The Lawfare Podcast

Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes talks with Executive Editor Natalie Orpett and Senior Editors Loren Voss and Molly Roberts about the limits the Constitution and statutes put on the use of military in U.S. elections—as well as the arguments an eager executive might make to skirt those restrictions. They discuss how the history of domestic deployment law shows that legislators have long believed voting deserves special protection from military involvement. They also explain why, ahead of the 2026 midterms, that isn't as reassuring as it might sound.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 podcast, Executive Editor Natalie Orpett talks with Lawfare Senior Editor Mike Feinberg and Lawfare Public Service Fellow Julia Curlee about the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, which was created to oversee the intelligence community. But much like the IC itself, the ODNI is somewhat mysterious to the general public—which makes it difficult to tell when something is going wrong. They talk about what ODNI does, why it exists at all, and how recent developments are undermining its mission.Read more of Mike and Julia’s analysis in their recent article in Lawfare, “Gradually, and Then Suddenly: The Decline and Fall of ODNI.”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 Senior Editors Eric Columbus, Kate Klonick, Molly Roberts, and Roger Parloff to discuss the Supreme Court’s rulings in the birthright citizenship case and Slaughter, indictments over purported vandalism at the Reflecting Pool, former CIA Director John Brennan’s civil suit against the Department of Justice, geofencing warrants, 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 September 1, 2023: The National Intelligence Strategy is out, and David Kris, a founder of Culper Partners, sat down to talk about it with Michael Collins, the acting head of the National Intelligence Council. They discussed many aspects of U.S. national security, defense, cyber, and intelligence strategy, including the increasing geopolitical significance of non-state entities, and even the meaning of the word intelligence itself. They also cover Mike's long and illustrious career inside the U.S. intelligence community and his thoughts about the future of U.S. intelligence.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 July 2, 2025: For today's episode, Lawfare Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman interviews Lindsay Cohn, an associate professor at the Naval War College and Columbia University, to discuss the Trump administration's handling of the U.S. military. Cohn discusses the firings of senior military officials, military parades, and the U.S. military at the U.S-Mexico border and in Los Angeles. She also assesses which policies are of genuine concern and which are overstated. 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 24, 2024: Israel and Hezbollah seem to be headed for a major war. Over the past several weeks, Israel has taken a series of escalatory steps along its northern border, targeting major Hezbollah figures, blowing up pagers used by thousands of Hezbollah operatives, and—most recently—hitting targets all over southern Lebanon associated with Hezbollah. Will it lead to all-out war? Lawfare’s Editor-in-Chief, Benjamin Wittes, sat down with Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson and Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman to talk over the latest developments between Israel and its most capable military foe.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 podcast, Executive Editor Natalie Orpett talks with Nick Bednar, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and a contributing editor at Lawfare. They talk about two Supreme Court cases issued last week that will have a huge impact on the president's authority over agencies that Congress set up to be independent. In Slaughter v. Trump, the Court held that the president has the power to remove members of independent agencies who had previously been understood to have employment protections that forbade the president from firing them. In Cook v. Trump, the Court carved out a special exception to that rule for the Federal Reserve. They discuss Nick's recent article for Lawfare, what the opinions say, what they fail to say, and what it means for the workforce that makes the federal government function.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 Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman sits down with Professor Javier Corrales, Dwight W. Morrow 1895 Professor of Political Science and Department Chair of Political Science at Amherst College, to discuss the Trump administration's efforts to pressure Cuba and support regime change there. They discuss why the Cuban regime stays in power, the effectiveness of different U.S. policy instruments used against Cuba, why Professor Corrales thinks that the Venezuela approach probably would not work in Cuba, and what a post-communist Cuba might 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.

On this episode of Lawfare Daily, Senior Editor Kate Klonick and Senior Editor Alan Rozenshtein speak with Cory Doctorow—science fiction author, activist, journalist, adviser to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the writer who coined "enshittification"—about his new book, “The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI.” Doctorow argues that the most important thing about the AI boom isn't what the technology can or can't do, but the historic investment bubble and the new arrangements of work being built on top of it—the same analytic lens he brought to platform decay, now turned on AI.They discuss whether the AI bubble will actually burst or merely deflate, and the unit economics underneath it; the "reverse centaur," the worker conscripted to serve the machine; and how it maps onto a broader culture and questions of AI "knowledge collapse," the human analogue to AI model collapse.Additional Resources:Cory Doctorow's daily newsletter, Pluralistic Ed Zitron, "The Hater's Guide to the AI Bubble," (Where's Your Ed At, 2025)Andrew J. Peterson, "AI and the Problem of Knowledge Collapse" (arXiv, 2024)Benjamin Recht, “The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us” (Princeton University Press, 2026)This episode also ran as an episode of Scaling Laws with an introduction from Alan Rozenshtein. 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.