The Lawfare Podcast

This week, Scott celebrated the fifth anniversary of Rational Security 2.0 with the return of co-hosts emeriti Shane Harris, Quinta Jurecic, and Benjamin Wittes. In varying degrees of witheringness, the four sat in brutal judgment of this year’s Hot Take Takedown pitches:
Public Service Fellow Julia Curlee gives her informed analysis of whether we should get rid of the President’s Daily Brief.
Senior Editor Mike Feinberg has strong feelings about who is the bad guy in the Bourne movies.
Senior Editor Molly Roberts cooks up a theory on whether we should move concerns about Trump’s plans for Greenland up from the back burner.
Which takes are too cold and bland, which are too hot and spicy, and which are just right? Listen in and decide for yourself!
Meanwhile in object lessons, Shane introduces us to GrandpaSpy on Instagram, bringing out the “wholesome, family fun” side of espionage. Quinta has a pleasant encounter with a “Cool Machine.” Scott remembered Rational Security 2.0’s anniversary before he remembered his own wedding anniversary but celebrates them both. And Ben revisits an old, unfinished pandemic project, much to Scott’s chagrin.
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Over a year ago, President Trump sent 800 National Guard members to the streets of Washington D.C., citing a purported crime emergency. Since then, thousands of armed troops have been deployed in D.C.—usually traveling in groups of four or more, seemingly always armed.
On today's podcast, Executive Editor Natalie Orpett sits down with Brad Heath, a reporter at Reuters, who has been reporting on the Guard’s presence in D.C.. He recently published an article, titled “Trump put thousands of soldiers on Washington’s streets. They seldom stop crime.” They talk about what he found after reviewing thousands of criminal cases charged in D.C. Superior Court, what he learned from talking to everyone from National Guard members to D.C. officials, and how it all maps onto the legal analysis of whether the Guard is operating lawfully in D.C.
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On today’s episode, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sits down with Ambassador Nina Hachigian, President and CEO of the Alliance for Local Leaders International and the first U.S. Special Representative for City and State Diplomacy from 2022 to 2025.
They discuss Hachigian’s recent piece in Foreign Affairs, entitled "The Autocrat’s Worst Enemy: Why Despots Hate Cities and the Mayors Who Run Them,” how cities are both “laboratories of democracy” and backstops against democratic backsliding, and what U.S. mayors can learn about resisting autocracy from their counterparts abroad.
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In a conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Senior Editors Anna Bower, Eric Columbus, Molly Roberts, and Roger Parloff to discuss Judge Boasberg’s denial of the government’s motion to dismiss Lawfare‘s suit seeking information on international agreements entered into by the Trump administration; developments in President Trump’s targeting of mail voting; updates in litigation over the Triumphal Arch; a judge ruling that the Trump administration acted unlawfully when it used national security to revoke the legal status of students who espoused pro-Palestinian views; 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.

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From October 24, 2022: Last month, the George Washington University Program on Extremism published a report called, “Mayhem, Murder, and Misdirection: Violent Extremist Attack Plots Against Critical Infrastructure in the United States.” To talk through that report and a recent Lawfare article on the topic, Lawfare managing editor Tyler McBrien sat down with Ilana Krill, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism, and Seamus Hughes, the program's deputy director. They discussed the white supremacists and Salafi-jihadists who make up these movements, the encrypted channels through which propaganda and plans are spread, and what's to be done to protect critical infrastructure in the United States.
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