From October 27, 2018: There is a caravan—you've probably heard something about it. Stephanie Leutert, director of the Mexico Security Initiative at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, has heard something about it. On Friday, Benjamin Wittes caught up with Leutert to talk about her time on the Mexico-Guatemala border traveling with migrants who are following a trail not unlike that of the caravan. They talked about why people are joining this caravan, what are altern...
Jun 08, 2024•45 min
In 2022, Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection and Stafford Rosenbaum filed a lawsuit against ten Wisconsin fraudulent electors, Kenneth Chesebro, and James Troupis for their efforts to subvert the 2020 election. Earlier this year, ICAP reached two settlements with the defendants, which resulted in thousands of pages of text messages, emails, and other correspondence being turned over, providing new insight into how exactly the fake electors sche...
Jun 07, 2024•37 min
This week, Quinta and Scott were joined by Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien to discuss how he is coping with the end of the New York trial and to run through some of the week’s big national security news stories, including: “A Perfect Conviction.” Last week, after less than two days of deliberation, a jury in New York state criminal court found former President Trump guilty of all 34 criminal counts on which he was being tried. He’s now scheduled to be sentenced just days before the Republi...
Jun 06, 2024•1 hr 12 min
On today’s episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sits down with Alex Iftimie, a Deputy General Counsel at OpenAI, to talk over their recent report revealing that OpenAI has shut down several state-backed information operations using OpenAI’s artificial technology services. They discussed the operations themselves, how OpenAI is investigating and responding to such activities, and what they tell us about how the nascent artificial intelligence industry is impacting state-backed informa...
Jun 06, 2024•41 min
Ashley Deeks, Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, and Dr. Mark Klamberg, Professor at Stockholm University, Visiting Professor at American University, and Fellow with the Atlantic Council, join Lawfare 's Tarbell Fellow Kevin Frazier and Senior Editor Alan Rozenshtein to discuss the weaponization of AI. The group explores a number of related topics including ongoing domestic and international efforts to regulate military use of AI, the national security implications of weaponi...
Jun 05, 2024•40 min
In the wake of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union set off on the great space race, competing to see which super power could put the first human in space and eventually land them on the Moon. As historian John Strausbaugh writes, that race should have been over before it even started. Strausbaugh’s new book, The Wrong Stuff: How the Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned , is a harrowing and frequently hilarious account of how political leaders and engineers slapped together a ...
Jun 04, 2024•1 hr 16 min
This episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with author, attorney, legal scholar, and Lawfare Contributing Editor Michel Paradis to discuss the 80th anniversary of D-Day and his new book, “The Light of Battle: Eisenhower, D-Day, and the Birth of the American Superpower. ” They discussed understudied aspects of Eisenhower’s unique personal and professional history, how they prepared him for leading what would become the Allied invasion of Europe, and how his actions set the sta...
Jun 04, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Rachel Rizzo, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center, joins Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien to talk about last month’s NATO Youth Summit. Building off of her chapter “NATO, Public Opinion, and the Next Generation: Remaining Relevant, Remaining Strong,” in the 2021 book, “NATO 2030: Towards a New Strategic Concept and Beyond,” Rizzo discusses what NATO thinks of Gen Z and Millennials, the many efforts the Alliance is making to pitch to them its relevance and pur...
Jun 03, 2024•30 min
From July 31, 2018: For years, Shane Harris of the Washington Post has been fascinated with the search for extraterrestrial life in the universe. But that search raises a profound question: Should we try to communicate with aliens? Is there a risk to alerting a potentially hostile species to our presence? On July 12, Shane moderated a conversation hosted by Future Tense with Lucianne Walkowicz, the chair of astrobiology at the Library of Congress, and NASA astrophysicist Elisa Quintana, to talk ...
Jun 02, 2024•55 min
From August 19, 2020: Late last week, the UN Security Council voted down a resolution, offered by the United States, to indefinitely extend a conventional arms embargo on Iran set to expire in October. The lifting of the arms embargo was one of the sweeteners that was part of the Obama administration's Iran nuclear agreement. Now, the Trump administration has announced it will begin the process of triggering the snapback of UN sanctions on Iran using procedures outlined in UNSCR 2231—a move that...
Jun 01, 2024•42 min
This episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” was recorded on May 30 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom. Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes talked to Lawfare Senior Editors Quinta Jurecic and Roger Parloff about the timing of the D.C. case, Judge Aileen Cannon's denial of Special Counsel Jack Smith's gag order request in Florida, updates in the Fulton County case, the performance of Trump's attorneys and jury deliberations in the New York case, and more. And of course, the...
May 31, 2024•1 hr 19 min
This episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations, N.Y. Dispatch” was recorded on May 30 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom. Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes talked to Lawfare Senior Editors Quinta Jurecic and Roger Parloff, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien, and Courts Correspondent and Legal Fellow Anna Bower about Trump's conviction in his N.Y. criminal case. Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts for falsification of business records in the first degree. They discu...
May 31, 2024•41 min
This week, a Quinta-less Alan and Scott sat down with Lawfare all-stars Natalie Orpett, Eugenia Lostri, and Kevin Frazier to talk about the week’s big national security news, including: “Waiting to Expel.” The New York Times reported this week that the anticipated transfer of almost a dozen detainees from Guantanamo Bay to Oman was halted in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre. This as Oman is reportedly preparing to expel a number of former detainees already resident there with their families. What...
May 30, 2024•1 hr 18 min
Former FCC Chair Tom Wheeler joins Lawfare Tarbell Fellow Kevin Frazier and Lawfare Senior Editor Alan Rozenshtein to discuss the latest developments in AI governance. Building off his book, “Techlash: Who Makes the Rules in the Digital Gilded Age?” Wheeler makes the case for a more agile approach to regulating AI and other emerging technology. This approach would likely require the creation of a new agency. Wheeler points out that current agencies lack the culture, structure, and personnel requ...
May 30, 2024•43 min
On May 14, the Georgian parliament passed a controversial foreign agent bill titled “Transparency of Foreign Influence,” which has led to mass protests across the country. Although President Salome Zourabichvili's vetoed the bill, Georgia Dream, the majority party, overturned the veto on May 28, ensuring the enactment of this legislation. Lawfare Associate Editor for Communications Anna Hickey sat down with Senior Fellow at Carnegie Europe Thomas de Waal to discuss what exactly was in the bill, ...
May 29, 2024•37 min
It's Trump's Trials and Tribulations, New York Trial Dispatch, May 28. Roger Parloff sat down with Benjamin Wittes, Anna Bower, Tyler McBrien, and Katerine Pompilio to discuss what happened in the courtroom today. The podcast was edited by Noam Osband of Goat Rodeo. Our theme song is from Alibi Music. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
May 29, 2024•34 min
Raised in Mā’ohi Nui (French Polynesia), Dr. Anaïs Maurer is assistant professor of literature at Rutgers University and author of The Ocean on Fire . Her research and writing, including this book, have explored the intersection of the legacy of colonial powers' massive nuclear detonations in Oceania, critical threats from climate change, and the stories the people of Oceania tell about it all. David Priess chatted with Maurer about her experience growing up in Oceania, the scope of the nuclear ...
May 28, 2024•1 hr 11 min
Between June 6–9, voters across the EU’s member states will go to the polls to select members of the European Parliament. For today’s episode, Brookings Senior Fellow and Lawfare Senior Editor Molly Reynolds chatted with Tara Varma, Visiting Fellow, and Sophie Roehse, Senior Research Assistant, both of the Center for the United States and Europe at Brookings, to discuss these elections, what they mean for European politics, and how they might affect key issues also facing the U.S., including the...
May 28, 2024•42 min
From August 12, 2020: President Trump recently issued executive orders aimed at banning TikTok and WeChat from operating in the United States. To discuss the sanction, Bobby Chesney sat down with Dr. Sheena Chestnut Greitens, an associate professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a faculty affiliate with the Strauss Center for International Security and Law and the Clements Center for National Security at UT; and Dr. Ronald Deibert, a professor of pol...
May 27, 2024•55 min
From June 17, 2019: It's getting ugly in the Persian Gulf: Iran allegedly attacks two oil tankers. It announces that it's going to violate the JCPOA, the so-called Iran nuclear agreement. There's talk of military strikes. Europe is edgy, and the Secretary of State is on Sunday talk shows being edgier still. Benjamin Wittes sat down with Suzanne Maloney and Scott R. Anderson to talk it all through. They talked about whether the AUMF covers Iran, why Iran is doing this stuff, whether the Trump adm...
May 26, 2024•52 min
This episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” was recorded on May 23 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom. Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes talked to Lawfare Senior Editors Quinta Jurecic and Roger Parloff and Legal Fellow and Courts Correspondent Anna Bower about the Wednesday hearing in the Southern District of Florida and Judge Cannon's decision to unseal several court filings. They checked in on Fulton County to see how DA Fani Willis and Judge Scott McAfee fared in th...
May 25, 2024•1 hr 13 min
Undersea cables carry more than 95 percent of the world’s digital traffic. The system of cables is vulnerable to a range of threats, from fishing accidents and acts of nature to tampering from state actors. To discuss how to best protect this critical infrastructure, Lawfare 's Fellow in Technology Policy and Law, Eugenia Lostri, talked with Kevin Frazier Assistant Professor at St. Thomas University College of Law and Lawfare 's Tarbell Fellow. They talked about the different types of threats to...
May 24, 2024•45 min
This week, Alan, Quinta, and Scott were joined by Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes, fresh from his New York rumspringa, to talk over the week’s big national security news, including: “You Don’t Have to Go Home, But You Can’t Stay Here.” That’s the message that will soon be going out to those Lawfare team members that have been camping out at our temporary Manhattan studio, as, after weeks of proceedings, it is officially closing time for former President Donald Trump’s criminal prosecutio...
May 23, 2024•1 hr 19 min
For today’s episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Chimène Keitner, a Professor of Law at UC Davis School of Law and former Counselor on International Law at the U.S. Department of State, to discuss the recent applications for arrest warrants filed by the prosector for the International Criminal Court (ICC), accusing several senior Hamas leaders as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant of crimes against humanity and war cri...
May 23, 2024•53 min
In March, the Cyber Safety Review Board issued a report examining the Summer 2023 Microsoft Exchange Online Intrusion. Stephanie Pell, Senior Editor at Lawfare, sat down with Robert Silvers, Under Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland Security and Chair of the Cyber Safety Review Board to discuss the report. They talked about the Board’s determination that the intrusion was preventable and should never have occurred, Microsoft’s response to the report, and the Board’s unique role as...
May 22, 2024•38 min
It's Trump's Trials and Tribulations, New York Trial Dispatch, May 21. Katherine Pompillo, an associate editor of Lawfare, sat down with Benjamin Wittes, Anna Bower, Quinta Jurecic, and Tyler McBrien to discuss what happened in the courtroom today. The podcast was edited by Noam Osband of Goat Rodeo. Our theme song is from Alibi Music. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
May 22, 2024•29 min
Tim Alberta is an American journalist and author, and son of an evangelical pastor. Following his father’s death in 2019, Alberta began a four year journey, talking to American evangelicals ranging from megachurch pastors who preach to thousands to pastors at churches with a few dozen congregants to understand the schism occurring in the American evangelical community. His book “The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism,” puts American evangelicalism und...
May 21, 2024•57 min
Across the country, state lawmakers are joining the effort to address the perceived national security threat from China by passing a number of measures attempting to curb Chinese influences in their states. One such effort in Florida prevents Chinese citizens from owning property in the state. Lawfare ’s Associate Editor Hyemin Han spoke with Matthew Erie, Associate Professor at the University of Oxford, about what makes the Florida law and the ongoing litigation challenging it particularly nota...
May 21, 2024•41 min
It's Trump's Trials and Tribulations, New York Trial Dispatch, May 20. Roger Parloff sat down with Benjamin Wittes, Anna Bower, Quinta Jurecic, and Tyler McBrien to discuss what happened in the courtroom today. The podcast was edited by Noam Osband of Goat Rodeo. Our theme song is from Alibi Music. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
May 21, 2024•39 min
In foundational accounts of AI risk, the prospect of AI self-improvement looms large. The idea is simple. For any capable, goal-seeking system, the system’s goal will be more readily achieved if the system first makes itself even more capable. Having become somewhat more capable, the system will be able to improve itself again. And so on, possibly generating a rapid explosion of AI capabilities, resulting in systems that humans cannot hope to control. Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor of Law...
May 20, 2024•47 min
