The Lawfare Podcast

From March 19, 2025: For today's episode, Lawfare Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman interviewed Steven Heydemann, the Director of the Middle East Studies Program at Smith College, to assess the fast-changing developments in Syria today. Heydemann discusses the surge in communal violence in Syria, the deal between the new Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-led government and Syria's Kurds, Israel's counterproductive interventions, and U.S. policy toward the new regime in Damascus. 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.Support...

On today's episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sits down with two veterans of the intelligence community to get their take on the ongoing Iran conflict.Before leaving government last year, Aaron Faust was a senior official in the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), where he had previously served as Division Chief for Iran, Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula. William "Chip" Usher, meanwhile, is the Senior Director for Intelligence at the Special Competitiveness Studies Project and a professor of practice at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Molly Roberts, Tyler McBrien, and Renée DiResta to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including:“The Meta-verse of Madness.” On Tuesday, a New Mexico jury reached a $375 million verdict against Meta after a seven-week trial that focused on whether the social media company knowingly harmed children’s mental health and facilitated child sexual exploitation through its algorithms. And just before recording, another verdict came down in a jury trial in California about whether Facebook and YouTube are too addictive in a way that harms an indivi...

Loren Voss, Public Service Fellow at Lawfare, sits down with Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Linda Singh, former Adjutant General of Maryland, and Chris Mirasola, Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center. They examine the legal constraints of the Posse Comitatus Act, the implications of expanding domestic deployments for civil-military relations, and key issues to watch for in future deployments. Mirasola clarifies the legal framework and the recent usage of the National Guard in federal and hybrid statuses, and Singh identifies areas where the law appears clear, but operational realities often blur that line. They also t...

Tom Kemp, executive director of the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA), joins Lawfare’s Justin Sherman to discuss California’s new Delete Request and Opt-out Platform, or DROP system, the data broker industry, and California’s ongoing efforts to ensure residents can effectuate their privacy rights. They also discuss the process and impacts of bringing technologists into public service at privacy and cybersecurity regulatory bodies, inter-state collaboration on data privacy issues, how California thinks about concerns around U.S. foreign adversaries and risks of access to U.S. persons’ data, and the near-term and over-the-horizon privacy risks to consumers.Add...

Following the March 24 hearing in Anthropic's suit challenging its supply chain designation on the AI company's request for a preliminary injunction, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes will sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Kate Klonick, Molly Roberts, and Roger Parloff for a live discussion of what occurred.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.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more inf...

As the U.S.-Israel war with Iran continues, it is playing out across the Middle East, particularly in Gulf Arab states and the Strait of Hormuz.In this episode, Lawfare Public Service Fellow Ariane Tabatabai sits down with Elisa Catalano Ewers of the Council on Foreign Relations to talk about Iranian intentions and capabilities, the U.S. response and capability gaps, and how allies and partners are participating. 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://givebut...

In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Molly Roberts, Anna Bower, Eric Columbus, Roger Parloff, and Kate Klonick to discuss Judge Boasberg’s opinion quashing subpoenas to Fed Reserve chair Jerome Powell, the government’s response to Anthropic’s suit challenged the Defense Department’s designation of it as a supply chain risk, Judge Lambert reinstating many U.S. Agency for Global Media employees, the video depositions of DOGE employees, and more.You can find information on legal challenges to Trump administration actions here. And check ou...

From January 13, 2025: In a live conversation on January 10, Lawfare Tarbell Fellow in Artificial Intelligence Kevin Frazier talked to Lawfare Senior Editor Alan Rozenshtein and Senior Staff Attorney at the Knight Institute Ramya Krishnan about the Supreme Court oral arguments over the legislation passed by Congress that bans TikTok unless its parent company ByteDance divests from the app, the arguments made by the different sides, and their predictions about how the Court might rule.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...

From December 23, 2024: On today's podcast, Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett talks with Michael Posner, a professor of business and human rights at New York University, about the landmark verdict last month in Al-Shimari v. CACI. The case involved claims against a government contractor for its role in the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib detention facility in Iraq in 2004. It became the first case of its kind to make it to trial—and now a jury has returned a verdict finding the company liable and imposing $42 million in damages. They discuss how the case will affect private companies, governme...

A draft executive order has been floating around that would assert presidential control over elections all over the country. Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sits down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower and Molly Roberts, authors of the recent Lawfare article, “In Case of Emergency: The Dubious Legality of Trump Allies' Draft EO,” to talk through what it would do, who was behind it, and how seriously we should take it.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://gi...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Benjamin Wittes, Natalie Orpett, and Ariane Tabatabai to talk through the week’s big news in national security, including:“Keeping It On the Strait and Narrow.” Three weeks into the U.S. and Israel’s air campaign against Iran, ship traffic through the critical Strait of Hormuz remains at a virtual stop, sending crude oil prices north of $100 a barrel. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said last week that vessels are safe to sail through the strait, but continued attacks on tankers suggest otherwise. Some neighboring Gulf states, among others...

In this episode, Lawfare Public Service Fellow Troy Edwards joins Lawfare Senior Editor Michael Feinberg to discuss Iran’s history of drawing from a robust retaliatory toolkit and international proxy network to extend its reach around the world, including in the United States. Reviewing Iran’s recent attempts at retaliating against the U.S. after the last major escalation in U.S.-Iran tensions—the U.S. drone strike killing IRGC-QF Commander Qassim Soleimani in January 2020—Troy and Mike discuss what Iran could do now after Operation Epic Fury. Only this time, they survey the current administration’s damage done to th...

In today's episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Michael Feinberg sits down with his former FBI colleague retired Assistant Special Agent in Charge Derek Pieper to discuss the differences between counterintelligence and counterespionage investigations, the skill sets needed for each, and the dangers of politicizing the cases.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.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, Lawfare’s Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina talks to an expert on Russian foreign policy in the Middle East, Director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at Middlebury College Hanna Notte, about the relationship between Iran and Russia, and how far their cooperation can go in the context of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.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.Support th...

In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Scott R. Anderson, Eric Columbus, Roger Parloff, and Kate Klonick to Judge Boasberg’s opinion quashing subpoenas to Fed Reserve chair Jerome Powell, Anthropic’s suit challenged the Defense Department’s designation of it as a supply chain risk, Judge Lambert finding that Kari Lake was unlawfully running the U.S. Agency for Global Media, and more.You can find information on legal challenges to Trump administration actions here. And check out Lawfare’s new homepage on the litigati...

From August 30, 2024: Elliot Jones, a Senior Researcher at the Ada Lovelace Institute, joins Kevin Frazier, Assistant Professor at St. Thomas University College of Law and a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to discuss a report he co-authored on the current state of efforts to test AI systems. The pair break down why evaluations, audits, and related assessments have become a key part of AI regulation. They also analyze why it may take some time for those assessments to be as robust as hoped. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can...

From September 26, 2024: Steve Coll’s latest book, “The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq,” seeks to explain why Saddam Hussein would put his regime at risk over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that didn’t exist. Saddam ultimately lost his regime, and his life, in part because he saw America as an omniscient puppeteer seeking to dominate the Middle East. The United States put thousands of troops in harm’s way in pursuit of a rogue WMD program that turned out to be a fiction. Were these outcomes inevitable?</p...

For today’s episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sits down with Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and head of its Syria Initiative, to talk about the dramatic developments that have taken place in Syria the past few weeks, which have ultimately led to the impending withdrawal of U.S. troops after more than a decade in country.Together, they discuss the challenges Syria has faced since the fall of the Assad regime, how the new transitional government in Damascus has managed its relationship with the Syrian Democratic Forces, what the exit...

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Kate Klonick, Molly Roberts, and Troy Edwards to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including:“MisAnthropic.” On Monday, Anthropic filed a civil complaint in the Northern District of California and a petition for hearing at the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit over the Department of Defense’s designation of the frontier artificial intelligence company as a “supply chain risk.” The litigation capped off weeks of building tensions between Anthropic and Pentagon officials over the firm’s two ethical red lines for the Defense Depart...