The Lawfare Podcast

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 impendi...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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/law...

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/law...

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...

From March 14, 2025: This episode of the  Lawfare Podcas t 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 Geor...

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 remai...

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...

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...

In this episode, Ariane Tabatabai sits down with historian, John Ghazvinian, the author of, “ America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present ,” to discuss U.S.-Iran relations. They take a step back from the current conflict to talk about the key events that have shaped the relationship between the two countries and their perceptions of one another.  To receive ad-free podcasts, become a&nbs...

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. Together, they dig deep into the spike in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, Israel’s new military offensive in southern Lebanon, how they both relate t...

In this episode, Lawfare Contributing Editor Renée DiResta speaks with Nathaniel Lubin, co-author of “ How Social Media Creators Shape Mass Politics ,” and Philine Widmer, co-author of a recent Nature paper, “ The Political Effects of X’s Feed Algorithm .” Together, they discuss two different layers of online influence—a platform’s algorithms and the trusted voices inside it—and their implications...

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, discuss a judge granting a preliminary injunction in Anthropic’s suit challenging its supply chain designation, a Friday morning hearing in Fulton County’s suit over the federal government seizing ballots from 2020, a new push from the Trump...

From March 25, 2025: Tom Kent ran Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is a longtime Russia watcher. He talks to  Lawfare  Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes about President Trump’s executive order dismantling Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a  Lawfare  Material Supporter at  www.patreon.com/lawfare . You can also support  Lawfa...

From March 19, 2025: For today's episode,  Lawfare  Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman interviewed Steven Heydemann, the Director of the Middle East Studies Program at Smith College, to assess the fast-changing developments in Syria today. Heydemann discusses the surge in communal violence in Syria, the deal between the new Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-led government and Syria's Kurds, Israel's...

On today's episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sits down with two veterans of the intelligence community to get their take on the ongoing Iran conflict. Before leaving government last year, Aaron Faust was a senior official in the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), where he had previously served as Division Chief for Iran, Iraq, and the Arabian Penin...

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...

Loren Voss, Public Service Fellow at  Lawfare , sits down with Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Linda Singh, former Adjutant General of Maryland, and Chris Mirasola, Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center. They examine the legal constraints of the Posse Comitatus Act, the implications of expanding domestic deployments for civil-military relations, and key issues to watch for...

Tom Kemp, executive director of the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA), joins Lawfare ’s Justin Sherman to discuss California’s new Delete Request and Opt-out Platform , or DROP system, the data broker industry, and California’s ongoing efforts to ensure residents can effectuate their privacy rights. They also discuss the process and impacts of bringing technologists into public service a...

Following the March 24 hearing in Anthropic's suit challenging its supply chain designation on the AI company's request for a preliminary injunction,  Lawfare  Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes  will sat down  with  Lawfare  Senior Editors Kate Klonick, Molly Roberts, and Roger Parloff for a live discussion of what occurred. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a  L...

As the U.S.-Israel war with Iran continues, it is playing out across the Middle East, particularly in Gulf Arab states and the Strait of Hormuz. In this episode, Lawfare Public Service Fellow Ariane Tabatabai sits down with Elisa Catalano Ewers of the Council on Foreign Relations to talk about Iranian intentions and capabilities, the U.S. response and capability gaps, and how allies and partners a...

In a live conversation on YouTube , Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Molly Roberts, Anna Bower, Eric Columbus, Roger Parloff, and Kate Klonick to discuss Judge Boasberg’s opinion quashing subpoenas to Fed Reserve chair Jerome Powell, the government’s response to Anthropic’s suit challenged the Defense Department’s designation of it as a supply chain risk...