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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The Lawfare Podcast's "Rational Security" episode features Scott, Benjamin Wittes (Editor in Chief), Molly Roberts (Senior Editor), and Molly Reynolds (Brookings Institution) discussing three major national security and governance stories from late September 2026.
The first segment covers "pocket rescissions"—an…
Worth it if you follow national security law closely and want expert analysis of recent court decisions and administration moves, but not if you need clear explanations of real-world consequences.
This Lawfare Daily episode examines how Gulf states are navigating the fallout from an Iran-related conflict they did not initiate. Host Julia Curlee interviews Shawn Howard, a former CIA analyst, and Ariane Tabatabai of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs to discuss Howard's Foreign Policy essay on Gulf state…
Worth it if you follow Middle East policy closely and want expert analysis of Gulf state positioning, but less essential for casual listeners seeking accessible explainers on Iran-U.S. tensions.
The Lawfare Podcast hosts Akbar Shahid Ahmed, diplomatic correspondent at The Washington Sun, to discuss his new book 'Crossing the Red Line: Biden, His Advisors, and Israel's War in Gaza.' The episode examines the internal dynamics of the Biden administration's approach to the Gaza conflict, focusing on which top…
Worth it if you want insider perspective on Biden administration decision-making on Gaza and are interested in critical analysis of U.S. Middle East policy.
The Lawfare Podcast hosts Peter Bergen, author of 'All the Presidents' Wars: Twenty-Five Years of America's War on Terror,' in conversation with Lawfare Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman. The episode examines the U.S. counterterrorism effort across 25 years following 9/11, structured around a retrospective assessment…
Worth it if you follow U.S. counterterrorism policy closely and want a 25-year retrospective from an established author, or if you're interested in lessons for future terrorism response.
The Lawfare Podcast's October 2 episode, titled 'The Trials of the Trump Administration,' appears to focus on legal challenges and litigation against Trump administration actions. Based on the show notes, the episode directs listeners to Lawfare's coverage of legal challenges, references a new homepage dedicated to…
Worth it if you follow Lawfare's legal analysis of Trump administration litigation and want daily updates, but the show notes provide no basis to assess the episode's quality or specific value.
This Lawfare Podcast episode examines El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele's authoritarian consolidation of power, with particular focus on his crackdown on dissent and his partnership with the Trump administration. Host Quinta Jurecic interviews Noah Bullock, Executive Director of Cristosal, a Central American human…
Worth it if you want to understand Bukele's authoritarian consolidation in El Salvador and its human cost to civil society, or need context on the Trump-Bukele immigration partnership beyond U.S. headlines.
This Lawfare episode features Markiyan Kliuchkovskyi (Executive Director of the Register of Damage for Ukraine at the Council of Europe and former legal advisor to President Zelensky) and Patrick Pearsall (Partner at Gibson Dunn, directs the International Claims and Reparations Project at Columbia Law School)…
Worth it if you follow international law, Ukraine policy, or want to understand how reparations are being weaponized as both accountability and reconstruction financing.
The Lawfare Podcast's Security Economics series episode features Martin Chorzempa, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and China expert, discussing three interconnected topics with host Peter Harrell. The primary focus is President Trump's September 24 summit with Xi Jinping,…
Worth it if you follow U.S.-China relations, care about AI policy implications, or want expert analysis of recent Trump-Xi negotiations from an economics-focused angle.
The Lawfare Podcast's "Techs Appeal" edition features host Scott with managing editor Tyler McBrien and senior editors Anna Bower and Michael Feinberg discussing three major national security and governance stories from late September/early October 2026.
First, they examine the Supreme Court's third clearance for the…
Worth it if you follow Trump administration legal challenges, immigration policy, and government accountability issues, and want informed discussion from national security experts.
The Lawfare Podcast examines the Trump administration's restructuring of the Department of Defense through a conversation between Executive Editor Natalie Orpett and Rachel VanLandingham, a retired Lt. Colonel and law professor at Southwestern Law School. The episode addresses both high-profile policy changes and…
Worth it if you follow military policy, want informed analysis of DoD institutional changes, or seek to understand the distinction between announced versus implemented defense reforms.
Julia Curlee of Lawfare interviews Jonathan Czin, a China expert at Brookings Institution, to analyze Xi Jinping's state visit to Washington—his first in 11 years. The episode examines what both sides achieved from the summit, including a two-month extension of the trade truce and discussions around artificial…
Worth it if you follow U.S.-China relations closely and want rapid expert interpretation of a state visit from former intelligence and NSC officials.
The Lawfare Podcast's live episode covers oral arguments before the full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals regarding a contempt inquiry into whether Trump administration officials committed criminal contempt by sending 137 Venezuelan nationals to CECOT, a prison facility in El Salvador. Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes…
Worth it if you follow high-profile legal cases, care about immigration policy and executive power limits, or want expert analysis of D.C. Circuit oral arguments from a respected legal publication.
The Lawfare Podcast convenes four policy experts to discuss a perceived shift in AI risk perception and its implications for U.S. policy. Kevin Frazier hosts Assemblyman Alex Bores (co-host of Scaling Laws), Nat Purser (AVERI Director of U.S. Policy), and Mackenzie Arnold (Institute of Law and AI Managing Director) to…
Worth it if you follow AI policy closely and want a quick update on recent developments and expert reactions from state and federal perspectives.
This Lawfare Daily episode features four senior editors—Anna Bower, Eric Columbus, Molly Roberts, and Roger Parloff—discussing recent legal developments affecting the Trump administration. The conversation covers four main topics: (1) the D.C. Circuit's rejection of Anthropic's challenge to the Pentagon's exclusion of…
Worth it if you follow Trump administration legal challenges closely and want expert analysis of recent D.C. Circuit and Supreme Court decisions affecting immigration, AI procurement, and detention policy.
This Lawfare episode features Mikhail Zygar, a prominent Russian journalist and author in exile, discussing his firsthand experience with Putin's regime, independent media suppression, and the Russia-Ukraine war. Zygar founded TV Rain, one of Russia's last independent media channels before it was forced to shut down,…
Worth it if you want an insider perspective on Russian media suppression and Putin's decision-making from someone who directly experienced the regime's crackdown.
The Lawfare Podcast features Robert Mahari, a joint JD-PhD candidate at MIT Media Lab and Harvard Law School, discussing the psychological and social risks posed by increasingly sophisticated AI agents. Hosted by Kevin Frazier (Assistant Professor at St. Thomas University College of Law and Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare),…
Worth it if you're interested in AI governance, psychology of human-AI interaction, or emerging policy issues around AI agents, and don't mind a relatively introductory treatment.
The Lawfare Podcast's daily episode brings together Executive Editor Natalie Orpett with Ariane Tabatabai (Vice President of Research, Security and Defense at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and Lawfare Contributing Editor) and Julia Curlee (Public Service Fellow at Lawfare) to discuss an active war involving…
Worth it if you follow Middle East policy closely and want expert analysis of how U.S. intelligence changes affected Iranian strategy, but not if you need clear explanation of what the war means for ordinary people.
This Rational Security episode features Scott (presumably Scott Anderson) with Lawfare colleagues Natalie Orpett and Julia Curlee discussing three major national security stories from late September 2026. The first segment covers Xi Jinping's state visit to Washington—his first to the U.S. capital in over a decade—and…
Worth it if you follow U.S. foreign policy closely and want expert analysis of Xi's visit, the Greenland deal, and ICC sanctions from established national security analysts.
