Ben Brooks, a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center and former head of public policy for Stability AI, joins Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at Texas Law and Contributing Editor at Lawfare , to discuss a sudden and significant shift toward open-sourcing leading AI models and the ramifications of that pivot for AI governance at home and abroad. Ben and Kevin specifically review OpenAI’s announced plans to release a new open-weights model. Coverage of OpenAI announcement: http...
May 09, 2025•45 min
In recent years, political scientists have given a great deal of attention to “democratic backsliding”—the slow erosion of democracy by aspiring authoritarians. The events of the last several months in the United States—with attacks from the Trump administration on the press, higher education, and any center of power outside the White House—make this research all the more relevant. But the question of how leaders chip away at democracy is only part of the picture. There’s also the question of wh...
May 08, 2025•50 min
This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Benjamin “The Beard” Wittes and Anastasiia (and Ava) Lapatina to discuss the week’s biggest national security news stories, including: “A Waltz on Thin Ice.” Weeks after the SignalGate controversy, Mike Waltz is out as National Security Adviser and set to be nominated as U.N. Ambassador. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, is in for a record fourth high-ranking appointment, though rumors are circulating about just how long he may remai...
May 07, 2025•1 hr 7 min
In her recent Lawfare article , Alexis Loeb—a former deputy chief of the Jan. 6 Capitol Siege Section at the U.S. Department of Justice and a current partner at Farella, Braun, and Martel—discussed Attorney General Pam Bondi’s memo dismantling the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative. On today’s episode, Loeb joined Lawfare Associate Editor Olivia Manes to talk about the work that the Kleptocracy Team conducted, why it mattered for national security, and ...
May 07, 2025•46 min
The TAKE IT DOWN Act is the first major U.S. federal law to squarely target non‑consensual intimate imagery (NCII) and to include a component requiring tech companies to act. Long handled via a patchwork of state laws, it criminalizes NCII at the federal level—both authentic images and AI-generated digital forgeries—and requires that platforms remove reported NCII within 48 hours of notification by a victim or victim's representative. TAKE IT DOWN passed with wide bipartisan support—unanimously ...
May 06, 2025•48 min
In a live conversation on May 2, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower, Scott Anderson, and Roger Parloff and Lawfare Legal Fellow James Pearce to discuss the status of the civil litigation against President Trump’s executive actions, including the release of Mohsen Mahdawi, the decision by a judge that the Alien Enemies Act invocation did not meet the invasion requirement in the law, litigation sur...
May 05, 2025•1 hr 37 min
From July 27, 2020: Anne Applebaum is a columnist, writer, historian and most recently, the author of " Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lore of Authoritarianism ," a book that explores why authoritarian ideologies are on the ascendance in countries as diverse as Poland, Hungary, Spain, the United States and Great Britain. Benjamin Wittes spoke with Anne about the themes of the book: Why are all of these authoritarian ideologies on the rise now? What is the role of social media in their rise...
May 04, 2025•39 min
From January 16, 2024: Over the last two months, Houthi militants have waged more than 27 attacks against merchant shipping and U.S. and partner forces in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, purportedly in response to the war in Gaza. These attacks have significantly disrupted global shipping and surged the Middle East into an even more precarious security situation. Following a large-scale Houthi attack on U.S. and British ships, the U.S. and U.K. on Jan. 11 launched ov...
May 03, 2025•50 min
As the Trump administration seeks to escalate its immigration crackdown, the government has turned to a concerning source of information for data on immigrants: the Social Security Administration. Reports indicate that Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative and the Department of Homeland Security successfully pushed Social Security officials to provide access to what’s commonly known as the “Death Master File,” allowing the government to mark living immigrants as dead in the Social Secur...
May 02, 2025•52 min
For today's episode, Lawfare Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman interviewed Tanvi Madan, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, to discuss the April 22 terrorist attack in Kashmir. Madan explains how the crisis has evolved, the escalation options available to India, and the limited influence of the United States, China, and other powers to contain the crisis. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare . You can...
May 01, 2025•34 min
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 of time. But how much success has Trump really had in enacting his broader policy agenda? How should...
Apr 30, 2025•1 hr 13 min
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 more generally. Read more about the declaration here: https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5355...
Apr 30, 2025•34 min
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 allocating federal funds at the expense of Congress. They cover the history of the Congress, the president,...
Apr 29, 2025•48 min
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 arrest of a Wisconsin state judge by the Department of Homeland Security, the Alien Enemy Act remova...
Apr 28, 2025•1 hr 34 min
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 reasons for it, and they analyzed whether any of the legislative reforms that have been so far proposed...
Apr 27, 2025•48 min
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 the people around the president. " The Gatekeepers ," based upon his documentary of the same name, ex...
Apr 26, 2025•52 min
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. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare ....
Apr 25, 2025•32 min
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 ideological exclusions and deportations present a unique intersection of immigration and First Amendme...
Apr 24, 2025•53 min
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 the country using the Alien Enemies Act. How far will it go? And to what extent can the courts (or a...
Apr 23, 2025•1 hr 22 min
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 actions in Ukraine, how the Russian president has clamped down on independent journalism, global disi...
Apr 23, 2025•50 min
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 heeding in the ongoing struggle to direct markets toward the public good. To receive ad-free podcast...
Apr 22, 2025•42 min
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://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Apr 21, 2025•1 hr 34 min
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 interpreting presidential power under Article II of the U.S. Constitution, the many novel elements of ex...
Apr 20, 2025•55 min
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 Lawfare about the ongoing effort by the Israeli government to alter the Israeli judicial sy...
Apr 19, 2025•53 min
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, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey—have chosen to fight retaliatory executive orders in court and have se...
Apr 18, 2025•50 min
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.patreon.com/lawfare . You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at ...
Apr 17, 2025•43 min
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 on Gun Violence, who represents the government of Mexico in the suit, and Chantal Flores, a freelanc...
Apr 16, 2025•47 min
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 coming years. This novel report has already elicited a lot of attention with some reviewers celebrati...
Apr 15, 2025•38 min
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 April 11 hearing on the removal of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Supreme Court’s decisions in Abrego Garcia...
Apr 14, 2025•1 hr 30 min
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 Texas School of Law, who is the author of a new book entitled, “ The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Cour...
Apr 13, 2025•1 hr 8 min
