The Lawfare Podcast

Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sits down with MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow, creator of the new podcast series, Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra, Season II. They discuss the ideological aftermath of World War II on the American far right, the rise of Sen. Joe McCarthy, and the rhetorically incredible cast of characters around him. Why do we remember McCarthy merely as a fierce anticommunist demagogue and not as a neo-Nazi?

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Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sits down with Katie Moussouris of Luta Security to talk bug bounties. Where do they come from? What is their proper role in cybersecurity? What are they good for, and most importantly, what are they not good for? Moussouris was among the hackers who first did bug bounties at scale—for Microsoft, and then for the Pentagon. Now she helps companies set up bug bounty programs and is dismayed by how they are being used.

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This episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” was recorded on August 8 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom.

Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to Lawfare Legal Correspondent and Legal Fellow Anna Bower and Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff about what Judge Chutkan has been up to in D.C., state-level prosecutions of fake electors, and took audience questions from Lawfare material supporters.

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From April 24, 2023: Evan Gershkovich has been in Russian detention for the last several weeks. He is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, and he’s the latest American taken hostage by the Vladimir Putin regime. His good friend Polina Ivanova is a reporter for the Financial Times, a colleague of Evan’s in Russia, and has been an outspoken advocate for his release. 

She joined Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes from Berlin to talk about Evan: who he is, why he has been detained by the Russians, what we know about his conditions in prison, and what it will take to get him home. 

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On today's episode, Lawfare's Fellow in Technology Policy and Law Eugenia Lostri speaks with Senior Privacy Engineer at Netflix and former Army Reserve intelligence officer, Lukas Bundonis. They talked about the relationship between law enforcement and tech companies, what that relationship looks like in the U.S. and other countries, and the different ways in which that communication can be politicized.

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This week, Alan, Quinta, and Scott were joined by co-host emeritus Benjamin Wittes to talk through the week's very big national security news stories, including:

• “The Waiting Game.” The Middle East is on edge this week as it awaits a possible attack by Iran or Hezbollah on Israel in response to the suspected assassination of senior Hezbollah and Hamas leaders last week, including the chairman of Hamas’s political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed while visiting Tehran for the swearing in of its new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. What might a response look like, if there is one? And what does it mean for the region, including the prospects of a Gaza ceasefire?
• “Stay Weird, Austin.” Just days after the announcement of a long-negotiated plea deal for three of the four remaining defendants in the military commission trial relating to the 9/11 attacks, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin took the surprising and still largely unexplained move of intervening to rescind that deal and remove the convening authority that had approved it. What can explain Austin’s actions? What will they mean for the future of the military commissions?
• “A Favorable Exchange Rate.” In a surprise move, the Biden administration and several European allies concluded a massive prisoner exchange with Russia, which resulted in the release of 16 detained U.S. and European nationals and Russian dissidents, among them Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan. In exchange, Russia received eight Russian agents, including convicted assassin Vadim Krasikov. Is this a win for the Biden administration? What does it tell us about the state of hostage politics—and its future?

For object lessons, Alan expressed his new passion for pottery. Quinta endorsed synchronized/artistic swimming as her favorite Olympic event, thanks in part to a surprise cameo from Jason Momoa. Scott recommended the movie Thelma for a funny and compassionate take on aging. And Ben shared how a recent near-death experience led him to dump chalk dust outside the Russian Embassy.

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Last week, three defendants in the 9/11 case at Guantanamo agreed to plead guilty in the military commissions. Two days later, the Secretary of Defense pulled out of the agreements. What happened?

Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett sat down with General John Baker, who served as the Chief Defense Counsel of the Guantanamo Military Commissions until 2021. They talked about how the 9/11 case got to plea agreements after more than a decade of litigation, why Secretary Austin scuttled them, and what it all portends for the future of this case—and the military commissions more broadly.

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On today's episode, Lawfare Contributing Editor Justin Sherman speaks with Arun G. Rao, the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division's Consumer Protection Branch at the Department of Justice. 

They discuss DOJ’s consumer protection work, cyber crime and elder fraud, data privacy, and generative AI. You can find out more about Rao’s work at DOJ below: 

• DOJ-Cerebral case 
• DOJ Elder Justice Initiative
• National Elder Fraud Hotline 

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On this week’s show, Lawfare’s Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sits down with longtime Democratic lawyer Bob Bauer to discuss his mémoire of political lawyering, “The Unraveling Reflections on Politics Without Ethics and Democracy in Crisis.” Bauer, a longtime Lawfare contributing editor, discusses his career as a litigating street fighter on behalf of Democratic Party causes and some of the regrets he has about party lawyering in an era of rising polarization.

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Noam Os and of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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A new film from Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines series called “The Night Won’t End” profiles three Palestinian families as they try to survive the war in Gaza.

On today’s episode, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien speaks to the documentary’s director, Kavitha Chekuru, along with a few of the journalists and researchers who came together to work on the project, including Emily Tripp, Director at Airwars; Samaneh Moafi, Assistant Director of Research at Forensic Architecture; and Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Founder and Director of investigations at Earshot.

They discuss the three families at the center of this story, other investigations into the killings of civilians by the Israeli military in Gaza, and the role of the United States in the war since Oct. 7.

Please note that this episode contains content that some people may find disturbing, including depictions of war and violence against children. Listener discretion is advised.

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Scott Wiener, California State Senator, joins Kevin Frazier, Assistant Professor at St. Thomas University College of Law and a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to explore his “Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models” bill, also known as SB 1047. The bill has become a flashpoint in several larger AI debates: AI safety v. AI security, federal regulation or state regulation, model or end-user governance. Senator Wiener and Kevin analyze these topics and forthcoming hurdles to SB 1047 becoming law.

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From July 7, 2021: The United States Secret Service has many important missions, the most public of which is protecting the president of the United States. And in this mission, its motto is "Zero Fail." There is no window for them to let their guard down when it comes to protecting the commander-in-chief.

And yet, the past several decades of the Secret Service's protection have seen gaps, mistakes and exposures of some fundamental problems within the Secret Service itself. Carol Leonnig is a Pulitzer Prize-winning national investigative reporter at the Washington Post known for her reporting on the Secret Service, as well as the Trump presidency and many other topics. She is also the author of the new book, "Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service." She sat down with David Priess to talk about the United States Secret Service, its mission, its challenges and potential reforms to get over some of its most fundamental flaws.

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This episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” was recorded on August 1 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom.

Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to Lawfare Legal Correspondent and Legal Fellow Anna Bower and Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff about Mark Meadows’ petition for a writ of certiorari in his attempt to remove his Fulton County election interference case to federal court, the briefing schedule in the government’s appeal of Judge Cannon’s order dismissing the classified documents case, and took audience questions from Lawfare material supporters.

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On Thursday, Russia released 16 prisoners in exchange for eight prisoners held in Western countries, including the United States. The prisoners released by the Putin regime included several Americans, most notably Evan Gershkovich of the Wall Street Journal and two other journalists, and long-time prisoner Paul Whelan. Shane Harris of the Washington Post, who covered the story, and Lawfare's Fellow in Technology Policy and Law Eugenia Lostri, joined Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes to discuss the exchange: what the United States got from Russia, what Russia got from Germany and other Western countries, and the personal involvement of President Biden in setting up the trade.

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This week, Alan and Quinta were joined by Kevin Frazier to talk through some of the week’s biggest national security news, including:

• “KOSA Nostra.” An overwhelming majority of senators voted to pass the Kids Online Safety Act, also known as KOSA—a bipartisan piece of legislation that would impose new responsibilities on online platforms in looking after their underage users. Despite the 91-3 vote in the Senate, KOSA has faced strong opposition from a number of civil rights and internet freedom groups, and its path ahead in the House remains uncertain. What’s next for the bill, and what does its success so far say about the state of tech policy in the U.S.?
• “Herding Llamas.” The company formerly known as Facebook announced the release of a new AI large language model, Llama 3.1. Meta described the model as “open-source”—but is it responsible to release such a powerful model that way? And what does this mean for the AI arms race in Silicon Valley?
• “Keeping the Nine in Line.” Fresh on the heels of the Supreme Court’s ruling granting presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution, President Biden announced his support for a slate of reforms aimed squarely at the Court: a constitutional amendment ruling out presidential immunity, along with 18-year term limits and a binding code of conduct for Supreme Court justices. But any of these proposals would face a difficult road toward implementation. What is the White House’s aim here?

For object lessons, Alan suggested that listeners might enjoy homemade cucumber agua fresca as a cooling summer beverage. Kevin is enjoying a new song by Kelsea Ballerini and Noah Kahan. And Quinta recommended the movie I Saw the TV Glow.

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Anastasiia Lapatina is a Kyiv-based Ukraine Fellow at Lawfare. Marcel Plichta is a Fellow at the Centre for Global Law and Governance at the University of St. Andrews, and a former analyst at the U.S. Department of Defense who currently works as an instructor at the Grey Dynamics Intelligence School.

For this episode, Lapatina sat down with Plichta to discuss Ukraine’s ongoing drone campaign against Russia, Ukraine’s choice of targets deep inside Russian territory, and the future of drone warfare around the world.

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For this episode, Lawfare General Counsel and Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Steven Cook to discuss his new book, “The End of Ambition: America’s Past, Present, and Future in the Middle East.” Together, they examined the United States’ long history in the Middle East, how it successfully (and unsuccessfully) pursued its interests there, and what should come next after the failed transformations of the post-9/11 era. 

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At the start of every presidential administration, the nominees for more than 1,000 civilian positions require Senate confirmation. A large number of those are in the Department of Defense, with confirmation responsibility going to the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC). And whether it's a new administration or not, the committee processes dozens of civilian nominations for typical turnover reasons and thousands of military promotions as part of regular order.

Arnold Punaro, author of the new book If Confirmed, knows the Senate confirmation process as well as or better than anyone alive. For half a century, he has been central to the confirmation process for military-related nominees--including more than two decades in the US Senate (as SASC Staff Director and in other roles) and more than 25 years since then as an official or unofficial confirmation adviser for the Executive Branch. He joined David Priess to talk about the Constitutional foundations of confirmation, the overall process as it has evolved from nomination through confirmation to appointment, recess appointments and their limits, the Federal Vacancies Reform Act and its quirks, how a presumption of confirmation can get nominees in trouble, why senatorial holds on nominees are getting out of control, which aspects of the confirmation process need to change, and more.

Works mentioned in this episode:

The book If Confirmed by Arnold Punaro

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.

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Ryan Calo, Professor of Law at the University of Washington, joins Kevin Frazier, Assistant Professor at St. Thomas College of Law and a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to discuss how advances in AI are undermining already insufficient privacy protections. The two dive into Calo's recent testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Their conversation also covers the novel privacy issues presented by AI and the merits of different regulatory strategies at both the state and federal level.

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Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett sat down with Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes and Legal Fellow Anna Bower to discuss their recent Lawfare article, “What’s Going On in Footnote 3?” The article looks at a very specific issue buried in the Supreme Court's recent decision in Trump v. United States, or “the presidential immunity case”: what evidence the prosecution can use—and what it can't—to prove its case. Natalie, Ben, and Anna talked about what footnote 3 says, the many questions it raises, and what it all means for the future of Special Counsel Jack Smith's Jan. 6 case against Donald Trump. 

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From July 1, 2020: As the United States continues to suffer from the effects of the coronavirus, the controversy surrounding China's alleged role in the pandemic has continued to grow. In recent weeks, it has even entered the U.S. courts, as private plaintiffs have brought claims against the Chinese government and related institutions for allegedly contributing to the spread of the virus. Meanwhile, members of Congress have introduced legislation aimed at making such litigation even easier to pursue, specifically by stripping away the sovereign immunity protections that normally protect foreign states from such claims. But can these efforts really provide Americans with needed relief, or are they just a dangerous distraction from the real issues with the United States's own coronavirus response? To discuss these issues, Scott R. Anderson spoke with Chimène Keitner, the Alfred and Hanna Fromm Professor of International Law at the University of California Hastings School of Law, and Robert Williams, executive director of the Paul Tsai China Center at the Yale Law School.

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From February 15, 2014: Last November, the University of Richmond invited Ben and Conor Friedersdorf to participate in a debate on the ethics of drone warfare. Conor is a familiar voice in the anti-drone camp, as those who have come across his articles in The Atlantic well know. Ritika Singh edited the podcast version of the debate for length and got rid of the introductions and audience questions. It thus proceeds as four speeches: Ben and Conor each give opening remarks, in that order, and then each responds to the other. While the back-and-forth touched on the legal issues behind targeted killing, it was really about the many ethical implications, both positive and negative, of U.S. drone policy. These range from the precedent the United States sets in the international community, to the psychological effects of drones on civilians. In a discussion that can often focus on the big issues of civilian casualties, oversight, legality, and sovereignty, these other questions can get lost in the foray. But as Al Qaeda continues to morph and the United States struggles to define the boundaries of the war it has been fighting, they are more important than ever.

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Cullen O’Keefe, Research Director at the Institute for Law and AI, joins Kevin Frazier, Assistant Professor at St. Thomas University College of Law and a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to discuss a novel AI governance framework. The two analyze Cullen’s recent Lawfare essay in which he details how regulation of AI supply chains by the U.S. and its allies could promote the safe development of AI. Their conversation also explores the feasibility of this and related governance proposals amid geopolitical turbulence and congressional stagnation. 

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This week, Alan and Scott sat down with Lawfare Senior Fellow Molly Reynolds and Fellow in Technology Policy and Law Eugenia Lostri to talk through another week of big national security news, including:

• “Bye Biden.” President Biden made the historic decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race over the weekend. He swiftly endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris, who now appears poised to become the Democratic candidate at the party’s convention next month. How might Harris be different from Biden, both as a candidate and as a president? And what will the change mean for the 2024 race?
• “The CrowdStrikes Back.” Countless businesses around the world found their Windows computers disabled this past week, due to a faulty update pushed out by the prominent cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. The consequences continue to ripple out, including waves of canceled and rescheduled flights at numerous major airlines. What can this incident teach us about the security of our computer infrastructure? And are there ways to avoid similar incidents in the future?
• “Netanya-who?” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give his long-awaited speech to Congress later today. But the normally high-profile event has been overshadowed by recent news relating to the 2024 presidential race, potentially mitigating some of its intended effect. What should we expect from Bibi’s speech? And how will it impact progress towards a ceasefire in Gaza—and U.S.-Israeli relations more broadly?

For object lessons, Alan recommended Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel "The Marriage Plot." Scott sent a love letter to the New York Times’ odd coverage of world culture, including this week’s exposé on Japanese backpacks. Molly gave the people what they want, with a new public radio podcast recommendation: NPR’s "Embedded: Supermajority." And Eugenia carried on a longstanding tradition of bringing in video game recommendations, this time for the cozy agriculture sim Stardew Valley. 

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In the runup to Jan. 6, lies and falsehoods about the supposed theft of the 2020 election ran wild on Twitter. Following the insurrection, the company took action—abruptly banning 70,000 users who had promoted misinformation on the platform. But was this mass deplatforming actually effective in reducing the spread of untruths?

According to a paper recently published in Nature, the answer is yes. Two of the authors, David Lazer of Northeastern University and Kevin Esterling of the University of California, Riverside, joined Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic to discuss their findings—and ponder what this means about the influence and responsibility of social media platforms in shaping political discourse.

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Alissa Starzak, head of public policy at Cloudflare, joins Kevin Frazier, Assistant Professor at St. Thomas University College of Law and a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to discuss the promises and perils of AI in the cybersecurity context. Frazier, who interned with Cloudflare while in law school, and Starzak cover the novel threats posed by AI to the integrity of the Internet. The two also discuss privacy laws, AI governance, and recent Supreme Court decisions.

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This week, we’re at the Aspen Security Forum, the annual gathering of national security and foreign policy heavyweights. The conference regularly draws senior government and military officials from the United States and around the world to chew over the big issues of the day, and this time we had a full plate. 

It’s not exactly hardship duty escaping to a glamorous mountain paradise. But the real world hardly felt far away. Questions linger about the November elections and the security failure that led to the assassination attempt on Donald Trump while two wars grind on with no clear sign of stopping. 

Shane Harris sat down with his colleagues Courtney Kube of NBC News and Gordon Lubold of The Wall Street Journal to talk about the highlights of the conference and what people discussed on the sidelines, where the real action often happens.

Watch recordings of the security forum panels. https://www.aspensecurityforum.org/ 

Read more from our guests. 

Courtney Kube: https://www.nbcnews.com/author/courtney-kube-ncpn3621 

Gordon Lubold: https://www.wsj.com/news/author/gordon-lubold 

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Noam Osband of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and Senior Editor at Lawfare, and Matt Perault, the Director of the Center on Technology Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, sat down with Alexander Macgillivray, known to all as "amac," who was the former Principle Deputy Chief Technology Officer of the United States in the Biden Administration and General Counsel at Twitter.

amac recently wrote a piece for Lawfare about making AI policy in a world of technological uncertainty, and Matt and Alan talked to him about how to do just that.

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Over the last two weeks, the Russians have bombed a children’s hospital in Kyiv, Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán has been on an international peace mission, the NATO summit has taken place in Washington, and Ukrainian forces have continued to struggle to hold territory. To go over a busy few weeks, Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Anastasiia Lapatina, Lawfare’s Kyiv fellow, and Eric Ciaramella of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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From April 14, 2020: Nobody has been more aggressive about using the coronavirus crisis to seize power than Hungarian strong man Viktor Orbán. Orbán declared a state of emergency and has been ruling by decree. He has also instigated criminal penalties for spreading false information about the coronavirus, and his Fidesz party has effectively dissolved Parliament. Joining Benjamin Wittes to discuss the decline of Hungarian democracy is András Pap, a Hungarian scholar of constitutional law and a professor at Central European University's nationalist studies program in Budapest, and Anne Applebaum, essayist, author, and scholar of Eastern Europe, nationalism and the former Soviet Union. They talked about whether Orbán's seizure of power is as big a deal as it initially appears, about where Orbán stands in the pantheon of right wing populists worldwide, and about what, if anything, the European Union is likely to do about it.

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This episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” was recorded on July 18 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom.

Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to Lawfare Legal Correspondent and Legal Fellow Anna Bower and Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff about Judge Cannon’s order dismissing the classified documents case against Trump, Trump’s motion to vacate the New York conviction, and took audience questions from Lawfare material supporters.

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Rebecca Crootof, Professor of Law at the University of Richmond School of Law and the inaugural ELSI Visiting Scholar at DARPA, joins Kevin Frazier, a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to discuss the weaponization of emerging technologies and her role as the inaugural ELSI Visiting Scholar at DARPA. This conversation explores the possibility of an AI arms race, the value of multidisciplinarity within research institutions, and means to establish guardrails around novel uses of technology.

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This week Alan, Quinta, and Scott were joined by Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett to talk through one of the most eventful weeks in national security news in recent history, including:

• “Too Close for Comfort.” Former President Trump narrowly avoided an assassination attempt this past weekend that ultimately left one rally-goer dead and two others critically wounded. While Trump and President Biden both made calls for national unity, several of Trump’s close allies were quick to blame the Biden administration’s rhetoric painting Trump as a threat to democracy. What will this historic event mean for the 2024 election—and for the rise in political violence and related rhetoric that’s preceded it?
• “Cannon Fodder.” After months of glacial judicial proceedings, federal District Court Judge Aileen Cannon finally did what many of her critics had long expected and dismissed the special counsel’s criminal case against former President Trump, based in large part on an aggressive reading of the Appointments Clause and narrow reading of the legislation allowing for the special counsel’s appointment. How credible is her holding? And what will it mean for the future of the trial?
• “Hillbilly Pedigree.” Former President Trump opened the Republican Party’s national convention this week by announcing his new pick for Vice President: J.D. Vance, the first-term senator from Ohio, author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” and a one-time critic of Trump who has since become one of his most aggressive ideological allies, going even further than Trump on issues ranging from economic populism to opposition to U.S. support for Ukraine. What does his nomination mean for the race, for the Republican Party, and for the future of national security policy? 

For object lessons, Alan shared how he rediscovered his love of video games. Quinta brought us another update from the Garden State, regarding the conviction of its senior senator. Scott shared a great story from political history, about the origins of the weird relationship between Richard Nixon and NBA star Wilt Chamberlain. And Natalie endorsed her latest TV indulgence: the HBO show Hacks.

Promotion: Use code RATIONALSECURITY at the link here to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan: https://incogni.com/rationalsecurity.

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On today’s episode, Matt Gluck, Research Fellow at Lawfare, spoke with Michael Beckley, Associate Professor of Political Science at Tufts, and Arne Westad, the Elihu Professor of History at Yale.

They discussed Beckley’s and Westad’s articles in Foreign Affairs on the best path forward for the U.S.-China strategic relationship—in the economic and military contexts. Beckley argues that in the short term, the U.S. should focus on winning its security competition with China, rather than significant engagement, to prevent conflict. Westad compares the current moment to the period preceding World War I. He cautions that the U.S. and China should maintain strategic communication and avoid an overly narrow focus on competition to stave off large-scale conflict.

They broke down the authors’ arguments and where they agree and disagree. Does U.S. engagement lower the temperature in the relationship? Will entrenched economic interests move the countries closer to conflict? How can the U.S. credibly deter China from invading Taiwan without provoking Beijing?

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Eugenia Lostri, Lawfare's Fellow in Technology Policy and Law, talks with with Lennart Maschmeyer, Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich, about his new book, “Subversion: From Covert Operations to Cyber Conflict.” The book explores how subversion works and what its strategic value is, and how technological change alters its reach and quality. They talked about the promise of subversion as an instrument of power, the tradeoffs required for covert operations, and how current doctrine should consider cyber capabilities.

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The Star Wars universe gets a lot of attention for its lightsabers, space battles, and witty droids. But over the decades, a rich lore has developed around its history and politics. 

Dr. Chris Kempshall researches and writes at the intersection of real-world history, with a focus on the First World War, and the Star Wars universe. His books include The History and Politics of Star Wars, which analyzes various aspects of Star Wars compared to our world, and Star Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire, an examination of the Empire from the perspective of an in-universe historian. Chris joined David Priess to discuss World War I-themed video games, how Star Wars creator George Lucas used history, how to get one's hands around the ever-expanded lore of Star Wars, why the movie sequels differed from published books about the aftermath of the Empire's fall, the structure and operations of the Empire, the problematic politics of the Republic, the treatment of non-human species and droids in Star Wars canonical works, controversy over the redemption of Anakin Skywalker, fan theories about the extent of Emperor Palpatine's manipulation of events and about the evidence that Jar Jar Binks was a Sith, and much more.

Works mentioned in this episode:

The Star Wars canon, across all media

Works in Star Wars Legends (formerly the Star Wars Expanded Universe)

The Chatter episode National Security Insights from Board Games, with Volko Ruhnke

The book British, French and American Relations on the Western Front, 1914-1918 by Chris Kempshall

The book The First World War in Computer Games by Chris Kempshall

The book The History and Politics of Star Wars by Chris Kempshall

The book Star Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire by Chris Kempshall

The Sharpe Series of books by Bernard Cornwell

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.

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On July 15, Judge Cannon granted former President Trump’s motion to dismiss the indictment brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith for the alleged mishandling of classified documents. She found that Smith was appointed as a special counsel in violation of the Appointments Clause of the Constitution.

In a live podcast recording, Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes talked to Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett, Legal Fellow and Courts Correspondent Anna Bower, Senior Editors Alan Rozenshtein and Quinta Jurecic, and Columbia Law professor Michel Paradis about Judge Cannon's decision, what Special Counsel Jack Smith may do next, how the Eleventh Circuit may rule on an appeal, how Justice Thomas’s immunity concurrence plays a role, and more.

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Mary Ellen Callahan, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary, joins Kevin Frazier, a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to discuss the DHS’s recently released report on the potential of AI to lead to the production of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) threats. Assistant Secretary Callahan shares the origins of the report, its key findings, and DHS’s next steps. This conversation also explores pre-existing enforcement gaps in biological and chemical regulations and ongoing efforts to bolster AI expertise in the federal government. The DHS report is available here. More information on the AI Corps is available here.

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From March 22, 2014: On March 19, the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) hosted NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen for a Statesman’s Forum address on the importance of the transatlantic alliance and how the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is evolving to address new common security challenges. As the crisis in Ukraine shows that security in the Euro-Atlantic area cannot be taken for granted, the secretary-general discussed NATO’s essential role in an unpredictable world. He outlined the agenda for the September NATO summit in Wales as a critical opportunity to ensure that the alliance has the military capabilities necessary to deal with the threats it now faces, to consider how NATO members can better share the collective burden of defense and to engage constructively with partners around the world.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen took office as North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 12th secretary-general in August 2009. Previously, he served in numerous positions in the Danish government and opposition throughout his political career, including as prime minister of Denmark from November 2001 to April 2009.

Brookings Senior Fellow and CUSE Director Fiona Hill provided introductory remarks and moderated the discussion.

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This episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” was recorded on July 11 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom.

Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett spoke to Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes and Lawfare Legal Correspondent and Legal Fellow Anna Bower about whether anything has happened in any of the Trump Trials and took audience questions from Lawfare material supporters.

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Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School and Senior Editor at Lawfare, and Molly Reynolds, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Senior Editor at Lawfare, spoke with Bridget Dooling, Assistant Professor of Law at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, and Nick Bednar, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School, about the Supreme Court's recent decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overruled the decades-long Chevron doctrine that required courts to defer to reasonable interpretations of their statutes.

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This week, Quinta and Scott were joined by Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien and Lawfare Contributing Editor Eric Ciaramella to talk over all the national security news causing traffic issues in D.C., including:

• “Ukraine in the Membrane.” NATO is hosting its 75th anniversary summit here in Washington, D.C., this week. But its members’ eyes are uniformly locked on Ukraine, whose (eventual) membership several will voice support for this week—even as others worry about what a future Trump administration might mean for the alliance and its commitment to the ongoing conflict there. What trajectory is NATO headed on? And what should the alliance be doing to prepare?
• “So Gauche.” Left political movements emerged victorious over populist right-wing movements in two major elections in Europe this past week. In France, the left-wing New Popular Front squeaked out a narrow plurality over President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist coalition and the right-wing National Rally. And in the U.K., a resurgent Labour movement finally ended fourteen years of increasingly unpopular Conservative control. What do these results tell us about political trends in Europe? And can they shed any light on what the United States might experience in its own election later this year?
• “Hindsight is 20/25.” This week, former President Donald Trump tried to distance himself from Project 2025, denying any awareness of the Heritage Foundation-led project that has produced a 900-page book of policy proposals for the potentially returning conservative president—even though several of his former advisers contributed to the project and a number of its proposals seem to be included in the platform that Republican Party leaders adopted this week. How does this agenda compare to what the Trump administration pursued in its first term? And what role is it likely to play if Trump does return to the White House?

For object lessons, Quinta recommended James McBride's latest book, “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.” Scott highlighted two great pieces on the continuing relevance of the classic movie “Chinatown,” in light of both its 50th anniversary and the death of its author Robert Towne—and urged director David Fincher to keep at his plans to produce a prequel series for Netflix. Tyler shared the earnest welcome to the NATO summit produced by D.C.'s own wholesome influencer, Tony P. And Eric expressed his passion for the great Finnish pastime of hobby horsing.

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Many Pentagon officials and U.S. lawmakers likely lay awake at night wondering what Chinese leaders think about the use of artificial intelligence in war.  

On today’s episode, Sam Bresnick, a Research Fellow at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology joins Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien to begin to answer that very question and discuss his new report, “China’s Military AI Roadblocks: PRC Perspectives on Technological Challenges to Intelligentized Warfare.”

They discuss how Sam found and analyzed dozens of Chinese-language journal articles about AI and warfare, Beijing’s hopes for these new and emerging technologies, and what, in turn, keeps Chinese defense officials up at night as well.

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Scott Singer, Co-Founder and Director of the Oxford China Policy Lab, joins Kevin Frazier, a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to discuss AI in the context of ongoing and, arguably, increasing tensions between China and the U.S. This conversation covers potential limits on China’s AI ambitions, the durability of the current bipartisan consensus among U.S. officials on the China question, and the factors that may accelerate the race to artificial general intelligence between China and the U.S.

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Joseph Cox is an award-winning investigative journalist and the co-founder of 404 Media. He is also the world’s leading reporter on the FBI's Anom sting operation, a topic he has written about in the new book, Dark Wire: The Incredbile True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever.

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Noam Osband of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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Jack Goldsmith sat down with Christopher Kirchhoff, a former senior official in the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and the co-author with Raj Shah of the new book, “Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are Transforming the Future of War.” 

They talked about the origins and aims of the Defense Innovation Unit, how the defense bureaucracy fought it, and DIU’s successes and failures. They also discussed the pathologies of defense procurement, the relationship between technological innovation and military superiority, and whether the Department of Defense can innovate fast enough to maintain technological and military superiority.

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Chinny Sharma, Associate Professor at Fordham Law School, and Yonathan Arbel, co-director of the Center for Law and AI Risk and Associate Professor of Law at Alabama Law, join Kevin Frazier, a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to discuss open-source AI. This engaging conversation dives into the origins of open source, its meaning in the AI context, and why attempts to regulate open-source AI have drawn passionate responses from across the AI community.

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From December 21, 2019: This week, following a resounding victory by Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party in British elections, Members of Parliament have backed Johnson’s plan to withdraw from the EU by January 31. But before they did that, Benjamin Wittes got on the phone from an undisclosed location with Brookings senior fellow and Brexit expert Amanda Sloat—who was here in the Jungle Studio—to discuss Britain’s recent election, what it means for Brexit, and what it might portend for the future of the United Kingdom.

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This episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” was recorded on July 5 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom.

Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett spoke with Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes, Senior Editors Quinta Jurecic and Roger Parloff, and Legal Fellow and Courts Correspondent Anna Bower about the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States and the decision’s implications for the other cases against former President Donald Trump. And of course, they took audience questions from Lawfare Material Supporters on Zoom.

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Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School and a Senior Editor at Lawfare; David Rubenstein, James R. Ahrens Chair in Constitutional Law and Director of the Robert J. Dole Center for Law and Government at Washburn University School of Law; and Dean Ball, Research Fellow at George Mason University's Mercatus Center, join Kevin Frazier, a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to discuss a novel and wide-reaching AI bill, SB 1047, pending before the California State Assembly and AI regulation more generally.

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.

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