting, differences between RFE/RL and VOA, tensions between strategists and pu...