The Lawfare Podcast

An old Soviet bioweapons lab shows new sign of life—and growth. Thousands of North Korean soldiers are in Russia to fight against Ukraine. And Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to have Elon Musk's direct line. What's going on in Russia? Lawfare's Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sits down with Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman and Tim Mak of The Counteroffensive to talk through the news of the weird from Russia.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/c/trumptrials.

From May 1, 2018: Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, authors of the new book “How Democracies Die,” join Benjamin Wittes for a conversation about the conditions under which democracies survive and how American democracy can survive its experiment with populism.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/c/trumptrials.

This episode of “Lawfare Live: National Security and the 2024 Election,” was recorded on October 29 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom. Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson, Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings Elaine Kamarck, Visiting Fellow at Brookings and director of the Katzmann Initiative Katie Tenpas, and Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett about what occurs during a presidential transition, what went wrong in 2020, and how Harris and Trump have begun to prepare for the transition.

Lawfare Senior Editor Anna Bower and Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sit down with Senior Editor Roger Parloff to discuss David Clements, who has led religiously inspired "trainings" across the U.S. teaching citizens how to stop local election officials from certifying elections the trainees consider fraudulent. Anna describes a training she attended, and Ben discusses, and plays clips from, his two-hour interview with Clements. You can read more about this story in the new Lawfare article, "David Clements: The Evangelist of Election Refusal," which includes audio of the full two-hour interview between Ben and Clements.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/c/trumptrials.

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Alan Rozenshtein, Benjamin Wittes, and Molly Reynolds to talk through the week’s big national security news, including:“An Eye for an Iran.” After weeks of waiting, Israel finally launched the strikes on Iran it had long promised in response to the volley of missiles Iran hit it with earlier this month. Compared to expectations, the strikes were relatively limited and aimed primarily at Iranian military targets, instead of its nuclear and oil infrastructure. And the United States is now urging an end to these “tit-for-tat” strikes. But is this likely to be the case? Or are Israel’s actions just the beginning of a bigger conflict?“He Just Slid into my DMs!” This week, the Wall Street Journal published a stunning report indicating that billionaire industrialist Elon Musk has been having previously undisclosed communications with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian officials. How concerning should these conversations be? And what ramifications might they have for U.S. national security?“Post Mortem.” Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos’s late decision to squash an official editorial board endorsement of Kamala Harris—and to abstain from presidential endorsements moving forward—has triggered a tidal wave of opposition, leading to hundreds of thousands of canceled subscriptions from a newspaper that was already set to lose substantial sums of money this year. How wrong-headed was Bezos’s move? And what should the proper response be?For object lessons, Alan hyped the sci-fi classic "Hyperion Cantos," by Dan Simmons. Molly celebrated a profile of a former student of hers by the inestimable W. Kama Bell, which is part of a new Washington Post series on civil servants. Scott urged listeners to get out and participate in democracy this pre-Election Day weekend. And Ben logrolled for Lawfare’s newest podcast endeavor: Escalation, an audio documentary series on the origins of the conflict in Ukraine.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/c/trumptrials.

Nick Quested, Emmy Award-winning director, discusses with Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff his recent film, "64 Days: The Insurrection Playbook," about the 64 days leading up to the Jan. 6 Capitol Siege. They discuss how he came to make the film, his interviews with Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio months before, days before, and then hours after the insurrection. They also discuss the testimony he gave to the Jan. 6 Committee and at the Proud Boys seditious conspiracy trial and the challenges he's experienced in trying to distribute this film. 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/c/trumptrials.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has taken a leading role in coordinating efforts to secure the 2024 election—from ensuring the physical security of election workers, to protecting election systems from cyber threats, to identifying foreign influence campaigns and preparing for deepfakes. With a week until Election Day, Senior Editors Quinta Jurecic and Eugenia Lostri spoke with CISA’s Cait Conley, Senior Advisor to the agency’s director, about how CISA is working to protect the vote. 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/c/trumptrials.

Mark Pomar served as assistant director of the Russian Service at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, director of the USSR Division at the Voice of America, executive director of the Board for International Broadcasting. He joined David Priess to talk about the origins of US government-funded international broadcasting, differences between RFE/RL and VOA, tensions between strategists and purists over the radios' content, the impacts of detente and of Reagan's more hawkish approach, KGB infiltrations of RFE/RL, changes to the radios toward the end of the Cold War, the role of RL in August 1991's failed coup against Gorbachev, perceptions of the radios after the Cold War, Mark's book Cold War Radio and his current research into Radio Liberty, the relevance of this history for today, and more.Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and Senior Editor at Lawfare, sits down with David Kris, founder of Culper Partners and the former Assistant Attorney General for National Security in the Obama administration, to talk about a new paper that David has published as part of Lawfare's ongoing Digital Social Contract series, entitled "A Data Proxy for Clients of Cloud Service Providers.”Kris argues that cloud storage offers significant benefits for security and efficiency, but many organizations may be hesitant to adopt it due to the risk of secret disclosure: the practice by which law enforcement can compel cloud service providers to turn over customer data while legally prohibiting them from notifying the customer. To address this concern, Kris proposes the appointment of a "data proxy," a highly trusted individual (like a retired federal judge) who would be contractually authorized to represent the organization's interests when it cannot represent itself due to a nondisclosure order.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/c/trumptrials.