The Lawfare Podcast

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes; Contributing Editor and Vice President of Research, Security and Defense at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Ariane Tabatabai; and Contributing Editor and Managing Director of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace Joel Braunold, to talk through the week’s big international news stories, including:“Pick Me, Bibi, One More Time.” Israelis head to the polls next Tuesday, October 27, in an election widely seen as a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—held just weeks after the third anniversary of the October 7 attacks, which Netanyahu has steadfastly refused to submit to an independent state commission of inquiry. Polls show his Likud trailing former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot’s new Yashar party, with neither Netanyahu’s bloc nor the opposition anywhere near the 61 seats needed to govern. Netanyahu has scrambled for a late boost, including by securing a “Complete and Total Endorsement” from President Trump, who suggested that if Israelis choose anyone else, he may not be inclined to “finish the job” against Iran. Is this finally the end of the Netanyahu era? And what would a new government—or a hung Knesset—mean for Israel’s wars and its relationship with Washington?“Crude Awakening.” U.S.-Ukraine relations have hit perhaps their lowest point of the second Trump administration. In the aftermath of President Trump’s deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin easing U.S. sanctions on Russian diesel exports, Trump told Ukraine it had “better damn well stop” striking Russian oil refineries and even called on Ukrainians to replace President Volodymyr Zelensky. Kyiv, meanwhile, says U.S. intelligence sharing was briefly cut off and its Starlink access throttled—just as Russia launched some of its largest drone barrages of the war. Ukraine initially respected Trump’s call to pause attacks on Russia’s diesel refineries but, after Russia did not reciprocate, resumed long-range strikes on Russian energy infrastructure. Now Putin is reportedly floating a summit next month with Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to decide Ukraine’s fate—without Zelensky at the table. Is Trump actively switching sides? And can Ukraine sustain its momentum on the battlefield if Washington keeps pulling the rug out from under it?“French Toast.” France is reeling after a weekend of some of the worst unrest it has seen in years. What began in mid-September as student protests over overcrowded classrooms and teacher shortages has snowballed into a nationwide movement against the rising cost of living, joined by unions, farmers, and veterans of the “Yellow Vest” movement. On Saturday, more than half a million people marched across the country—before the day degenerated into rioting, looting, and arson, with roughly 1,800 people ultimately getting arrested. President Emmanuel Macron has blamed far-left “insurrectionist elements,” while his would-be successors are already trading blame with an eye on next spring’s presidential election – one in which Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally is currently the frontrunner. What’s driving the unrest? And who stands to benefit politically as France heads toward 2027?In object lessons, Ben issues an enlightened apology to our neighbors to the north. Ari is sailing through her free time with Sleeping Gods. Scott is teaching his kids how to kick it old school in a new way. And Joel, somehow, in a way only Joel can, finds a patriotic message in this age-old battle for devotees and how you spend your weekends.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.

For today’s episode, Lawfare’s Renée DiResta sits down with Riana Pfefferkorn, a policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, and Cyndie Demeocq, a doctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Informatics, to discuss their new research examining how existing federal criminal law applies to AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and what 71 federal prosecutions reveal about the legal issues created by generative AI.Together, they unpack the Seventh Circuit’s recent decision in United States v. Anderegg; the First Amendment distinctions between real, AI-manipulated, and wholly synthetic imagery; and why the authors argue that existing criminal statutes are proving more effective than public debate suggests. They also discuss what the prosecution data can—and cannot—tell us about the scale of the problem, and how policymakers should approach defining the responsibilities of AI developers, platforms, and safety researchers.Please note that this episode contains content that some people may find disturbing, including conversation about child sexual abuse material. Listener discretion is advised.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.

With the rise of AI-driver cybersecurity incidents, the conversation on how to monitor and assess these incidents is increasingly on the rise. Lawfare Senior Editor Kevin Frazier sits down with Asad Ramzanali, the Director of Artificial Intelligence & Technology Policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator. The two discuss the creation of a Cyber Safety Review Board, a mechanism based on the National Transportation Review Board designed to independently monitor cybersecurity incidents; how it would monitor incidents; and what advantages it would have over current independent monitoring firms.Asad's article on this subject can be read here: https://vanderbiltpolicyaccelerator.substack.com/p/who-investigates-ais-cyber-attacks.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 October 20 at 9 a.m. ET, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Senior Editors Molly Roberts and Roger Parloff to discuss the October 19 hearing over President Trump's renovation plans at East Potomac Park.

Jimmy Rushton of the Kyiv Independent and Anastasiia Lapatina, Lawfare’s Ukraine fellow, join Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes to discuss the latest news from Kyiv: the grave rupture in U.S.-Ukrainian relations, reported breaks in intelligence sharing and in Ukrainian access to Starlink, the Russian assault on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, and the impending arrival of winter. 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.

Benjamin Wittes is joined by Anna Bower, Roger Parloff, Molly Roberts, and Eric Columbus for a fast-moving tour of the week’s most important Trump-era litigation.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 April 5, 2022: On June 3, President Biden issued a national security memorandum that established the “Fight Against Corruption” as a core national security interest for the United States. The memo described the staggering costs of corruption, with it being “estimated that acts of corruption sap between 2 and 5 percent from global gross domestic product.” The memo also directed U.S. officials to develop a comprehensive presidential strategy focused on anti-corruption.Alvaro Marañon sat down with Paul Massaro, the senior policy advisor for counter-kleptocracy at the Helsinki Commission, to speak about the United States government's latest anti-corruption efforts following the June memo. They discussed the latest developments in the efforts to combat corruption, details around the first-ever presidential strategy on anti-corruption and the kinds of messages these unified efforts send to other authoritarian regimes beyond Russia. For more on this topic, consider watching “Countering Oligarchs, Enablers, and Lawfare,” a hearing on Wednesday, April 6, at 2:30 p.m., hosted by the Helsinki Commission.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 December 29, 2022: On December 15, the New York Times published an article that detailed an investigation conducted by three of its reporters into how Russian state media uses American right wing and Chinese media to portray the ongoing war in Ukraine to Russian citizens. The investigation utilized thousands of leaked emails from correspondence within a Russian state media agency and with Russian security services, to uncover how the Kremlin crafts its narratives and spreads disinformation to its people.To unpack the findings of the investigation and their implications, Lawfare associate editor Katherine Pompilio sat down with the journalists that conducted the investigation: Paul Mozur, a New York Times correspondent focused on technology and geopolitics in Asia; Adam Satariano, a New York Times technology correspondent focused on digital policy; and Aaron Krolik, an interactive news journalist and developer also at the Times. They discussed how they conducted their investigation, Russia's propaganda machine that they describe as the country's greatest wartime success, the limits of the disinformation campaign, and more.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.

Over the past decade, the U.S. has expanded its use of measures including tariffs, sanctions, export controls, and investment screening to regulate the economy in the name of national security. It has also embraced new ones such as government-owned equity stakes in private companies and new stockpiles of critical materials. Kristen Eichensehr, a law professor at Harvard, and Ashley Deeks, a law professor at the University of Virginia—and former legal counsel to the National Security Council—have an article in the Harvard National Security Journal arguing that the U.S. is seeing the emergence of a "new command economy" in which the government plays a much more activist economic role than it has in many decades. Deeks and Eichensehr join Lawfare Contributing Editor and host of the Security Economics podcast Peter Harrell to unpack what the new command economy is, what it means for companies and the government, and how we should be thinking about incorporating basic legal values like transparency and oversight into this emerging framework. This episode is part of the Security Economics podcast series, in which Peter Harrell and guests explore the intersection of economics and national security, how countries manage their economies to support national security, and how they deploy economic tools in support of geopolitical objectives. 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.