The Lawfare Podcast

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 “regulation of…importation” doesn’t include the authority to impose tariffs. That said, President Trump himself has already indicated that he intends to reinstate many of the tariffs he had installed using IEEPA under other statutory authorities. How big a setback is this for the Trump administration’s trade policies? And what might it mean for other aspects of its policy agenda?“Mayhem in Mexico.” Over the weekend, an elite unit of the Mexican army killed one of the country’s most powerful drug kingpins, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, also known as “El Mencho.” His syndicate, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, immediately retaliated, through attacks on Mexican security forces, roadblocks throughout the country, and other measures intended to terrorize the public, particularly in areas frequented by American and Western tourists. The decision to move against El Mencho followed an intense pressure campaign by the Trump administration, which has pushed Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to take a hard stand against the cartels. Should this be seen as a win for the Trump administration? Or Sheinbaum? And what could the long-term implications be for the U.S.-Mexico relationship?“Clap if You Believe.” On Tuesday, President Trump delivered his annual State of the Union address, the longest of its kind. Many had braced for a contentious speech, expecting Trump to ridicule the justices seated in front of him and potentially even announce strikes on Iran. But Trump appeared to pull his punches on both of those fronts—he instead saved his harshest words for congressional Democrats and focused on laying out a rose-colored picture of the state of the country. How effective was Trump’s speech? And what does it tell us about the current state of his second presidency?In object lessons, Tyler just has this strange sense that you will enjoy the Otherworld podcast. Molly (and her dog) find comfort in the soft, squishy claws of Cthulhu. Scott eased his travel woes with a twist on the Vieux Carre at Birch & Bloom in Charlottesville. And Paul mixed his object lesson with three parts: Peter Suderman’s Cocktails if you’re into all things shaken and stirred; Mark Galeotti's podcast, In Moscow’s Shadow, if you’re into all things Russia-related; and Dan Wang’s New York Times Best Seller book, “Breakneck,” if you’re into all things China-related. 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 https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.

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 trends across conflicts, particularly regarding the use of advanced technology. He laments that while technology allows for the possibility of more precise targeting of valid targets, the realities on the ground don't always reflect that. Voss and Maslen discuss challenges to enforcement and accountability, but Maslen remains optimistic that protection of civilians in armed conflict can get better in the future.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 https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.

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?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 https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.

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.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 https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.

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 Contributor Peter Harrell to discuss the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, a federal judge holding a government attorney in contempt, Fulton County’s suit over the FBI’s seizure of ballots from the 2020 election, and more..You can find information on legal challenges to Trump administration actions here. And check out Lawfare’s new homepage on the litigation, new Bluesky account, and new WITOAD merch.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 https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.

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.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 https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.

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 assertions of executive power, how they're faring so far, and what comes next.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 https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.

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 constitutional law, including fidelity to text, the potential for a body of "case law," and the principal hierarchy of Anthropic, operators, and users; the decision to ground the constitution in virtue ethics and practical judgment rather than rigid rules; the document's treatment of Claude's potential moral patienthood and the question of AI personhood; whether the constitution's values are too Western and culturally specific; the tension between Anthropic's commercial incentives and its stated mission; and whether the constitutional approach can generalize to specialized domains like cybersecurity and military applications.Find Scaling Laws on the Lawfare website, and subscribe to never miss an episode.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 https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.

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 right. This year, Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave a more conciliatory set of remarks that nonetheless signaled that there were some fundamental changes happening in the relationship. For their part, European leaders mostly seemed to be on board with that as they increasingly leaned into the public stance that it was time for the continent to stand on its own, independent of the United States, although how feasible that will be and on what timeline remain the big questions. What should we make of the different remarks we heard from the conference and the broader messages the two sides are sending to each other? And is this a sign of an impending divorce or a different sort of shift in the U.S.-European transatlantic relationship? “Rial Talk.” American and Iranian officials met again this week in Geneva to negotiate an end to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear weapons program in exchange for an easing or elimination of U.S. sanctions on Iran. The negotiations took place amidst continued saber rattling by both President Trump and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who threatened in a speech ahead of the talks to sink U.S. warships in the region if Iran came under attack. Nonetheless, some participants in the negotiations—particularly the mediators from Oman—seemed optimistic that the two sides were getting closer to some sort of common understanding about how they might move forward. But U.S. military assets are continuing to accumulate in the region, leading some to conclude that a military operation may yet be on the horizon. Is there space for a deal? Or iare we going to see another war in Iran?“Xi Who Must Not Be Named.” A year in, the second Trump administration has not proven to be the China hawk that many expected. Far from drawing a hard line on all things China as the first Trump administration often seemed to do, U.S. officials have instead been surprisingly quiet and conciliatory in regard to China, at least outside the trade context. This has remained true even as reports have emerged of Xi Jinping purging his military of non-loyalists, modernizing China’s nuclear arsenal, and building more submarines—all steps with the potential to significantly upset the balance of power in Asia and beyond. What is the real logic underlying the Trump administration's seemingly quixotic approach to China, and where might it lead the broader relationship between the two major powers? In object lessons, Dan is delighting in John Company, a social-climbing, backroom-dealing, hostile-bargaining board game to, you know, escape the harsh realities of the real world. Ari enthusiastically recommends the Broadway adaptation of Death Becomes Her, which somehow manages to be even quirkier than the original film. Scott has been sucked into the social media abyss by Jess and Quinn’s corny, absurdist, and pun-oriented humor. And Mike offers an anti-object-lesson warning: the “Poetry for Kids” series is not, in fact, reliably for kids.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 https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.