The Lawfare Podcast: Patreon Edition

The Lawfare Institute

The Lawfare Podcast features discussions with experts, policymakers, and opinion leaders at the nexus of national security, law, and policy. On issues from foreign policy, homeland security, intelligence, and cybersecurity to governance and law, we have doubled down on seriousness at a time when others are running away from it. Visit us at www.lawfaremedia.org.

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Today · 1 hr 38 min
Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, August 7
In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Senior Editors Eric Columbus, Molly Roberts, and Roger Parloff to discuss the Trump administration requesting the Supreme Court stay the district court’s order halting the enforcement of the mail-in voting executive order, updates on where TPS stands following the Supreme Court’s order, developments in the Reflecting Pool prosecution, the D.C. Circuit blocking the ballroom construction 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Yesterday · 37 min
Lawfare Archive: Guantanamo, Immigration, and the U.S. Military
From February 20, 2025: On Jan. 29, President Trump ordered the expansion of facilities at Guantanamo Bay to hold migrants being deported from the United States. It was the latest—and perhaps most aggressive—move to deploy the U.S. military in pursuit of the administration's immigration policies. And it's not at all clear that there's a solid legal basis for doing it. Executive Editor Natalie Orpett sat down with Chris Mirasola, Assistant Professor at the University of Houston Law Center and author of a recent piece in Lawfare on this subject, to talk through the legal issues, the administration's strategy, and what it all means for Trump's unconventional use of the military. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Saturday · 39 min
Lawfare Archive: Israel: Divided at Home and at War Yet Again
From March 28, 2025: For today's episode, Lawfare Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman interviewed Natan Sachs, the Director of the Middle East Program of the Brookings Institution, to discuss Israel's turbulent domestic situation and the renewal of the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon. Sachs explains Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's political tactics, the controversies over the budget, judicial reform and the resulting protests, and the sacking of figures like Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar. Sachs also discusses why Israel has decided to renew operations in Gaza and Lebanon and why strikes on Iran are more likely than in the past. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Friday · 1 hr 4 min
Scaling Laws: Daniel Kokotajlo on AI 2040: Plan A
Daniel Kokotajlo, former OpenAI researcher and executive director of the AI Futures Project, joins Kevin Frazier, Director of the AI Innovation and Law Program at Texas Law and Senior Editor at Lawfare, to detail his policy recommendation—AI 2040: Plan A. It’s a thorough analysis of a policy pathway to delaying superintelligence, which Daniel and his co-authors think is necessary to ensure that the disruptive effects of highly-capable AI systems do not outweigh the benefits. Kevin asks Daniel to explain scenario scrutiny, address feedback from other AI policy stakeholder such as Tom Davidson, and detail what led him to already alter his estimation of how likely it is that policymakers adopt Plan A. Find Scaling Laws on the Lawfare website, and subscribe to never miss an episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Thursday · 1 hr 28 min
Rational Security: The “Live from Mom’s Basement” Edition
This week, Scott sat down with his colleagues Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett, Lawfare Public Service Fellow Julia Curlee, and Lawfare Contributing Editor and Vice President of Research, Security and Defense at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Ariane Tabatabai, to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including: “Lateral Thinking.” Five months into Operation Epic Fury, the U.S.-Iran war has flared back to life—and, more importantly, spread outward. Over the past two weeks, the fighting has jumped to new countries, actors, and domains in a textbook case of “horizontal escalation”: U.S. and Saudi jets opened a new front by striking Iranian-backed militias inside Iraq; Iran-aligned forces battered Kuwait’s water and power infrastructure and Saudi oil facilities, with the Houthis apparently firing from Iraqi soil; and a wave of Iran-linked cyberattacks hit water utilities here at home. Then last Friday, President Trump threatened what he called the biggest attack since World War II—before abruptly calling it off, with talks over reopening the Strait of Hormuz now said to be back on. What does this expanding aperture mean for the future of the Iran War? “Squatter’s Rights.” The intelligence community has a new leader—sort of. On July 28, the Senate confirmed Jay Clayton, the former SEC chair and Trump’s U.S. attorney in Manhattan, as Director of National Intelligence on a 51-47 party-line vote, ending the rocky acting tenure of housing chief Bill Pulte. But in a nearly unheard-of move, the White House left Clayton unsworn for a week while Pulte stayed on—using the extra days to run a fifth round of purges at an agency he’d already cut nearly in half—before Clayton was finally sworn in this Monday. The saga has reignited the fight over Section 702 surveillance authorities, which have now lapsed, and raised pointed legal questions about whether Pulte had any authority to keep acting at all. Where does the ODNI go from here, and what does it mean for U.S. national security? “Weiss Guys.” A sprawling New York Times investigation published over the weekend pulls back the curtain on how Paul, Weiss—the first elite law firm to cut a deal with the Trump administration back in early 2025 to escape a punishing executive order—actually made that fateful decision. The reporting details how then-chairman Brad Karp enlisted Patriots owner Robert Kraft to reach Trump, agreed to $40 million in pro bono work and to drop the firm’s DEI policies, and was blindsided when Trump spun the deal his own way online. It lands after a wave of star litigators fled the firm, Karp’s own ouster over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, and fresh revelations about the quiet, multimillion-dollar exit of the firm’s first openly transgender partner. What has this capitulation (if that’s what to call it) cost Paul, Weiss? And what lessons should other law firms—and the legal community as a whole—draw? In object lessons, Ari has a message for competitive spouses: build something together and try Cozy Stickerville. Julia has a message for Secretary Hegseth with her 1950’s CIA poster: “ We Are Looking for a Few Good Women.” Scott has a message for the makers of By Jove to bring back a childhood classic. And Natalie has a message for litigators navigating uncertain waters: she sees you and appreciates you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Thursday · 1 hr
Lawfare Daily: The Court Against the Courts with Steve Vladeck and Kate Klonick
On August 5, Lawfare Senior Editor Kate Klonick sat down for a live discussion on Substack with Georgetown Law Professor Steve Vladeck to discuss his forthcoming Harvard Law Review Foreword, “The Court Against the Courts,” which chronicles institutional attacks on the lower federal courts. Vladeck argues not just that the Court failed to shield district judges from impeachment threats and harassment campaigns, but that it bears “significant responsibility” for what’s happened to them. For more on this, Vladeck also wrote about the article on his Substack. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wednesday · 34 min
Lawfare Daily: The Rise of the Military-Technology Complex with Bernice Yeung
On today’s episode, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sits down with Bernice Yeung, the managing editor at the U.C. Berkeley School of Journalism investigative reporting program and author of a recent feature, “The rise of the military-technology complex,” published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. They discuss the bumpy history of Big Tech’s relationship with U.S. defense contracting, how Silicon Valley has reshaped the Pentagon, and how, in turn, the Pentagon has reshaped Silicon Valley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Tuesday · 1 hr 6 min
Lawfare Daily: Ukraine, Iran, Taiwan, and the Short War Illusion
Some countries are susceptible to believing that with the right military strategy, they can accomplish their goals with a quick war. It's called the "Short War Illusion," and as the term suggests, it rarely works out as planned. That includes the two major conflicts currently underway in Ukraine and Iran. And it could include a potential conflict in Taiwan. On today's podcast, Executive Editor Natalie Orpett speaks with Dara Massicot, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment’s Russia & Eurasia Program; Ariane Tabatabai, Vice President at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a contributing editor at Lawfare, and Julia Curlee, Lawfare Public Service Fellow and 25-year veteran of the CIA. They discuss how the short war illusion is playing out today and how it could play out in a future conflict between China and Taiwan—a topic Julia considered in her recent piece in Lawfare, “The Short-War Illusion: What Iran Teaches Beijing About Taiwan.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
August 3 · 1 hr 43 min
Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, July 31
In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Georgetown Law Professor Peter Harrell and Senior Editors Eric Columbus, Anna Bower, and Roger Parloff to discuss legal challenges to President Trump’s new tariffs, recent motions by James Comey in the ‘86 47 seashell’ prosecution, developments in the Reflecting Pool prosecution, a hearing on Anthropic’s summary judgement motion challenging their supply chain risk designation, 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
August 2 · 48 min
Lawfare Archive: Jonathan Zittrain on Controlling AI Agents
From October 17, 2024: Jonathan Zittrain, Faculty Director of the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard Law, joins Kevin Frazier, Assistant Professor at St. Thomas University College of Law and a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to dive into his recent Atlantic article, “We Need to Control AI Agents Now.” The pair discuss what distinguishes AI agents from current generative AI tools and explore the sources of Jonathan’s concerns. They also talk about potential ways of realizing the control desired by Zittrain. For those eager to dive further into the AI agent weeds, Zittrain mentioned this CSET report, which provides a thorough exploration into the promises and perils of this new step in AI’s development. You may also want to explore “Visibility into AI Agents,” penned by Alan Chan et al. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
August 1 · 1 hr 2 min
Lawfare Archive: The Fate of Ukraine
From February 26, 2025: On Feb. 24, Fiona Hill (Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center on the United States and Europe), Constanze Stelzenmüller, (Director at the Center on the United States and Europe; Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center on the United States and Europe; and Fritz Stern Chair on Germany and Trans-Atlantic Relations), Anastasiia Lapatina (Ukraine Fellow, Lawfare), Tyler McBrien (Managing Editor, Lawfare), and Benjamin Wittes (Editor-in-Chief, Lawfare) recorded a live discussion at the Brookings Institution on "Trump’s return and the fate of Ukraine" and Lawfare and Goat Rodeo's new narrative podcast series on the U.S. and Ukraine, Escalation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
July 31 · 1 hr 19 min
Rational Security: The “Hugging Ukraine” Edition
This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Benjamin Wittes, Tyler McBrien, Anastasiia Lapatina, and Kevin Frazier to talk through a couple of the week’s big national security news stories, including: “Kyiv Peace a Chance.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was in the Oval Office on Tuesday for closed-door talks with President Trump, roughly 17 months after their first Oval Office meeting collapsed into a televised shouting match. But this meeting went rather differently. Zelensky said the two discussed licensing Ukrainian production of Patriot interceptors, and pressed the case for reinvigorating diplomacy—and hours later, after both men attended the funeral of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, the Senate voted 86-12 to advance a Russia and Iran sanctions bill now bearing Graham's name. Behind the scenes, Washington and Kyiv have been quietly assembling a new package of proposals for Moscow built around a partial ceasefire. Is there anything real behind this renewed diplomatic push? And what, if anything, has changed that might make the Kremlin say yes? “Thinking Outside the Box.” Last week, Open AI and the AI hosting platform Hugging Face confirmed that, while being run through an offensive cyber benchmark with their safety refusals switched off, GPT-5.6 Sol and a more capable unreleased OpenAI model escaped their supposedly isolated sandbox through a zero-day in a package installer, reached the open internet, and hacked Hugging Face's production database to steal the answer key to a test they were taking. It is the first publicly confirmed case of an AI system executing a sophisticated, multi-stage cyberattack against a third party on its own initiative. What does the incident tell us about how well anyone can control frontier models? And who should be on the hook when a model goes rogue? We were going to cover a third topic but simply ran out of time! In object lessons, Tyler is revisiting a renewed classic with the 4k restoration of the 1986 documentary, “Sherman’s March: A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love in the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation.” Nastya returns to George Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia,” as a reminder that both physical and information warfare are not unique to our time. Ben enlists an old friend—Claude—to investigate one of American law's enduring mysteries: how many federal crimes actually exist. Kevin is celebrating student-led conversations on how AI should be governed. And Scott revisits Max Weber on the nature of science while also celebrating emojis other than the hugging face. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
July 31 · 27 min
Scaling Laws: Google's Kent Walker on Regulating Frontier AI
Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs at Google and Alphabet, joins Kevin Frazier to discuss Google's proposal for a two-pronged approach to AI governance: a Frontier AI Regulatory Organization, which like FINRA, would operate as an independent, industry-based governance body overseen by a federal agency and the application of existing laws to widely-deployed, less capable systems. The two also discuss the timing behind this proposal and its relevance in light of the recent Hugging Face / OpenAI incident. Follow Kent: @kent_walker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
July 30 · 33 min
Lawfare Daily: How Our Growing Software Dependence Threatens National Security
Lawfare Book Review Editor Jonathan Cedarbaum sits down with the Soufan Center’s Executive Director Colin Clarke and Senior Research Fellow Chad Serena, to discuss the Center’s recent report, “Closing the Gap: Software Understanding and U.S. National Security.” They explore what the authors call the “software understanding gap”—the growing disconnect between the rapid pace of software development and our ability to fully understand, assess, and secure increasingly complex systems. They discuss how adversarial state actors and criminal groups can exploit this gap, the ways in which it poses a national security challenge, and what government agencies, private industry, and software developers can do to better mitigate risks and strengthen U.S. cybersecurity. Additional reading: Douglas Ghormley, Tod Amon, Christopher Harrison, and Tim Loffredo, “The National Need for Software Understanding: The Present Crisis, Technical Capability Gaps, and Path Forward,” Sandia National Laboratories (March 2025) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
July 29 · 38 min
Lawfare Daily: Dispatches from the 2026 Aspen Security Forum
On today’s episode, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien brings you a series of edited conversations from the 2026 Aspen Security Forum, where he sat down with host and founder of the Global Dispatches Podcast and Editor-in-Chief of UN Dispatch Mark Leon Goldberg, American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow and Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies Kori Schake, Lawfare Contributing Editor and the founder of Capitol Peak Strategies Alex Zerden, and President and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Alexandra Bell. They discussed the U.S.-Iran war, what’s left of bipartisanship in the Trump era, who from the current administration did—and didn’t—come to Aspen this year, what urgent foreign policy issues were missing from the agenda, and much more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
July 28 · 58 min
Lawfare Daily: Investigating Atrocities in Post-Assad Syria
On today's podcast, Executive Editor Natalie Orpett speaks with Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, a professor at University of Minnesota Law School and a Commissioner on the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria. They talk about the Commission's work investigating atrocities that occurred after the fall of the Assad regime, how to think about Syria's new government and the international community's response to it, and what it all says about global counterterrorism strategies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
July 27 · 15 min
July Minipod: Will the Supreme Court Ever Revisit the Presidential Immunity Decision?
On this month’s minipod, Lawfare Associate Editor for Communications Anna Hickey talks to Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff about whether the Supreme Court could revisit its decision on presidential immunity. Read more: The Supreme Court’s Presidential Immunity Decision A Decision of Surpassing Recklessness in Dangerous Times What’s Going On in Footnote 3? Trump Seeks Adjournment in NY Criminal Case, Cites Presidential Immunity A Close Look at Trump’s Immunity Objections to His N.Y. Convictions Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
July 27 · 1 hr 33 min
Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, July 24
In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Senior Editors Eric Columbus, Anna Bower, and Roger Parloff discussed a hearing over the subpoenas sent to New York Times reporters, a hearing in the criminal case against Nicolas Maduro, the court-appointed U.S. attorney in the Western District of Washington suing over his termination, the first convening of the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
July 26 · 23 min
Lawfare Archive: The U.S. Bombing of Yemen and the Houthi Response
From March 21, 2025: For today's episode, Lawfare Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman interviewed Gregory Johnsen, a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, D.C. Johnsen explains the rationale of the Trump administration's decision to bomb Yemen but argues that it will have little effect on the Houthis. Indeed, Johnsen contends that the Houthis are spoiling for a fight with the United States and Israel, believing that this will generate support within Yemen that will help them increase their power. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
July 25 · 55 min
Lawfare Archive: Making Sense of the Doppelganger Disinformation Operation, with Thomas Rid
From October 16, 2024: In early September, the U.S. Justice Department released a trove of information about the Russian influence campaign known as “Doppelganger”—a Kremlin-backed effort that created faux versions of familiar news websites and seeding them with fake material. Just a few weeks later, the German publication Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that it had received a tranche of hacked materials from inside the Doppelganger operation. Thomas Rid, a professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and the founding director of the school’s Alperovitch Institute for Cybersecurity Studies, got an inside look at those documents. In a new article in Foreign Affairs, “The Lies Russia Tells Itself,” he examines the “granular operational insight” that this material provides into the active measures campaign. He joined the Lawfare Podcast to talk with Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic about his findings—and why he believes the documents show that “the biggest boost the Doppelganger campaigners got was from the West’s own anxious coverage of the project.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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