The Lawfare Podcast

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 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. Support this show http://s...

From January 26, 2021: Jack Goldsmith sat down with Michael McConnell, the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of the new book, " The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution ." They discussed McConnell's textual historical approach to inte...

From March 6, 2023: Amichai Cohen and Yuval Shany are both Israeli legal scholars and longtime  Lawfare  contributors. Shany is a professor of international law at the Hebrew University Law School in Jerusalem. Cohen is a professor at Ono Academic College. They are both scholars at the Israel Democracy Institute, and together they are also co-authors of a six-part series in&nbs...

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. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a  Lawfare  Material Supporter at  www.pa...

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. To...

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 . To receive ad-free podcasts,...

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...

In a  live conversation on  April 4,  Lawfare  Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with  Lawfare  Senior Editors Anna Bower and Roger Parloff,  Lawfare  Legal Fellow James Pearce, and Georgetown professor Steve Vladeck to discuss the status of the civil litigation against President Trump’s executive actions, including the deportation of individuals to a...

From January 26, 2024: In front of a live audience at the Knight Foundation's INFORMED conference in Miami, Florida,  Lawfare  Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke with Hon. Kenneth L. Wainstein, Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security; Jameel Jaffer, Executive Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University; and ...

From March 20, 2024: Since World War II, the United States and its currency, the dollar, have come to play a central role in the broader global economy. And in recent decades, policymakers have used this role as a weapon, cutting off access to malign actors and punishing those who act contrary to U.S. national security interests. But cultivating such primacy has proven to be a double-edged sword,...

Hillary Hartley, the former Chief Digital Officer of Ontario and former Co-Founder and Deputy Executive Director at 18F, and David Eaves, Associate Professor of Digital Government and Co-Deputy Director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London, join Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at Texas Law and Contributing Editor at Lawfare , to discuss the re...

For today’s episode, we’re bringing you the opening episode of our podcast Escalation . Escalation is a multi-part narrative podcast hosted by Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien and Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina. Escalation lays bare the stakes of the Russo-Ukrainian War through powerful storytelling and compelling voices. It reveals forgotten promises and fragile alliances that have shape...

This week, Scott joined his Lawfare colleagues Natalie Orpett and Eric Ciaramella to talk through the week’s big national security news, including: “In Mother Russia, Sometimes Bear Poke You.” Discussions over a possible broader ceasefire in Ukraine—beyond the temporary (and limited) energy and Black Sea ceasefire agreements last week—appear to have ground to a halt over Russian demands. Many obse...

Atul Gawande is a surgeon and a public health expert. He's also the former head of global health at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), an agency that the Trump administration has prioritized for dismantling since its first day in office. On today's episode, Executive Editor Natalie Orpett sat down with Gawande to discuss what USAID does, the consequences of destroying it, and w...