The Lawfare Podcast: Patreon Edition

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Molly Reynolds and James Pearce to talk through the week’s big national security news, including: “Rounding the ‘Feels Like It’s Been a Century’ Mark.” As President Trump comes to the end of his second first 100 days in office, he and his supporters are laying claim to FDR’s mantle as the president to accomplish the most in such a short period...

Andrew Bakaj, Chief Legal Counsel at Whistleblower Aid, joins Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at Texas Law and Contributing Editor at Lawfare , to discuss a declaration by a National Labor Relations Board employee Daniel Berulis that DOGE facilitated the exfiltration of potentially sensitive information to external sources. The two also analyze the merits of whistleblower protections m...

In today’s episode, Molly Reynolds, Senior Fellow at Brookings and Senior Editor at Lawfare , sits down with Matt Lawrence, Associate Professor of Law at Emory; Eloise Pasachoff, Professor of Law at Georgetown; and Zach Price, Professor of Law at UC Law San Francisco to discuss a new paper on “ Appropriations Presidentialism ,” or how the executive branch attempts to control the process of allocat...

In a  live conversation on  April 25,  Lawfare  Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with  Lawfare  Senior Editors Anna Bower, Scott Anderson, and Roger Parloff,  Lawfare  Legal Fellow James Pearce, and  Lawfare  Contributor Preston Marquis to discuss the status of the civil litigation against President Trump’s executive actions, including the...

From April 11, 2022: The period after Watergate and President Nixon's resignation saw an unprecedented barrage of congressional efforts at reforming the executive branch. The period after Donald Trump's departure from office has seen no comparable spree of legislative action—at least not yet. In a recent  Lawfare  article, Quinta Jurecic and Andrew Kent explored the disparity and the rea...

From September 16, 2020: What is the proper relationship between the CIA director and the president? How should directors handle arguably illegal orders? How important is the director's role as the nation's honest broker of information during times of crisis? To get at these questions, David Priess sat down with Chris Whipple, a documentary filmmaker, journalist and the author of two books about t...

For today's episode,  Lawfare  Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman interviewed Michael Sulmeyer, who was the top Defense official for all aspects of cyber policy in the Biden administration. Sulmeyer discusses the cyber threat landscape, different roles and missions, how Artificial Intelligence might be leveraged, and the key role of allies in cyberdefense, among other issues. Hosted on A...

On today’s episode, Julia Rose Kraut, author of the book “ Threat of Dissent: A History of Ideological Exclusion and Deportation in the United States ,” joins  Lawfare  Managing Editor Tyler McBrien to talk about that book, originally published in 2020, and how it can help us make sense of the Trump administration’s recent immigration and deportation policies.  They discussed how id...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Anna Bower, Tyler McBrien, and Kevin Frazier to talk through the week’s big national security news, including: “Aliens vs. Predators.” Despite forceful legal pushback—including by the U.S. Supreme Court—the Trump administration is working hard to continue its campaign to remove foreign aliens it accuses of pursuing a “predatory incursion” from...

On today's episode, Mikhail Zygar, a renowned Russian journalist living in exile in the U.S., the author of multiple books on Vladimir Putin, and the author of The Last Pioneer substack, joined Lawfare Associate Editor Olivia Manes to discuss his experience as the founder of one of the last independent Russian media channels, TV Rain. They talked about the incentives underlying Putin's a...

Chris Hughes, author of “ Marketcrafters ” and co-founder of the Economic Security Project, joins Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at Texas Law and Contributing Editor at Lawfare , to discuss his book and its implications at a time of immense economic uncertainty and political upheaval. The duo explore several important historical case studies that Chris suggests may have lessons worth...

On this month’s minipod, Lawfare Associate Editor for Communications Anna Hickey talked to Lawfare Senior Editor and Brookings Senior Fellow Molly Reynolds about what members of Congress could be doing to be a check on President Trump and his administration. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On April 18 at 4 pm ET, Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sits down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower, Quinta Jurecic, and Roger Parloff and Lawfare Legal Fellow James Pearce to discuss the status of the civil litigation against President Trump’s executive actions, including Judge Boasberg's finding of probable cause for contempt in the Alien Enemies Act case. Hosted on Acast. See acast...

In recent weeks, President Trump has embarked on a campaign of extortion against law firms, pushing major firms to either reach agreements with the White House or face executive orders in retribution. A number of major firms have chosen to negotiate—agreeing to deals that are  already under pressure  as the White House seeks to extract more. Four firms—Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, W...

On April 15, Judge Paula Xinis held a hearing in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man deported by accident to a notorious prison in El Salvador. Lawfare Senior Editors Roger Parloff and Anna Bower covered the hearing live and debriefed on it with Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes immediately afterwards. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Supreme Court recently held oral arguments in the case of  Mexico v. Smith & Wesson , a groundbreaking case brought by the government of Mexico that seeks to hold U.S. gun manufacturers accountable for cartels' use of American weapons to perpetrate violence in Mexico. On today's episode, Executive Editor Natalie Orpett talked with Jonathan Lowy, an attorney at Global Action...

Daniel Kokotajlo, former OpenAI researcher and Executive Director of the AI Futures Project, and Eli Lifland, a researcher with the AI Futures Project, join Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at Texas Law and Contributing Editor at Lawfare , to discuss what AI may look like in 2027. The trio explore a report co-authored by Daniel that dives into the hypothetical evolution of AI over the c...

In a  live conversation on  April 11,  Lawfare  Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with  Lawfare  Senior Editors Anna Bower, Quinta Jurecic, and Roger Parloff,  Lawfare  Legal Fellow James Pearce, and  Lawfare  contributor James Pearce to discuss the status of the civil litigation against President Trump’s executive actions, including the Apr...

From May 16, 2023: In recent years, the Supreme Court's non-merits “shadow docket” has become a topic of contestation and controversy, especially the Court's emergency orders rulings on issues ranging from immigration to abortion to Covid-19 restrictions. To discuss these issues, Jack Goldsmith sat down with Stephen Vladeck, the Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts at the University of Texa...

From March 8, 2024: The practice of surveillance capitalism—the widespread private collection and commodification of personal data—is well understood. Less well understood is the extent to which the U.S. government purchases this data in the commercial marketplace to use it for intelligence and law enforcement purposes.  Byron Tau, when he was a reporter with The Wall Street Journal, did more...

For today's episode,  Lawfare  Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman interviewed Tom Karako, the Director of the Missile Defense Program at CSIS, to discuss the Trump administration's missile defense proposals known as "Golden Dome." Karako explains the purpose of Golden Dome, its feasibility and cost, the likely reactions of China and Russia, and what realistic success would look like. Hos...

This week, Scott sat down with co-hosts emeritus Benjamin Wittes, Quinta Jurecic and  Lawfare 's new senior legal fellow James Pearce to talk through the week's biggest national security news stories, including: “Midnight Planes Going Anywhere.” The Supreme Court has weighed in on the Trump administration’s decision to quickly fly dozens of Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador with little to n...

On today's episode, Executive Editor Natalie Orpett spoke with Tara Varma, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, about the latest in French politics. On March 31, far-right leader Marine Le Pen was convicted of embezzlement and banned from politics, though polling showed her in the lead for the 2027 presidential elections. In the last few weeks, current French president Emmanuel Macron has been c...

Lawfare  Associate Editor for Communications Anna Hickey spoke to Director of the Center for Climate Security Erin Sikorsky about the omission of climate change from the Annual Threat Assessment, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s testimony in front of Congress, and the national security risks of climate change. Read Sikorsky’s  article here . Hosted on Acast. See acast.co...

For today’s episode, Lawfare General Counsel and Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Lawfare Contributing Editor Peter Harrell, who was previously Senior Director for International Economics on the National Security Council, and Professor Jennifer Hillman of the Georgetown University Law Center, a former member of the WTO’s appellate body and senior U.S. trade official, to discuss the ne...