The Lawfare Podcast

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Natalie Orpett, Eric Columbus, and Molly Roberts, to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including:“I Don’t Think You’re Ready for the Shutdown.” The record-setting shutdown of the U.S. government is set to come to an end after eight Democratic senators agreed to a continuing resolution that will fund all of the government through January 30, certain chunks of the government all the way through the end of the fiscal year, and made a number of concessions along the way. What should we make of this deal, and what are the political ramifications—particularly for Democrats, many of whom are quite angry at those who ultimately voted for this plan?“Overt Acts.” Last week, in a move quite publicly celebrated by his controversial clemency czar Ed Martin, President Trump issued pardons for dozens of individuals accused of participating in efforts to manipulate the results of the 2020 election in his favor, including his former attorney Rudy Giuliani and other alleged “unindicted co-conspirators” in his own, since-abandoned federal criminal prosecution. Indeed, Trump himself was the only one who was federally indicted for 2020 election manipulations, making the most immediate legal effect of these pardons unclear. What is Trump trying to accomplish in issuing them? And what could the ramifications be for future elections?“Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” Even as his prosecutions against James Comey and Letitia James have faced headwinds, the Trump administration appears to be moving full speed ahead with criminal investigations against other of his perceived enemies—including a large-scale investigation into government reports alleging Russian support for Trump in 2016 that was recently transferred from Justice Department officials in Eastern Pennsylvania to the more Trump-friendly terrain of Southern Florida. What is the current state of the revenge campaign the Trump administration has been pursuing, and where does it seem set to lead?In object lessons, Natalie is appreciating both “The History of the New Yorkers Vaunted Fact Checking Department” and the small army of neurotic geniuses who march forward in pursuit of journalistic integrity. Eric is appreciating The Week Junior, his daughter’s favorite magazine that proves real journalism isn’t just for grown-ups. Scott is appreciating The Far Side’s online presence, updated daily—a reminder that the line between journalism and cartooning is always thinner than we’d like to admit. And Molly is appreciating an “illuminating” visit to Glenstone, where Jenny Holzer’s art reads like journalism etched in light, documenting the lingering shadows of some dark subjects.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 this episode, Michael Feinberg interviews Fareed Zakaria, whose book “Age of Revolutions” has just been issued with a new afterword in light of the return of the Trump Administration. The two discuss intellectual, cultural, and populist revolutions from history and what those events have to teach us about our current political moment.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 Senior Editors Kate Klonick and Alan Rozenshtein talk to Columbia law professor Tim Wu about this new book, “The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity.” The book is the final part of what Wu calls his trilogy—building on his prior best selling books “The Master Switch” and “Attention Merchants.” Klonick and Rozenshtein speak with Wu about how he sees the platforms as evolving in the 15 years since he started this series and what he sees as the future solution set for the problems that have developed out of the early promise of the digital era. 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 September 23, 2024: Lindsay Chervinsky is the Executive Director of the George Washington Library at Mount Vernon. She is also the author of a much celebrated new book on the John Adams presidency that is focused primarily on the national security decision-making of the second president and how it set norms for the conduct of the presidency and its powers with which we still live today. She sat down with Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes to talk about how Adams defended presidential power while it was under assault by both his Jeffersonian foes and the radicals of his own Federalist party.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 Anna Bower, Molly Roberts, Roger Parloff and Eric Columbus to discuss the criminal trial of the man who threw a sandwich at a federal immigration officer in D.C., a hearing in the prosecution of James Comey, litigation over the conditions of an immigration detention center in Illinois, 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 22, 2024: There is much debate among academics and policy experts over the power the Constitution affords to the president and Congress to initiate military conflicts. But as Michael Ramsey and Matthew Waxman, law professors at the University of San Diego and Columbia, respectively, point out in a recent law review article, this focus misses the mark. In fact, the most salient constitutional war powers question—in our current era dominated by authorizations for the use of military force—is not whether the president has the unilateral authority to start large-scale conflicts. Rather, it is the scope of Congress’s authority to delegate its war-initiation power to the president. This question is particularly timely as the Supreme Court appears growingly skeptical of significant delegations of congressional power to the executive branch.Matt Gluck, Research Fellow at Lawfare, spoke with Waxman and Ramsey about their article. They discussed the authors' findings about the history of war power delegations from the Founding era to the present, what these findings might mean if Congress takes a more assertive role in the war powers context, and why these constitutional questions matter if courts are likely to be hesitant to rule on war powers delegation questions.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 November 6, 2024: For today’s special episode, Lawfare General Counsel and Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson held a series of conversations with contributors to a special series of articles on “The Dangers of Deploying the Military on U.S. Soil” that Lawfare recently published on its website, in coordination with our friends at Protect Democracy.Participants include: Alex Tausanovitch, Policy Advocate at Protect Democracy; Laura Dickinson, a Professor at George Washington University Law School; Joseph Nunn, Counsel in the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center; Chris Mirasola, an Assistant Professor at the University of Houston Law Center; Mark Nevitt, a Professor at Emory University School of Law; Elaine McCusker, a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute; and Lindsay P. Cohn, a Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College. Together, they discussed how and why domestic deployments are being used, the complex set of legal authorities allowing presidents and governors to do so, and what the consequences might be, both for U.S. national security and for U.S. civil-military relations more generally.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 November 5, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Lawfare Contributing Editor Peter Harrell and Georgetown Law Professors Marty Lederman and Kathleen Claussen to discuss what occurred during oral arguments in the legal challenge to President Trump’s tariffs at the Supreme Court and how the justices may rule.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.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.

On today’s episode, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sits down with Joseph Kellner, an assistant professor of history at the University of Georgia to discuss his latest book, “The Spirit of Socialism: Culture and Belief at the Soviet Collapse,” which examines the millions of Soviet people who embarked on a “spirited and highly visible search for new meaning” during the dissolution of the U.S.S.R.They discuss the questions of epistemic authority, of cultural identity, and of history's ultimate meaning that drove people to seek new spiritual meaning during this period, as well as the era’s many colorful characters, including Hare Krishnas, astrologers, doomsayers, and neo-Pagans who pushed bio-healing, folk baths, and other answers to these questions. They also talk about why, when a superpower declines, shared reality dissolves.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.