From February 7, 2025: On today’s podcast, Lawfare Associate Editor for Communications Anna Hickey spoke to Nayna Gupta, Director of Policy at the American Immigration Council, about the Laken Riley Act, the first piece of legislation signed by President Trump in his second term, its start as a messaging bill in the last Congress, and its impact on the immigration detention system. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare . You can also support ...
Feb 14, 2026•35 min
For today's podcast, we're bringing you the audio for a panel discussion that Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson hosted this past November, at a conference on Precision Lethality and Civilian Harm Mitigation, hosted by the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law (CERL) at the University of Pennsylvania. Joining him on the panel were Professor Claire Finkelstein, CERL's founder and director; Christopher Maier, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict in...
Feb 13, 2026•56 min
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 plant has been completely destroyed, and many more energy sites have been damaged. Numerous other pa...
Feb 12, 2026•1 hr 21 min
Alan Rozenshtein, research director at Lawfare , speaks with Justin Curl, a third-year J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School, and Arvind Narayanan, professor of computer science at Princeton University and director of the Center for Information Technology Policy, about their new Lawfare research report, “ AI Won't Automatically Make Legal Services Cheaper ,” co-authored with Princeton Ph.D. candidate Sayash Kapoor. The report argues that despite AI's impressive capabilities, structural features o...
Feb 12, 2026•44 min
In his recent piece for Court Watch , a news site covering interesting, yet often overlooked federal court filings, Lawfare Associate Editor Peter Beck wrote about the Middle District of Georgia, which is “filled with rich news stories that even a few years ago would have been quickly reported” but which “now sits in a so-called ‘news desert,’ a place that is largely devoid of even a single newspaper, let alone a reporter dedicated to its federal court.” Out of Georgia’s 17 counties without a si...
Feb 11, 2026•33 min
Lawfare Senior Editor Eric Columbus talks with Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council to discuss what is—and isn’t—likely to look different in the upcoming year of Trump administration immigration policy. After a whirlwind year, ICE and CBP have a lot more resources than at the dawn of the administration—but also a lot more opposition. How will it all shake out? To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare . You can also support ...
Feb 10, 2026•53 min
In a live conversation on YouTube , Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Eric Columbus, Roger Parloff, and Molly Roberts to discuss a congressional hearing into ICE’s use of force in Minneapolis and Chicago, oral argument over DHS’s mandatory detention policy, a district judge rejecting Minnesota’s 10th amendment challenge to Operation Metro Surge, and more. You can find information on legal challenges to Trump administration actions here . And check out L...
Feb 09, 2026•1 hr 25 min
From April 1, 2024: In early February, the European Union approved a major overhaul of its immigration laws. If approved by EU member states, the pact will drastically curtail the rights of migrants and asylum seekers entering the European Union. It’s part of a trend we’re seeing all over the world, including here in the U.S. Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett sat down with Steve Meili, Professor of International Human Rights Law at University of Minnesota Law School. They discussed the EU ...
Feb 08, 2026•55 min
From January 25, 2023: Judge Robert McBurney of the Superior Court of Fulton County held a hearing on Tuesday to decide whether or not to release the Fulton County Special Grand Jury's report on 2020 election interference in Georgia. Lawfare's Fulton County correspondent Anna Bower was in the room live-blogging the matter, and Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes caught up with her right after the hearing to talk it through. Why did the district attorney argue that the report should continue ...
Feb 07, 2026•43 min
Information about the recent protests in Iran and the regime's brutal crackdown are only starting to come to light, having been severely limited by the internet shutdown over the past few weeks. The picture that is emerging is horrifying: Thousands and possibly tens of thousands have been killed by regime security forces. In this episode, Lawfare Public Service Fellow Ariane Tabatabai talks to Nate Swanson and Iria Puyosa of the Atlantic Council to make sense of what has been going on in Iran an...
Feb 06, 2026•48 min
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 the help of an unlikely senior administration official: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabba...
Feb 05, 2026•1 hr 23 min
On today's podcast, Executive Editor Natalie Orpett speaks with Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson about the recently announced U.S. plan to take possession of Venezuelan oil, sell it on the world market, and hold the revenue from those sales in accounts based in Qatar. Scott and Lawfare Contributing Editor Alex Zerden recently published an article in Lawfare digging into the complexities of the plan. Scott and Natalie talk through them all—what exactly this plan is, how it’s supposed to wo...
Feb 05, 2026•1 hr 4 min
Lawfare Senior Editor Michael Feinberg sits down with Matthew Guariglia and Brian Hochman to discuss their new book, “ The Church Committee Report Revelations from the Bombshell 1970s Investigation into the National Security State ,” in which they chronicle the law enforcement and intelligence community’s Cold War excesses, the Senate committee which uncovered them, and what we can learn about the resulting report in terms of our own era. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Su...
Feb 04, 2026•56 min
Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a professor at American University, discusses her new book, " Man Up: The New Misogyny & the Rise of Violence Extremism ," with Lawfare Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman. She explains how different forms of misogyny shape lead to political and social violence, why most scholarship and media accounts usually ignore the role of gender, and what individuals can do to fight back. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare ....
Feb 03, 2026•51 min
In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Senior Editor Eric Columbus sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower, Roger Parloff, and Molly Roberts to discuss the FBI search of the election center in Fulton County, the arrest of protestors in Minnesota, including Don Lemon, a decision out of the 9th Circuit regarding temporary protected status for Venezuelans, and more. You can find information on legal challenges to Trump administration actions here. And check out Lawfare’s new homepage on...
Feb 02, 2026•1 hr 28 min
From January 27, 2025: In a live conversation on January 23 , Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to Lawfare Senior Editors Scott R. Anderson, Anna Bower, Quinta Jurecic, and Alan Rozenshtein and assistant law professor at Pace University Amelia Wilson about the first batch of executive orders by President Trump in his second term, including suspending enforcement of the TikTok ban, the use of the military at the border, the birthright citizenship order, and the legal challenges some o...
Feb 01, 2026•57 min
From July 16, 2024: On July 15, Judge Cannon granted former President Trump’s motion to dismiss the indictment brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith for the alleged mishandling of classified documents. She found that Smith was appointed as a special counsel in violation of the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. In a live podcast recording , Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes talked to Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett, Legal Fellow and Courts Correspondent Anna Bower, Senior Edi...
Jan 31, 2026•58 min
Kyle Cheney, senior legal affairs reporter for Politico, speaks to Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff about the thousands of habeas corpus cases he has pored through challenging a Trump administration policy requiring mandatory detention for most detained aliens. They discuss how judges have ruled on these cases, the degree to which those rulings do or don’t correlate with political expectations, the appellate prospects for such cases, and why they haven’t been resolved by class action. More re...
Jan 30, 2026•39 min
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 administration’s immigration policies and ICE’s violent tactics. Republicans and Democrats alike have...
Jan 29, 2026•1 hr 13 min
The crisis over President Trump's threats to annex Greenland appears to be over for now. But the second- and third-order consequences continue to unfold as NATO allies try to manage their relationship with the United States. In this episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Molly Roberts, Lawfare Public Service Fellow Ariane Tabatabai, and Egmont Institute Visiting Fellow John Drennan give an overview of the crisis and discuss its implications for the United States and NATO, as well as talk though how U.S....
Jan 29, 2026•42 min
Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sits down with Princeton PhD candidate Elizabeth Tsurkov to talk about the 903 days that she was held in captivity by Kata'ib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq. Tsurkov describes the circumstances of her detention, the realities of life in captivity, and the sociological study she undertook of her captors while imprisoned. Wittes and Tsurkov also explore changes in U.S. hostage policy under the Biden and Trump administrations, as well as how various gov...
Jan 28, 2026•1 hr 11 min
Andy Grotto, William J. Perry International Security Fellow and the founder and co-director of the Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), and Jim Dempsey, a senior policy adviser to that program and a Lecturer at the UC Berkeley Law School, join Lawfare ’s Justin Sherman to discuss their recent study on the U.S. military’s domestic operational technology (OT) cybersecurity vulnerabilities, domestic in...
Jan 27, 2026•49 min
In a live conversation on YouTube , Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower, Roger Parloff, and Eric Columbus and Lawfare Associate Editor Olivia Manes to discuss discussed the FBI searching the home of a Washington Post reporter, the Supreme Court oral arguments in President Trump’s attempt to fire Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve, the criminal inquiries into Minnesota state officials and protestors, and more. You can find information on legal c...
Jan 26, 2026•1 hr 41 min
From December 6, 2024: For today’s podcast, Lawfare General Counsel and Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Joel Braunold, Managing Director of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, for the latest in their series of podcast conversations on aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This time, they focused on what might be one of the most consequential developments in recent memory: Donald Trump’s return to the White House. They discussed who seems likely to steer polic...
Jan 25, 2026•1 hr 3 min
From January 15, 2025: In a live conversation on January 14 , Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to Lawfare Senior Editor Anna Bower about the confirmation hearing of Pete Hegseth by the Senate Armed Services Committee on his expected nomination to be secretary of defense, the first confirmation hearing for one of President-elect Trump’s cabinet nominations in his second term. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare . You can also su...
Jan 24, 2026•57 min
Jakub Kraus, a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare , speaks with Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota and Research Director at Lawfare , and Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law, a Senior Fellow at the Abundance Institute, and a Senior Editor at Lawfare , about Anthropic's newly released "constitution" for its AI model, Claude. The conversation covers the lengthy document's principles and underlying philosophical vi...
Jan 23, 2026•57 min
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 officials—including Governor Tim Walz—investigating alleged efforts to obstruct or not cooperate with f...
Jan 22, 2026•1 hr 21 min
Senior Editor Anna Bower spoke with Carolyn Shapiro, co-director of Chicago-Kent College of Law's Institute on the Supreme Court, and Bryna Godar, a Staff Attorney with the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. The discussion covered the state of Minnesota’s jurisdiction to criminally investigate Jonathan Ross, the ICE official who reportedly shot and killed Renee Nicole Good on Jan. 7. The conversation also covered obstacles state prosecutors might face ...
Jan 22, 2026•43 min
On today's episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sits down with Joel Braunold, the managing director of The Center Project and a Lawfare contributing editor, to talk over the Trump administration's recently released plans for the Board of Peace tasked with implementing its peace plan for Gaza. Together, they discuss the details of the plan, how it intersects with the Trump administration's twenty-point peace plan, the state of international relations surrounding the ceasefire in Gaza,...
Jan 21, 2026•54 min
Lawfare Senior Editor Molly Roberts joins Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes to discuss her new article on the so-called “grand conspiracy” investigation, which is now the subject of a grand jury probe in Florida. The “grand conspiracy” posits that a single conspiracy to foil President Trump’s electoral prospects binds together the Russia investigation from 2016, the Mar-a-Lago search, and the Jan. 6 and classified documents prosecutions during the Biden administration. To receive ad-free podcasts,...
Jan 20, 2026•47 min
