The Lawfare Podcast

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Daniel Byman, Tyler McBrien, and Natalie Orpett to talk through aspects of the week’s biggest Iran-focused news stories, including:“Situational Iran-y.” The world came into Tuesday evening fearing a major escalation in the ongoing U.S. and Israeli conflict with Iran. But instead, President Trump made a last-minute choice to accept a two-week ceasefire, conditional on the opening of the Strait of Hormuz—a condition that Iran indicated it was prepared to meet, kind of, so long as “open” means coordinating with its military forces (and paying) for safe transit. Is this the beginning of the end of the Iran conflict? And what does the shape of the ceasefire tell us about the conflict’s likely regional implications moving forward?“Verbal Iran-y.” Tuesday’s breakthrough ceasefire agreement came after days of increasingly outlandish rhetoric by President Trump, including a threat earlier that day that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if his conditions were not met. What role did Trump’s threats play in the outcome? And what might the broader ramifications might be of the U.S. president issuing threats that would amount to war crimes (if not genocide) if actually followed up on?“Dramatic Iran-y.” While Trump’s rhetoric was undoubtedly intended to communicate strength, it came from a place of increasing weakness. U.S. military operations in Iran were weeks away from a major statutory barrier, and efforts to secure needed supplemental funding are facing headwinds in Congress. Perhaps more importantly, the conflict has proven widely unpopular and devastating for the U.S. and broader global economy—two factors that weigh heavily on Trump and his congressional allies in an election year. What will this shift in the Iran conflict mean for Trump’s political future? Not to mention the legal and institutional arrangements that have allowed him to pursue so unorthodox a foreign policy in recent months?In object lessons, Dan is not playing games when simulating the 1960 presidential election. Natalie is delighting in another kind of history with the masterful writing in Claire Messud’s “This Strange Eventful History.” Scott is revisiting a 2002 Donald Trump review of “Citizen Kane” that has a somewhat surprising ending. And Tyler is recommending that you watch as much Artemis II content as humanly possible.Note: We’re taking a little break next week, but keep an eye out for our next episode on April 23!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.

What does it look like when the government violates court orders in more than 350 separate immigration habeas cases?On today’s episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Molly Roberts sits down with Lawfare Associate Editor Katherine Pompilio to discuss Lawfare’s new interactive tracker, which documents what is known about instances in which the Trump administration has failed to comply with federal court orders in immigration habeas corpus proceedings.The two discuss why Lawfare built this tracker and why the project matters beyond any individual case, what the dataset reveals about a broader pattern of government non-compliance, the absence of institutional record-keeping, holding the government accountable, 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.

Lawfare Senior Editor Michael Feinberg sits down with human rights advocate Yaqiu Wang to discuss the role of emerging technologies in China’s surveillance and censorship apparatus.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 Editor Michael Feinberg and Professor Arne Westad of Yale University, author of “The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History,” discuss 19th- and 20th-century power politics, the contemporary rise of China, and how the former can inform reactions to the latter.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 Molly Roberts, Anna Bower, and Roger Parloff and Lawfare Associate Editor Katherine Pompilio to discuss Lawfare’s new database which is tracking the non-compliance with court orders by the government, Pam Bondi being fired as attorney general, legal challenges to President Trump’s new elections integrity executive order, 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 March 14, 2025: This episode of the Lawfare Podcast features Glen Weyl, economist and author at Microsoft Research; Jacob Mchangama, Executive Director of the Future of Free Speech Project at Vanderbilt; and Ravi Iyer, Managing Director of the USC Marshall School Neely Center. Together with Renee DiResta, Associate Research Professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown and Contributing Editor at Lawfare, they talk about design vs moderation. Conversations about the challenges of social media often focus on moderation—what stays up and what comes down. Yet the way a social media platform is built influences everything from what we see, to what is amplified, to what content is created in the first place—as users respond to incentives, nudges, and affordances. Design processes are often invisible or opaque, and users have little power—though new decentralized platforms are changing that. So they talk about designing a prosocial media for the future, and the potential for an online world without Caesars.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 March 4, 2024: As the 2024 presidential election approaches, a vital question is whether the legal architecture governing the election is well crafted to prevent corruption and abuse. In their new book, “How to Steal a Presidential Election,” Lawrence Lessig and Matthew Seligman argue that despite the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022, serious abuse of the presidential election rules remains a live possibility. Jack Goldsmith sat down with Lessig to learn why. They discussed the continuing possibility of vice presidential mischief, the complex role of faithless electors, strategic behavior related to recounts, and the threat of rogue governors. They also pondered whether any system of rules can regulate elections in the face of widespread bad faith by the actors involved.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.

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which is designed to protect users' privacy—including privacy online—turned 40 this year. On March 6, Lawfare hosted an event at Georgetown Law marking the event and featuring panel discussions with the authors of our paper series, Installing Updates to ECPA, in which experts from various disciplines reflected on the law, what’s changed over the last 40 years, and how ECPA should be updated to meet today’s realities. On today's podcast, we're sharing the opening remarks from that event, featuring legendary Supreme Court advocate Michael Dreeban, who argued many of the landmark ECPA cases. He talked about where ECPA came from and how it evolved, how it relates to the 4th Amendment, and where the law stands now. You can watch the entire event and read the paper series on our website here. 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.