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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...

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...

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...

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...

This week, Scott was joined by Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien, Lawfare Senior Editor Molly Roberts, and University of Virginia Professor of Law Paul Stephan to talk through the week’s big news in national security, including: “Textual Healing.” On Friday, a 6-3 Supreme Court majority brought an end to at least the current iteration of President Trump’s controversial tariff policies, ruling...

This week, Scott sat down with his foreign-policy-minded colleagues Daniel Byman, Michael Feinberg, and Ari Tabatabai to talk through some recent big news stories around the world, including: “Beer Hall Push-back.” Over the weekend, a raft of bipartisan U.S. and European officials headed to Bavaria for the annual Munich Security Conference. Last year, Vice President J.D. Vance gave a barnburner of...

This week, Scott sat down with Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes, who recently returned from Ukraine, and Lawfare ’s Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina, to go through the latest developments in that country, including: “Cold War.” Russia’s ongoing winter campaign against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has created a humanitarian crisis in many parts of the country. In Kyiv, at least one major power...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Molly Roberts, Michael Feinberg, and Troy Edwards to talk through the week’s big warrant-related national security news, including: “Tulsi Went Down to Georgia, She Was Looking for a Vote to Steal.” This past week, the FBI executed a warrant to search Fulton County’s election center for ballots and equipment related to the 2020 election, with t...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Alan Rozenshtein, Eric Columbus, and Molly Roberts for a deep dive into two of the week’s big national security news stories: “Slipping Down the Slope.” Last week’s killing of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has triggered what increasingly appears to be a national backlash against the Trump a...

This week, Scott sat down with co-host emeritus Shane Harris and Lawfare colleagues Anna Bower and Loren Voss to talk through yet another big week in national security, including: “Minnesota N(ICE).” Amidst ongoing tensions over the Trump administration’s hyper aggressive immigration enforcement tactics in Minnesota, the Justice Department has issued subpoenas to at least five state Democratic off...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Tyler McBrien, Michael Feinberg, and Ariane Tabatabai to talk through the week’s big news in national security, including: “Between Iraq and a Hard Place.” Iran is engaged in perhaps its most serious bout of domestic unrest in a decade, spurred on by a failing economy and the seeming political weakness of the regime after its devastating milita...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Benjamin Wittes, Natalie Orpett, and Molly Roberts for a special deep-dive into the intervention in Venezuela, including: “A Hop, Skip, and Jump Across the Rubicon.” This past weekend, the Trump administration took the step that Trump has been threatening for months: he deployed special operations to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro a...

For the podcast’s annual end-of-year episode, Scott sat down with co-host emeritus Benjamin Wittes, Senior Editor Anna Bower, and Managing Editor Tyler McBrien to talk over listener-submitted topics and object lessons, including: Which sphere of influence is Western Europe in today? What should we make of President Trump's lawsuit against BBC? After nearly a year of the Trump Administration, how d...

This week, Scott down with his Lawfare colleagues Alan Rozenshtein and Ari Tabatabai to talk through a few of the week’s big national security news stories, including: “Once You Pop, You Can’t Stop.” The Trump administration has given a green light to Nvidia to export its powerful H200 chips to China, opening a potentially significant new market while jumpstarting China’s strategically significant...

This week, Scott sat down with Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien and Contributing Editor Alex Zerden to talk through a few of the week’s big national security news stories, including: “Finding the Road to Damascus.” Former dictator Bashar al-Assad fled Syria one year ago this week, bringing a precipitous end to the country’s more than decade-long civil war. In the year since, has the country b...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Benjamin Wittes, Natalie Orpett and Eric Ciaramella to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including: “The Art of the Ordeal.” The Trump administration has been at the center of yet another bout of shuttle diplomacy the last several weeks, after an initial “28-point plan” for peace in Ukraine it appeared to hash out wit...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Anna Bower, Michael Feinberg, and Roger Parloff to talk through the week’s big domestic news stories, including: “Diving Head First into the Shallow End of the Jury Pool.” A federal magistrate judge has concluded that the government may well have made substantial misrepresentations and other errors before the Grand Jury in the prosecution of fo...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Natalie Orpett, Eric Columbus, and Molly Roberts, to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including: “I Don’t Think You’re Ready for the Shutdown.” The record-setting shutdown of the U.S. government is set to come to an end after eight Democratic senators agreed to a continuing resolution that will fund all of the governm...

This week, Scott sat down with co-hosts emeritus Benjamin Wittes and Alan Rozenshtein, and Senior Editor Kate Klonick, to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including: “Cracks in the Foundation.” The conservative Heritage Foundation—and the broader conservative movement it plays a central role in—has been going through a very public crisis over the past week after its pres...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Public Service Fellow Ari Tabatabai and Managing Editor Tyler McBrien to talk through the week’s big news in national security, including: “Great APEC-tations.” President Trump is headed to Asia this week, both for a meeting of the regional Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) organization and a one-on-one sit down with Chinese president Xi...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Senior Fellow Eric Columbus, Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina, and Public Service Fellow Loren Voss to talk through the week’s big news in national security, including: “Visiting Concessions.” President Trump once again turned his focus to the conflict in Ukraine, announcing last week that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin would be meet...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Benjamin Wittes, Kate Klonick, and newly-minted Senior Editor Molly Roberts to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including: “Peace by Piece.” The first phase of the Trump administration’s peace plan for Gaza went into effect on Monday, resulting in the return of the last living hostages held by Hamas to Israel, among o...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Managing Editor Tyler McBrien, Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman, and Public Service Fellow Loren Voss to talk through (somehow only three of) the week’s big national security news stories, including: “The Dream of the ‘90s is Alive in Portland.” This past week, the Trump administration made good on its threats to pursue further domestic milit...

This week, Scott sat down with his colleagues Alan Rozenshtein and Anna Bower to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including: “A Higher Loyalty.” The Justice Department appeared to bow to the demands of President Trump last week when, over the reported objections of several senior officials, it successfully sought the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey for alle...

This week, Scott sat down with Senior Editors Kate Klonick and Eric Columbus to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including:  “An Un-Airing of Grievances.” Since the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, some supporters of his—including several figures within the Trump administration—have actively sought to have individuals who have said critical or pu...