The Lawfare Podcast

From January 13, 2025: In a  live conversation on January 10 ,  Lawfare  Tarbell Fellow in Artificial Intelligence Kevin Frazier talked to  Lawfare  Senior Editor Alan Rozenshtein and Senior Staff Attorney at the Knight Institute Ramya Krishnan about the Supreme Court oral arguments over the legislation passed by Congress that bans TikTok unless its parent company ByteDanc...

From December 23, 2024: On today's podcast,  Lawfare  Executive Editor Natalie Orpett talks with Michael Posner, a professor of business and human rights at New York University, about the landmark verdict last month in  Al-Shimari v. CACI.  The case involved  claims against a government contractor  for its role in the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib detention fac...

A draft executive order has been floating around that would assert presidential control over elections all over the country. Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sits down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower and Molly Roberts, authors of the recent Lawfare article, “ In Case of Emergency: The Dubious Legality of Trump Allies' Draft EO ,” to talk through what it would do, who was behind it, a...

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...

In this episode, Lawfare Public Service Fellow Troy Edwards joins Lawfare Senior Editor Michael Feinberg to discuss Iran’s history of drawing from a robust retaliatory toolkit and international proxy network to extend its reach around the world, including in the United States. Reviewing Iran’s recent attempts at retaliating against the U.S. after the last major escalation in U.S.-Iran tensions—the...

In today's episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Michael Feinberg sits down with his former FBI colleague retired Assistant Special Agent in Charge Derek Pieper to discuss the differences between counterintelligence and counterespionage investigations, the skill sets needed for each, and the dangers of politicizing the cases. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a  Lawfare  Material Supporter at...

On today’s episode, Lawfare ’s Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina talks to an expert on Russian foreign policy in the Middle East, Director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at Middlebury College Hanna Notte, about the relationship between Iran and Russia, and how far their cooperation can go in the context of the U.S.-Israeli war again...

In a live conversation on YouTube , Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Scott R. Anderson, Eric Columbus, Roger Parloff, and Kate Klonick to Judge Boasberg’s opinion quashing subpoenas to Fed Reserve chair Jerome Powell, Anthropic’s suit challenged the Defense Department’s designation of it as a supply chain risk, Judge Lambert finding that Kari Lake was un...

From August 30, 2024: Elliot Jones, a Senior Researcher at the Ada Lovelace Institute, joins Kevin Frazier, Assistant Professor at St. Thomas University College of Law and a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to discuss a report he co-authored on the current state of efforts to test AI systems. The pair break down why evaluations, audits, and related assessments have become a key part of AI regulation. Th...

From September 26, 2024: Steve Coll’s latest book, “The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq,” seeks to explain why Saddam Hussein would put his regime at risk over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that didn’t exist. Saddam ultimately lost his regime, and his life, in part because he saw America as an omniscient puppeteer seeking to dominat...

For today’s episode,  Lawfare  Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sits down with Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and head of its Syria Initiative, to talk about the dramatic developments that have taken place in Syria the past few weeks, which have ultimately led to the impending withdrawal of U.S. troops after more than a decade in country. Together, they discu...

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...

Former Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matt Olsen joins Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes to discuss the terrorist threat from Iran, the shocking lack of preparedness for Iranian malign activity at both the FBI and the National Security Division, and the pending lapse of the FISA 702 program. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a  Lawfare  Material Supporter at&nbs...

On today’s episode, Lawfare ’s Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina talks to Fabian Hoffman, a missile expert and author of Missile Matters , and senior Ukrainian drone instructor Pavlo Litovkin about Iran’s shahed drones and what lessons the United States and its allies can learn from Ukraine as they rethink their air defense amidst the war with Iran. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a  Law...

Seamus Hughes, a senior research faculty member at the University of Nebraska-Omaha’s National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center and a contributing editor at Lawfare , and Jacob Ware, the author of “ God, Guns, and Sedition ” and a recent  Lawfare foreign policy essay  on nihilistic violent extremism (NVE), join Lawfare Associate Editor Peter Beck to discuss t...

In a live conversation on YouTube , Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Roger Parloff, Molly Roberts, and Alan Rozenshtein, and Lawfare Public Service Fellow Troy Edwards to discuss the lawsuit challenges the deal for TikTok to be sold to American investors, updates in the litigation over the FBI seizing ballots from Fulton County, contempt hearings against...

From January 11, 2020: As part of  Lawfare 's continuing coverage of the killing of Iranian Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani, we are bringing you an edited version of the latest episode of the  National Security Law Podcast , in which Bobby Chesney and Steve Vladeck discuss the legality of the strike and what this means for the future of U.S.-Iranian relations. We edited the podcast do...

From October 2, 2024: Israel has hit Hezbollah very hard over the past few days, killing much of its senior leadership and eroding its capabilities. It has also displaced hundreds of thousands of Lebanese and now has ground forces in Lebanon. Iran has responded with a missile barrage against Israel, to which an Israeli response is widely expected. To discuss the latest events in the expanding war,...

Alan Rozenshtein, research director at  Lawfare , spoke with Cullen O'Keefe, research director at the Institute for Law & AI, and Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law and senior editor at  Lawfare , about their paper,  "Automated Compliance and the Regulation of AI"  (and  associated Lawfare article ), which arg...

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...

Tom Brzozowski, formerly of the Justice Department; Lawfare Public Service Fellow Troy “LT” Edwards; and Steven Monacelli, an investigative correspondent at the Texas Observer, sit down with Lawfare Associate Editor Peter Beck to discuss the ongoing terrorism trial of an alleged Antifa cell in North Texas. The group talks about the events leading up to the trial, practices around domestic terroris...

For today’s episode,  Lawfare  Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sits down with three leading scholars from the Georgetown University Law Center—Professor Kathleen Claussen, Professor Marty Lederman, and Visiting Scholar Peter Harrell of the Institute of International Economic Law—to talk through the  Supreme Court’s groundbreaking opinion in Learning Resources, Inc v. Trump , wh...

In a live conversation on March 2, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to Lawfare Senior Editor and Research Director Alan Rozenshtein about the Pentagon's designation of AI company Anthropic as a supply chain risk, the implications of a designation, how other AI companies have reacted, and the legal challenges the designation may face. Read Rozenshtein’s article on the topic, co-authore...

In a live conversation on YouTube , Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Scott R. Anderson, Roger Parloff, Molly Roberts, Anna Bower, and Alan Rozenshtein, and Lawfare Public Service Fellow Troy Edwards to discuss the superseding indictment in the case against Don Lemon and his co-defendants in Minnesota, the standoff between the Department of Defense and An...

At 9 am ET on March 1, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Public Service Fellows Ariane Tabatabai and Troy Edwards Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson to discuss the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's response, and what may happen next. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/pri...