The Lawfare Podcast: Patreon Edition - podcast cover

The Lawfare Podcast: Patreon Edition

The Lawfare Institutewww.lawfaremedia.org
The Lawfare Podcast features discussions with experts, policymakers, and opinion leaders at the nexus of national security, law, and policy. On issues from foreign policy, homeland security, intelligence, and cybersecurity to governance and law, we have doubled down on seriousness at a time when others are running away from it. Visit us at www.lawfaremedia.org.

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Episodes

Lawfare Daily: Matt Olsen Talks Iran, the Justice Department, and FISA 702

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mar 12, 202646 min

Lawfare Daily: Does the U.S. Have a Drone Defense Problem?

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....

Mar 11, 202644 min

Lawfare Daily: “I’m angry that I exist”: Nihilistic Violent Extremism with Seamus Hughes and Jacob Ware

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 the FBI’s new NVE classification, the online terror group 764, challenges counterterrorism professionals face wit...

Mar 10, 202644 min

Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, March 6

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 the government in Minnesota, and more. You can find information on legal challenges to Trump admini...

Mar 09, 20261 hr 38 min

Lawfare Archive: The National Security Law Podcast Guys Talk Soleimani

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 down solely to focus solely on the discussion of Soleimani. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more inform...

Mar 08, 20261 hr 14 min

Lawfare Archive: Hezbollah, Lebanon, Israel, Iran

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, Lawfare 's Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Firas Maksad of the Middle East Institute,...

Mar 07, 202656 min

Scaling Laws: Can AI Make AI Regulation Cheaper?, with Cullen O'Keefe and Kevin Frazier

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 argues that AI systems can automate many regulatory compliance tasks, loosening the trade-off between safety and innovation in AI pol...

Mar 06, 202653 min

Rational Security: The “Attacking Iran” Special Edition

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 and other overseas adventurism. What drove Trump to proceed this time, after stopping short twice in t...

Mar 05, 20261 hr 21 min

Lawfare Daily: The Trial of the North Texas Antifa Cell

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 terrorism investigations and prosecutions, how the trial is unique to other terror prosecutions, and more. H...

Mar 05, 202657 min

Lawfare Daily: The Tariffs Decision and What Comes Next

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 , which invalidated the array of global tariffs that the Trump administration had imposed using the International Emergency Eco...

Mar 04, 202654 min

Lawfare Daily: The Pentagon Designates Anthropic as a Supply Chain Risk

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-authored with Michael Endrias, here . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....

Mar 03, 202654 min

February Minipod: How Could President Trump Subvert the 2026 Elections?

On this month’s minipod, Lawfare Associate Editor for Communications Anna Hickey talked to Lawfare Senior Editor Eric Columbus about how the president could potentially try to disrupt the 2026 midterm elections and the safeguards that exist. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mar 02, 202619 min

Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, Feb. 27

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 Anthropic, the firing of FBI agents who worked on the classified documents case, and more. You can fin...

Mar 02, 20261 hr 41 min

Lawfare Live: U.S. and Israel Strike Iran

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....

Mar 01, 20261 hr

Lawfare Archive: Stephanie Leutert on Violence in Mexico and Central America

From October 8, 2016: Stephanie Leutert, the Mexico Security Initiative Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of Lawfare 's "Beyond the Border" series , joined Benjamin Wittes on this week's podcast to talk about the epidemic of violence plaguing Mexico and Central America. Despite the brutality, extremity, and remarkable scale of the violence going on immediately to our south, those of us in the United States who work and think on national security issues rarely consider it...

Mar 01, 202638 min

Lawfare Archive: Trump’s Tariffs and the Law

From February 27, 2025: For today’s episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Kathleen Claussen, an expert in international economic law and professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, and Lawfare Contributing Editor Peter Harrell, a non-resident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, to discuss the ambitious set of tariffs the Trump administration has imposed or threatened over its first month in office. They discussed the tariffs Trump has ...

Feb 28, 202646 min

Lawfare Daily: Patronage Pardons: A Conversation with Prof. Lee Kovarsky about a Novel Feature of the Trump Administration

Lee Kovarsky, an endowed chair professor at the University of Texas School of Law, speaks with Senior Editor Roger Parloff about patronage pardons, the subject of his forthcoming article in the Duke Law Journal. Patronage pardons are pardons a president issues to reward and possibly even induce criminality by political supporters. Kovarsky discusses whether the founders anticipated such pardons, gives examples of such pardons, explores how they differ from ordinary pardons, and ponders whether a...

Feb 27, 202642 min

Lawfare Live: Unpacking the Kilmar Abrego Garcia Hearing with Anna Bower

In a Feb. 26 Lawfare Live , Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes and Lawfare Senior Editor Anna Bower discussed the evidentiary hearing in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia criminal case which focused on the motion to dismiss for vindictive prosecution. This episode is a part of Lawfare’s new livestream series, Lawfare Live: The Now. Subscribe to Lawfare on Substack or YouTube to receive an alert for future livestreams. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....

Feb 26, 202628 min

Rational Security: The “Off the Rails” Edition

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 that language in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (or IEEPA) authorizing the “regulat...

Feb 26, 20261 hr 17 min

Lawfare Daily: The State of IHL

Loren Voss, Public Service Fellow at Lawfare , sits down with Stuart Casey Maslen, the head of the IHL in Focus project at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. They discuss the Geneva Academy's “ IHL in Focus Report ” covering all the major armed conflicts around the world, the role of new technology such as drones, the threats to IHL compliance and accountability, and the possibility of new treaty rules. Maslen describes the 20+ year degradation of IHL and tren...

Feb 26, 202621 min

Lawfare Daily: Are We Going to War in Iran?

Lawfare Public Service Fellow Ariane Tabatabai and Eric Brewer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative join Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes in a discussion of the possibly impending U.S. strike on Iran. Is the United States about to go to war? If so, over what? And with what objectives? Does this relate primarily to Iran's residual nuclear program or the Iranian regime's recent massacres of protestors? What would an American attack on Iran look like? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for m...

Feb 25, 202649 min

Lawfare Daily: Ideology, Action, and Terrorism in the 1970s

Senior Editor Michael Feinberg is joined by Jason Burke of The Guardian, the author of “ The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists who Hijacked the 1970s .” The two discuss the roots of European and Middle Eastern terrorist organizations from that decade, as well as the response of governments to their attacks and the lingering hold that the milieu still maintains on popular culture. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....

Feb 24, 202651 min

Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, Feb. 20

In a live conversation on YouTube , Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Eric Columbus, Roger Parloff, and Anna Bower, Lawfare Public Service Fellow Troy Edwards, and Lawfare Student Contributor Peyton Baker to discuss the arraignment of Don Lemon and his co-defendants in Minnesota, affidavits released for the FBI search of Fulton County, the Justice Department’s attempt to wipe out Steve Bannon’s conviction, and more. You can find information on legal cha...

Feb 23, 20261 hr 39 min

Lawfare Archive: Nick Bednar on Trump's Civil Service Executive Orders

From January 28, 2025: In today’s episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Alan Z. Rozenshtein speaks with his University of Minnesota Law colleague, Nick Bednar, about the wave of Day 1 executive orders affecting the civil service. Bednar recently analyzed these orders in a piece for Lawfare . They discuss what the orders say, how they might be challenged in court, and what this means for the next four years and beyond. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....

Feb 22, 20261 hr 6 min

Lawfare Archive: Are the Courts Ready for a Trump Presidency?

From February 13, 2025: Only a few weeks have passed since inauguration, but President Trump's barrage of executive orders has already generated dozens of legal challenges . Which raises the question: are the courts up to the job? Executive Editor Natalie Orpett sat down with Benjamin Wittes, Lawfare 's Editor-in-Chief, to discuss his recent article, “ Are the Courts Up to the Situation? ,” published in Lawfare earlier this week. They talked about the courts' role in the face of unprecedented as...

Feb 21, 202648 min

Scaling Laws: Claude's Constitution, with Amanda Askell

Alan Rozenshtein, research director at Lawfare , and Kevin Frazier, senior editor at Lawfare , speak with Amanda Askell, head of personality alignment at Anthropic, about Claude's Constitution , a 20,000-word document that describes the values, character, and ethical framework of Anthropic's flagship AI model and plays a direct role in its training. The conversation covers how the constitution is used during supervised learning and reinforcement learning to shape Claude's behavior; analogies to ...

Feb 20, 202648 min

Rational Security: The “Sects, Lies, and Twin Peaks” Edition

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 a speech, accusing European allies of restraining free speech and giving succor to the European far...

Feb 19, 20261 hr 17 min

Ask Lawfare Anything: February 2026

If you prefer, you can watch the webinar here: https://youtu.be/Rxm8AcFqA6s Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Feb 19, 20261 hr 1 min

Lawfare Daily: Challenging Immigration Detentions in Minnesota

The dramatic influx of immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota have landed an enormous number of people in detention. It's led to an unprecedented number of petitions for habeas corpus—that is, people arguing that their detention is unlawful. On today's podcast, Lawfare 's Executive Editor Natalie Orpett talked with John Albanese, an attorney at the law firm Berger Montague in Minneapolis, who represents people who are bringing these challenges. They talked about what the flood of habeas pe...

Feb 19, 202648 min

Lawfare Daily: National Security Regulation of Technology and Data Transactions

Lawfare Book Review Editor Jonathan Cedarbaum sits down with Justin Sherman, the CEO of Global Cyber Strategies, to discuss his new book, " Navigating Technology and National Security: The Intersection of CFIUS, Team Telecom, AI Controls, and Other Regulations ," in which Sherman describes and assesses the proliferation of U.S. regulatory programs designed to guard against national security risks arising from transactions involving technology and data. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for ...

Feb 18, 202654 min
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