The Lawfare Podcast: Patreon Edition
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Lawfare Daily: Conversations from Aspen, Part 2: Ali Nazary on the Future of Afghanistan and Sam Charup on the Ukraine Conflict
24 juli 2025 · 55 min
For today's episode, Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson is sharing more of the conversations he had with leading policy experts and practitioners on the margins of this year's Aspen Security Forum, which took place last week. Lees meer
First, he is joined by Ali Nazary, the head of foreign relations for the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, to discuss the Front's position nearly four years after the collapse of Kabul—and what Russia's recent recognition of the Taliban may mean for Afghanistan's future.
Scott then sat down with Sam Charup, the Distinguished Chair in Russia and Eurasia Policy at the RAND Corporation, to discuss Trump's recent pivot on support for Ukraine and where the conflict may be headed next.
This is part two of two. So if you missed them earlier this week, look back in this podcast feed for more conversations from Aspen.
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Lawfare Daily: Conversations from Aspen, Part 1: Shashank Joshi on European Security and Iris Ferguson on the Arctic
23 juli 2025 · 44 min
For today's episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson shares some of the conversations he had with leading policy experts and practitioners on the margins of this year's Aspen Security Forum, which took place last week. Lees meer
First he sat down Shashank Joshi, the Defence Editor for The Economist to discuss the new dynamics surrounding European security, as well as the path toward (and implications of) a Europe less dependent on the United States for its security.
Scott then talked with Iris Ferguson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who was until recently the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Arctic and Global Resilience, about the strategic significance of the Arctic and how it plays into the modern dynamics of major power competition.
This is part one of two, so be sure to tune in later this week for more conversations from Aspen.
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Lawfare Daily: Noah Feldman on the Supreme Court's Long Game
22 juli 2025 · 51 min
Alan Rozenshtein, Senior Editor at Lawfare and Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, speaks with Noah Feldman, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, about the Supreme Court's recent decision to greatly limit the practice of universal injunctions. The ruling came in a case involving a Trump administration executive order on birthright citizenship, and while many commentators have viewed the decision as a dangerous loss for the rule of law, Noah argues that the Court might be playing a strategic "long game." Lees meer
Alan and Noah discuss Noah's central thesis: that the Supreme Court's primary job in the Trump era is to protect the rule of law by avoiding a direct constitutional crisis with the executive branch that the judiciary is likely to lose. From this perspective, eliminating universal injunctions—a tool that allows a single district judge to start a major fight—is a way for the Court to control when and where it confronts the administration. They also address the legal merits of Justice Barrett's majority opinion, which Noah argues was a flawed use of originalism that misinterpreted the flexible, problem-solving nature of equity. Finally, they explore the legal avenues for relief that remain, such as class actions, and consider what it means for the judiciary to truly "win" or "lose" a confrontation with a president who is undeterred by political norms.
Note that this discussion was recorded in early July, before a lower court certified a class action in the birthright citizenship litigation and before the Supreme Court's recent unsigned opinion allowing the Trump administration to begin mass firings at the Department of Education, which Noah has since criticized.
Mentioned in this episode:
"The Supreme Court’s Majority Is Playing the Long Game,” by Noah Feldman in Bloomberg Opinion
"The Supreme Court’s Silent Opinions Undermine Its Legitimacy,” by Noah Feldman in Bloomberg Opinion
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Rational Security: The “Live from Aspen” Edition
21 juli 2025 · 1 uur 5 min
Scott recorded this week’s special episode live from the 2025 Aspen Security Forum, where he sat down with a panel of top national security journalists—including co-host emeritus Shane Harris of The Atlantic, Mark Goldberg of the Global Dispatches podcast, and Alex Ward of the Wall Street Journal—to talk about some of the issues that have emerged at and around this year’s Forum, including: Lees meer
“Putting the Ass in Aspen.” Twenty-four hours before the Aspen Security Forum was set to begin, the Defense Department barred more than a dozen officials who had been publicly set to participate, for months, on the grounds that the Forum promotes “the evils of globalism.” What does this tell us about the Trump administration’s relationship to the foreign policy establishment?
“Rolling Alone.” While U.S. officials were in short supply at the Forum, foreign officials were not, as foreign ministers and other officials from Europe, Asia, and other corners of the world had a heavy representation on the panels. And while those panels often addressed different topics, at least one common theme tended to emerge across them: the challenges of the new era of major power competition, especially at a moment when the United States seems especially skeptical of traditional alliances and multilateral institutions. What did we learn about the challenges these countries are facing? And what does it mean for the United States’ ability to strategically compete?
“Deus Ex Machina.” If there is one topic that was represented at almost every panel at this year’s Forum, it is the question of Artificial Intelligence — how important it is, what it will do to solve the world’s problems, new problems it will cause, and all it will cost to win the race to perfecting it. But is AI really that important? Or does its ubiquity in national security conversation reflect more hype than substance?
For object lessons, Shane shared his latest piece for The Atlantic about an old man, a dog, and the CIA’s efforts to…
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Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, July 18
21 juli 2025 · 1 uur 39 min
In a live conversation on July 18, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower and Roger Parloff and Lawfare Contributor Nicholas Bednar to discuss the Supreme Court’s rulings in Trump v. AFGE and McMahon v. New York, which allows for the mass terminations of federal employees, what happened in the hearing this week in the criminal case involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia, politicization of the Justice Department, and more. Lees meer
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Lawfare Archive: Why is Everyone Banning TikTok?
20 juli 2025 · 46 min
From December 28, 2022: In the last few weeks, over a dozen U.S. states have banned TikTok from government devices, citing national security concerns. A similar bill was included in the omnibus spending bill, requiring the social media video app to be removed from the devices used by federal agencies. But addressing the concerns over how the Chinese government could coerce TikTok’s parent company to get access to Americans' data raises interesting questions about the existing data protection and privacy frameworks in the U.S. Lees meer
To discuss what is going on, Lawfare’s Fellow in Technology Policy and Law Eugenia Lostri sat down with Caitlin Chin, a fellow with the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who has been closely following these developments. They discussed why TikTok is considered a national security threat to the United States, why a ban might not be the right solution to this problem, and her recommendations for what a comprehensive data protection framework should look like.
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Lawfare Archive: How the Police Became Untouchable
19 juli 2025 · 1 uur 15 min
From February 14, 2023: Last month's brutal murder of Tyre Nichols by Memphis police has once again sparked a national conversation about the causes of and remedies for persistent police misconduct and abuse. To explore this issue, Jack Goldsmith sat down with Joanna Schwartz, a law professor at UCLA School of Law, who is the author of a new book called, “Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable.” The book argues that police abuse is a result of pervasive pathologies in the legal system that shield from accountability not just police officers, but also their supervisors and the local governments for which they work. Lees meer
Joanna and Jack discussed the many accountability gaps in the legal regime governing police abuse. Like her book, they focused on problems of achieving justice through the civil rights system, problems that include the high bars to finding a lawyer and to convincing a judge to hear the case, Fourth Amendment doctrine, qualified immunity, and the challenges of municipal liability. They also discussed the best path to reform and the prospects of reform.
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Scaling Laws: Eugene Volokh on Libel and AI
18 juli 2025 · 59 min
In this Scaling Laws Academy "class," Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at Texas Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, speaks with Eugene Volokh, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and long-time professor of law at UCLA, on libel in the AI context. The two dive into Volokh's paper, “Large Libel Models? Liability for AI Output.” Lees meer
Extra credit for those who give it a full read and explore some of the "homework" below:
“Beyond Section 230: Principles for AI Governance,” 138 Harv. L. Rev. 1657 (2025)
“When Artificial Agents Lie, Defame, and Defraud, Who Is to Blame?,” Stanford HAI (2021)
Find Scaling Laws on the Lawfare website, and subscribe to never miss an episode.
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Lawfare Daily: The End of USAID, with Nicholas Kristof
17 juli 2025 · 38 min
Since Jan. 20, 84% of U.S. Agency for International Development grants and contracts have been terminated and 93% of agency staff have been fired. On July 1, the State Department absorbed the remaining staff and grants. On Lawfare Daily, Lawfare Associate Editor for Communications Anna Hickey spoke to New York Times opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof about the global impact of the Trump administration's dismantling of the USAID and foreign assistance cuts. They discussed what Kristof saw in his reporting trips to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, and South Sudan, and how the cuts to foreign assistance put U.S. national security at risk. Lees meer
Please note that this episode contains content that some people may find disturbing. Listener discretion is advised.
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Rational Security: The “Altered State” Edition
16 juli 2025 · 1 uur 18 min
This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Benjamin Wittes and Eric Ciaramella to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including: Lees meer
“With Arms Wide Open.” After years of open skepticism toward Ukraine (and uncharacteristic deference to Russia), it seems President Trump may have turned a page. His rhetoric has grown cooler toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, and he has proven more willing to provide arms to Ukraine, even over contrary efforts by some of his advisers—including an agreement to provide Ukraine with Patriot missiles and other U.S.-made, Europe-funded weapons. What explains this switch? And how durable is it likely to prove?
“Hitting Foggy Bottom.” Just days after the Supreme Court removed a preliminary injunction, the State Department went forward with substantial personnel cuts, RIFing 1,350 foreign and civil service personnel in Washington, D.C. It’s all part of a much broader reorganization that State Department leadership claims will make the Department leaner or more efficient, even as it guts personnel working on issues disfavored by the Trump administration.
“Waiting for the Intel Impressment.” Since the Trump administration’s June 21 airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, a heated debate has raged over their effects. The administration maintains the strikes were “historically successful” and permanently set back the Iranian nuclear program. But media reports source to people within the intelligence community have suggested a much more limited effect. How should we weigh these competing claims? And when will we know the truth?
In object lessons, Ben asks for your public service in supporting Lawfare’s Public Service Fellowship. Scott pulled a Quinta with his recommendation of the New Yorker essay “Zohran Mamdani and Mahmoud Khalil Are in on the Joke,” by Hanif Abdurraquib. And Eric makes his summer travels epic by listening to the podcast, The Rest is History.
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Lawfare Daily: Reparations for Russia's Aggression Against Ukraine with Markiyan Kliuchkovskyi and Patrick Pearsall
16 juli 2025 · 1 uur 14 min
Lawfare Legal Fellow Mykhailo Soldatenko and Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sit down with Markiyan Kliuchkovskyi, Executive Director of the Register of Damage for Ukraine at the Council of Europe and a former legal advisor of the Office of the President of Ukraine, and Patrick W. Pearsall, an international arbitration and disputes partner in the Washington D.C. office of Gibson Dunn and Global Co-Chair of the Geopolitical Strategy and International Law practice who directs the International Claims and Reparations Project at Columbia Law School. Markiyan and Patrick played a key role in proposing and designing Ukraine's reparations strategy soon after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. They discuss how they came up with the idea and pitched it to President Zelensky, the G-7, and the UN General Assembly; the proposed reparations mechanism; the fate of frozen Russian assets; and the relevance of the reparations to the Ukraine-Russia talks. Lees meer
You may want to look at the following materials relevant to the discussion.
UN General Assembly Resolution on "Furtherance of remedy and reparation for aggression against Ukraine"
Chiara Giorgetti, Markiyan Kliuchkovsky, Patrick Pearsall, and Jeremy K. Sharpe, “Historic UNGA Resolution Calls for Ukraine Reparations”
Scott R. Anderson, “Understanding the G7’s New Plan for Funding Ukraine”
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Lawfare Daily: David Noll on Civil Contempt Against a Defiant Executive
15 juli 2025 · 1 uur 11 min
Alan Rozenshtein, Senior Editor and Research Director at Lawfare, sits down with David Noll, a Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School, to discuss his new Lawfare Research Report, “Civil Contempt Against a Defiant Executive.” They talk about the widespread assumption that the judiciary is powerless if the executive branch chooses to defy court orders, largely because enforcement mechanisms like the U.S. Marshals Service reside within the executive branch. Lees meer
Noll argues that this view is mistaken and overlooks the significant enforcement powers the courts possess that are independent of the executive. Noll and Rozenshtein discuss non-custodial sanctions like stripping officials of immunity, levying substantial personal fines, and imposing professional discipline. They also explore the arrest power, noting that the U.S. Marshals have a statutory duty to enforce all lawful court orders that may supersede a presidential directive, and that courts retain a historical power to appoint their own deputies to enforce contempt citations if the Marshals were to refuse. Noll concludes that a conflict between the branches would likely be more protracted and contested than is commonly believed.
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Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, July 11
14 juli 2025 · 1 uur 47 min
In a live conversation on July 11, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Scott Anderson, Anna Bower and Roger Parloff to discuss the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. AFGE, which allows for the mass terminations of federal employees, what happened in the multiple hearings in the criminal and civil cases involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a nationwide injunction on President Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order, and more. Lees meer
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Lawfare Archive: Julian Mortenson on 'The Executive Power'
13 juli 2025 · 51 min
From April 12, 2019: Julian Mortenson, Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, is the author of a remarkable new article entitled "Article II Vests Executive Power, Not the Royal Prerogative," forthcoming in the Columbia Law Review and available on SSRN. Lees meer
Recently, Benjamin Wittes spoke with the professor about the article, which Mortenson has been working on for years—as long as the two have known each other. The article explores the history of exactly three words of the U.S. Constitution—the first three words of Article II, to be precise: "the executive power."
Huge claims about presidential power have rested on a conventional understanding of these three words. Julian argues that this conventional understanding is not just partially wrong, or mostly wrong, but completely wrong, as a matter of history. And, he tries to supplant it with a new understanding that he argues is actually a very old understanding of what those words mean.
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Lawfare Archive: Juliette Kayyem on the Baltimore Bridge Collapse and Crisis Management
12 juli 2025 · 42 min
From April 9, 2024: In the early morning on March 26, a Singapore-flagged cargo ship crashed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge. The bridge collapsed, resulting in the death of six of the eight individuals conducting maintenance on the bridge. The incident has disrupted commuter traffic and the transport of hazardous materials, and it has halted shipping traffic at the Port of Baltimore, among other effects. Lees meer
Lawfare Research Fellow Matt Gluck discussed the bridge’s collapse, how authorities responded to it, and what it all means for the resilience of U.S. critical infrastructure and the state of crisis response with Juliette Kayyem, a professor of international security at the Harvard Kennedy School—who recently wrote a book on disaster management. Was the bridge adequately protected? How should governments and the private sector prepare to both prevent crises, but perhaps more importantly, prepare for the aftermath when they inevitably occur?
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Lawfare Daily: Bribery and the Second Trump Administration with John Keller
11 juli 2025 · 59 min
John Keller, now a partner at Walden, Macht, Haran, & Williams, channeled his experience as the former chief of the Public Integrity Section at the Department of Justice to talk about bribery with James Pearce, Lawfare Legal Fellow. After explaining the basics of bribery law and whether a current or former president could face a bribery prosecution, Keller analyzed whether three episodes from the first six months of the second Trump administration could plausibly be characterized as bribery: Paramount’s $16 million settlement of Trump’s lawsuit while Paramount awaits federal approval of a merger, law firms agreeing to provide pro bono legal services to causes favored by the administration to rescind or avoid targeted executive orders, and the dismissal of the criminal indictment against New York City Mayor Eric Adams in exchange for Adams’s agreeing to further the administration’s immigration agenda. Lees meer
For more on this topic, read John Keller’s recent article on Lawfare.
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Lawfare Daily, Bonus Edition: Unpacking the July 7 Hearing for Kilmar Abrego Garcia
10 juli 2025 · 39 min
On July 8, Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down for a bonus edition of Lawfare Live with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower and Roger Parloff to discuss Kilmar Abrego Garcia's July 7 hearing in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland. Lees meer
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Scaling Laws: Ethan Mollick: Navigating the Uncertainty of AI Development
10 juli 2025 · 1 uur 6 min
Ethan Mollick, Professor of Management and author of the “One Useful Thing” Substack, joins Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, and Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor at Minnesota Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to analyze the latest research in AI adoption, specifically its use by professionals and educators. The trio also analyze the trajectory of AI development and related, ongoing policy discussions. Lees meer
More of Ethan Mollick's work: https://www.oneusefulthing.org/
Find Scaling Laws on the Lawfare website, and subscribe to never miss an episode.
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Rational Security: The “Game Changers” Edition
9 juli 2025 · 1 uur 16 min
This week, Scott sat down with fellow Senior Editors Molly Reynolds and Alan Rozenshtein to talk through the week’s big national security news, including: Lees meer
“One Bill to rule them all, One Bill to find them, One Bill to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.” Republicans in Congress narrowly enacted President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” last week, just in advance of the July 4 deadline he had set early in the year. What will its contents mean for elements of Trump’s national security agenda, including his immigration policies? And what does it say about his influence over fellow Republicans in Congress?
“Even a Stopped Clock is Right More Often Than This Letter.” In response to a FOIA lawsuit, the Justice Department has released copies of the letters that it sent to tech companies regarding President Trump’s pause on the enforcement of a statute intended to curtail TikTok’s availability in the United States. In the letter, the Trump administration not only suggests that the law may unconstitutionally interfere with the president’s authority over foreign affairs, but suggests that the president can “waive” the enforcement of civil penalties and otherwise commit not to enforce the law for certain periods of conduct. How persuasive are these legal arguments? And what explains tech companies’ willingness to rely on them?
“Nationwide, Not On Your Side.” At the end of its term last week, the Supreme Court issued a long-awaited decision in the birthright citizenship cases, wherein it sided with the Trump administration in ending the practice of “universal” (or nationwide) injunctions pursued by lower courts in many cases regarding challenges to government conduct. What with this holding mean, both for the birthright citizenship cases and for the broader legal system moving forward?
In object lessons, Alan marveled at the majesty of Cranbrook Schools during a recent trip to Michigan. Scott’s been here the whole time with a recommendation of Dropout TV’s Game …
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Lawfare Daily: The Double Black Box: Ashley Deeks on National Security AI
9 juli 2025 · 56 min
Lawfare Senior Editor Alan Rozenshtein sits down with Ashley Deeks, the Class of 1948 Professor of Scholarly Research in Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, to discuss her new book, “The Double Black Box: National Security, Artificial Intelligence, and the Struggle for Democratic Accountability.” They talk about the core metaphor of the book: the idea that the use of artificial intelligence in the national security space creates a "double black box." The first box is the traditional secrecy surrounding national security activities, and the second, inner box is the inscrutable nature of AI systems themselves, whose decision-making processes can be opaque even to their creators. Lees meer
They also discuss how this double black box challenges traditional checks on executive power, including from Congress, the courts, and actors within the executive branch itself. They explore some of Deeks's proposals to pierce these boxes, the ongoing debate about whether AI can be coded to be more lawful than human decision-makers, and why the international regulation of national security AI is more likely to resemble the fraught world of cyber norms than the more structured regime of nuclear arms control.
Mentioned in this episode:
"National Security AI and the Hurdles to International Regulation" by Ashley Deeks on Lawfare
"Frictionless Government and Foreign Relations" by Kristen Eichensehr and Ashley Deeks in the Virginia Law Review
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Lawfare Daily: Michael Feinberg on Leaving the FBI
8 juli 2025 · 53 min
Until late May, Michael Feinberg was a senior FBI counterintelligence agent focused on China. All that changed one weekend, when the Deputy FBI Director found out that he was still friends with a former FBI official who had been fired years ago. In his first interview following his essay, “Goodbye to All That,” in Lawfare last week. Feinberg sat down with Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes to discuss his career, his resignation, and the climate inside the Bureau. Lees meer
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Lawfare Daily: The Offensive Cyber Industry and U.S.-China Relations with Winnona Bernsen
7 juli 2025 · 40 min
Winnona Bernsen, nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative and founder of DistrictCon, joins Lawfare Contributing Editor Justin Sherman to discuss her recently released report "Crash (Exploit) and Burn: Securing the Offensive Cyber Supply Chain to Counter China in Cyberspace." They discuss the offensive cyber industry, the private sector and individual players, and the government procurement pipelines in the United States and China. They also discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each country’s offensive cyber procurement ecosystem, what it takes to sell an exploit, Winnona’s findings on the markups that middlemen add to exploit sales, and what it all means for the future of competition and cybersecurity. Lees meer
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Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, July 3
6 juli 2025 · 1 uur 40 min
In a live conversation on July 3, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Legal Fellow James Pearce and Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower and Roger Parloff to discuss updates in the civil and criminal cases of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a D.C. district court judge's injunction against the Trump administration’s invasion proclamation, attacks on law firms, and more. Lees meer
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Lawfare Archive: Itsiq Benizri on the EU AI Act
5 juli 2025 · 44 min
From February 16, 2024: The EU has finally agreed to its AI Act. Despite the political agreement reached in December 2023, some nations maintained some reservations about the text, making it uncertain whether there was a final agreement or not. They recently reached an agreement on the technical text, moving the process closer to a successful conclusion. The challenge now will be effective implementation. Lees meer
To discuss the act and its implications, Lawfare Fellow in Technology Policy and Law Eugenia Lostri sat down with Itsiq Benizri, counsel at the law firm WilmerHale Brussels. They discussed how domestic politics shaped the final text, how governments and businesses can best prepare for new requirements, and whether the European act will set the international roadmap for AI regulation.
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Lawfare Archive: Mike Johnson’s National Security Agenda
4 juli 2025 · 50 min
From November 7, 2023: You probably already know that Rep. Mike Johnson is the new Speaker of the House. What you may not know is that every single one of the issues on his plate is a national security issue, at least in the short term. Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editor and Brookings Senior Fellow Molly Reynolds to talk it all through. They talked about Israel aid, Ukraine aid, Taiwan assistance, the border, FISA Section 702, government shutdowns, and more. It's a rollicking conversation through a crazy bunch of issues that are all on the front burner of the new Speaker's stove as he takes over a job for which he appears to be wholly unprepared. Lees meer
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Lawfare Daily: Teun Janssen on Ukraine and a Big Europe
3 juli 2025 · 52 min
Teun Jansenn is a staff member at the European Parliament who works on issues of EU expansion and support for Ukraine. He joined Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes to talk about the prospects of Europe's stepping up for Ukraine as the United States backs away. He also talked about why EU enlargement is essential to getting EU governance under control and the role that Ukraine might play in that process. Lees meer
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Lawfare Daily: Civil-Military Relations in the Trump Administration
2 juli 2025 · 43 min
For today's episode, Lawfare Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman interviews Lindsay Cohn, an associate professor at the Naval War College and Columbia University, to discuss the Trump administration's handling of the U.S. military. Cohn discusses the firings of senior military officials, military parades, and the use of the U.S. military at the U.S-Mexico border and in Los Angeles. She also assesses which policies are of genuine concern and which are overstated. Lees meer
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Lawfare Daily: Prosecuting the Sahel's War Influencers with Lindsay Freeman
1 juli 2025 · 44 min
On today’s episode, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sits down with Lindsay Freeman, Director of Technology, Law & Policy at the Human Rights Center, UC Berkeley School of Law, to discuss her recent Lawfare article, “War Crimes for Fun and Profit.” They talk about how and why so-called war influencers linked to private military companies such as the Wagner Group in the Sahel are posting “conflict content” online. They also address why this graphic and gory content, which often amounts to self-incriminating evidence of war crimes, has led to so little accountability. And finally, they discuss efforts to close that impunity gap, including an Article 15 submission that Freeman and her team at the Human Rights Center sent to the International Criminal Court last fall. Lees meer
Content Warning: This episode contains graphic depictions of violence. Listener discretion is advised.
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Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, June 27
30 juni 2025 · 1 uur 51 min
In a live conversation on June 27, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Legal Fellow James Pearce and Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower and Roger Parloff to discuss the Supreme Court’s ruling on nationwide injunctions in the birthright citizenship case, the whistleblower complaint about Emil Bove’s actions as deputy attorney general, the disbarment of Kenneth Chesebro, ongoing litigation over the federalization of the California National Guard, and so much more. Lees meer
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Lawfare Archive: Steve Vladeck on Emergency Powers and Coronavirus
29 juni 2025 · 55 min
From March 19, 2020: What can the president do in a national emergency? What limits what the president can do? What authorizes the president to do all those things he can do in a national emergency? Is the president abusing, misusing, using appropriately, or under-using emergency powers during the coronavirus crisis? And what are the logical end points for how far this could go? For this bonus edition, Benjamin Wittes got on the phone with Steve Vladeck to work through these questions and talk about all things presidential emergency powers. Lees meer
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Lawfare Archive: Natan Sachs on Israeli Anti-solutionism
28 juni 2025 · 27 min
From December 5, 2015: The show this week features Natan Sachs, a Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, who recently published an article in Foreign Affairs on anti-solutionism as strategy in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Lees meer
During his conversation with Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Ben Wittes, Sachs argues that the apparent absence of a long-term strategy on the Israeli Right for dealing with the Palestinians is actually better described as a belief on the part of the Israeli Right that there are currently no solutions to the challenges Israel faces. Sachs call this policy “strategic conservatism,” noting that at times it has served Israel well, and at others has damaged the country's prospects for peace. Regardless of its effectiveness, Sachs explains that it is a philosophy U.S. policymakers need to better understand in order to make smart decisions about the problems in the Middle East.
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Lawfare Daily: Ukraine-Russia Negotiations with Eric Ciaramella and Samuel Charap
27 juni 2025 · 1 uur 8 min
Lawfare Legal Fellow Mykhailo Soldatenko sits down with Eric Ciaramella, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Samuel Charap, Senior Political Scientist at Rand Corporation, to discuss the key issues in the Ukraine-Russia talks. They chat about the national interests of the interested parties, whether a negotiated settlement is possible, and what form a potential agreement may take. They also discuss credible security arrangements for Ukraine to prevent future aggression and various Russian demands, including those related to NATO and neutrality. Lees meer
You may want to look at the following pieces relevant to the discussion.
Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Ukraine’s New Theory of Victory Should be Strategic Neutralization
Samuel Charap and Sergey Radchenko, The Talks That Could Have Ended the War in Ukraine
Mykhailo Soldatenko, In the Shadow of the Minsk Agreements: Lessons for a Potential Ukraine-Russia Armistice
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Rational Security: The “Pronghorn Shirt Daily” Edition
26 juni 2025 · 1 uur 18 min
This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Benjamin Wittes and Natalie Orpett, and University of Virginia School of Law professor Ashley Deeks, to talk through the week’s big national security news, including: Lees meer
“Bracing for Fallout.” In a surprise move, President Trump joined Israel’s military campaign against Iran over the weekend, using a specialized U.S. ordinance to hit Iranian nuclear sites that were beyond Israel’s early reach. It’s unclear to what extent the attack set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and debates continue to rage whether the president’s actions were wise or legal. But it did trigger an Iranian response against U.S. military bases in the Persian Gulf — action that was shortly followed by a tentative U.S.-backed ceasefire between Iran and Israel. What best explains the president’s decision to join the military campaign? And what will the consequences be, both in the region and back home in the United States?
“Destinations Unknown.” In a short, unexplained opinion in the matter of DHS v. DVD this past week, the Supreme Court stayed a lower court preliminary injunction that had barred the Trump administration from removing immigrants to third countries with minimal procedural protections against threats of torture and other mistreatment. But the exact ramifications of this holding are unclear, as the Justice Department has now returned to the Court asking for clarification as to whether its ruling also invalidates a later order applying the class-wide prohibition in the initial preliminary injunction to a specific group of individuals. What explains the Supreme Court’s odd approach in this case? And what could its broader ramifications be for the Trump administration’s immigration agenda?
“‘Bove the Law.” A now-public internal Justice Department whistleblower report alleges that Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General—and current Third Circuit nominee—Emil Bove endorsed plans to disregard judicial orders that would have obstructed…
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Lawfare Daily: ‘Ransom War’ with Max Smeets
26 juni 2025 · 53 min
Max Smeets, Co-Director of Virtual Routes and Senior Researcher at ETH Zurich, joins Lawfare’s Jonathan Cedarbaum and Justin Sherman to discuss his recently released book “Ransom War: How Cybercrime Became a Threat to National Security.” They discuss the history of ransomware (including the term itself), how the threats have evolved over the years, and some of the major drivers of innovation and entrepreneurialism within the ransomware ecosystem. They discuss Max’s findings on the “trust paradox” facing ransomware groups, the internal business dynamics of ransomware gangs, how governments leverage ransomware operators to their own ends, and how the United States and Europe can respond to future threats. Lees meer
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Lawfare Daily: A Right to Warn: Protecting AI Whistleblowers with Charlie Bullock
25 juni 2025 · 41 min
In the wake of controversy over OpenAI’s restrictive nondisclosure agreements, a bipartisan group of senators has introduced the AI Whistleblower Protection Act. In this episode, Lawfare Research Director Alan Rozenshtein spoke with Charlie Bullock, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Law & AI and co-author of a new Lawfare article on the bill, about its key provisions. They discuss why this bill is an important, light-touch proposal that offers a way to increase government access to information about AI risks. Lees meer
They cover two of the bill's most important features: how it fills a significant gap in existing law by protecting disclosures about “substantial and specific dangers” to public safety, even if no specific laws have been broken, and how the bill prevents companies from using contracts and NDAs to waive the whistleblower rights it creates.
To accompany the episode, be sure to read the new piece by Bullock and Mackenzie Arnold, "Protecting AI Whistleblowers.”
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Lawfare Daily: U.S. Strikes on Iranian Nuclear Facilities
24 juni 2025 · 1 uur
In a live conversation on June 23, Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to Lawfare Senior Editor Scott Anderson, Lawfare Foreign Policy Editor and CSIS fellow Daniel Byman, and Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution Suzanne Maloney about the American attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, what the reaction within Iran has been, whether the strikes were legal under domestic and international law, and more. Lees meer
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June Minipod: Emoluments Clause in the Second Trump Term
23 juni 2025 · 21 min
On this month’s minipod, Lawfare Associate Editor for Communications Anna Hickey talked to Lawfare Senior Editor Scott Anderson about what the Emoluments Clause is, whether any violations of the Emoluments Clause may be occurring in the Trump administration, and whether anyone has standing to enforce the clause. Lees meer
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Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, June 20
23 juni 2025 · 1 uur 34 min
In a live conversation on June 20, Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett sat down with Lawfare Legal Fellow James Pearce and Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower, Scott Anderson, and Roger Parloff to discuss the litigation over President Trump federalizing the California National Guard to send them to L.A., the the order for the release of Mahmoud Khalil, the Supreme Court denying an application to quickly consider the legality of President Trump’s tariffs, 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 Lees meer
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Lawfare Archive: Eric Adamson on the NATO Summit
22 juni 2025 · 38 min
From July 14, 2023: The NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, just wrapped up, and the big news is that Sweden is in, and Ukraine is not. Eric Adamson of the Atlantic Council and the Swedish Defense Association is a Swedish defense policy analyst who observed the NATO summit. Lees meer
He joined Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes to discuss the two big things that happened: the Swedish resolution of the dispute with Turkey that impeded Swedish NATO accession until now, and the frustrating failure of NATO to set a path for Ukrainian NATO membership. They talked about the dispute between Sweden and Turkey and the nuanced manner in which it was resolved, about whether the Ukrainians are being too demanding and should be more grateful for Western support, and the specific areas in which Sweden will contribute to NATO's capabilities.
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Lawfare Archive: El Salvador’s President Cracks Down on Gangs—and Democracy
21 juni 2025 · 1 uur 6 min
From May 9, 2023: Since March 2022, El Salvador has been under a state of exception as its President Nayib Bukele seeks to crack down on the country’s powerful gangs. Bukele, who once described himself on Twitter as the “world’s coolest dictator,” has engaged in a prolonged attack on El Salvador’s democratic institutions. And the crackdown has resulted in a range of human rights abuses. At the same time, Bukele really does seem to have been successful in curbing gang violence, and his popularity is sky high. Lees meer
To understand the situation in El Salvador, Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic spoke with Manuel Meléndez-Sánchez, a PhD candidate in Political Science at Harvard University who has written about Bukele on Lawfare. They discussed why Bukele’s crackdown on the gangs seems to be working, why it might fall apart in the long term, and what Bukele’s rise means for democracy in El Salvador and around the world.
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Lawfare Daily: Trump’s Rescissions Request, Impoundments, and the Litigation Over Foreign Assistance
20 juni 2025 · 59 min
For today’s episode, Lawfare General Counsel and Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson and Lawfare Senior Editor and Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Molly Reynolds sat down for a conversation about the rescissions package President Trump recently put forward to Congress, how it relates to the litigation over the president’s attempted cuts to U.S. foreign assistance, and what it all signals about how the administration intends to handle impoundments moving forward. Lees meer
Discussed in this episode:
“The Myth of Presidential Impoundment Power” from Protect Democracy
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Lawfare Archive: Jack Goldsmith and Bob Bauer on Reforming the Insurrection Act
19 juni 2025 · 58 min
From April 12, 2024: The Insurrection Act is a provision that allows the president to deploy the U.S. military for domestic law enforcement. It’s been invoked dozens of times by presidents to respond to crises in the over 230 years that it’s been around, but it hasn’t been reformed in centuries. In recent years, the Insurrection Act has come back into public focus because of its implication in a number of domestic crises, prompting a renewed conversation about whether it’s finally time to curb the sweeping powers afforded to the executive in this unique federal law. Lees meer
On April 8, the American Law Institute released a set of principles for Insurrection Act reform, prepared by a group of 10 individuals with backgrounds in constitutional law, national security law, and military law. The co-chairs of this group were Jack Goldsmith, Lawfare Co-Founder and Harvard Law School Professor, and Bob Bauer, Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at New York University School of Law. They joined Lawfare Associate Editor Hyemin Han to talk about the history of the Insurrection Act, to parse out the recommendations the American Law Institute is making for reform, and to make the case for reforming the act in 2024.
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Rational Security: The "Middle East War to End Middle East Wars" Edition
18 juni 2025 · 1 uur 14 min
This week, Scott sat down with Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien and Foreign Policy Editors Daniel Byman and Dana Stuster to talk through the week’s big news in Israel and Iran, including: Lees meer
“The Nuclear Option.” Israel crossed the rubicon late last week and took direct military action against Iran’s nuclear weapons program, among other targets, in an aggressive unilateral military campaign that has only expanded in the ensuing days. Iran, meanwhile, has reciprocated with volleys of attacks against Israel, some of which are getting through the substantial missile defenses Israel (and the United States) have deployed. It’s the Middle East war everyone has feared for more than a decade. How will it come to an end? And what will its ramifications be for the region?
“Bibi Got Back.” Israel has threatened to take direct military action against Iran over its nuclear program multiple times over the past two decades but has always stopped short. Why did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proceed this time? And what will the implications be for his government, which has been teetering on the edge of collapse? And for his relationship with President Trump, his once close ally who declined to back his decision to proceed?
“Bye-Atollah.” While Israel’s official target has been Iran’s nuclear and military complexes, many observers suspect that their real goal is something else: regime change. And recent reports that Netanyahu proposed killing Iranian political and spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini—but relented after objections from the Trump administration—suggest they may be right. What might Iran look like if its current regime collapses? And will it help or hurt Israeli (and U.S.) security interests?
In Object Lessons, Tyler sang the praises of online radio station NTS.Live and NTS Guides to all of your quirky and eclectic musical tastes. Scott didn’t miss a beat with his throwback recommendation of Schoolhouse Rock song covers, with a particular fondness …
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Lawfare Daily: The Israel/Iran Conflict: What Do We Know So Far?
18 juni 2025 · 1 uur 1 min
On today's episode, Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett discussed the ongoing hostilities between Israel and Iran with Suzanne Maloney, Director of the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, and Joel Braunold, Managing Director of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace. They talked about how the conflict is unfolding, the nature of U.S. involvement, and why, after so many years of tensions, Israel chose this moment to attack. Although the conflict began only a few days ago, on June 13, it’s already clear that it has the potential to dramatically change the regional and international dynamics of the Middle East. Lees meer
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Lawfare Daily: Evaluating January 6 Prosecutions with Greg Rosen
17 juni 2025 · 55 min
Greg Rosen, now an attorney at Rogers Joseph O’Donnell, spoke with James Pearce, Lawfare Legal Fellow, about his time prosecuting federal crimes in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. He focused mostly on the investigation and prosecution that followed the attack of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. He discussed how the U.S. Attorney’s Office carried out the largest investigation in the history of the country, how it handled the multiple investigative and logistical challenges the prosecutions posed, and how to think about the Supreme Court’s decision holding that the congressional obstruction count charged in many Jan. 6 cases was misapplied. Rosen also weighed in on the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s under the second Trump administration. Lees meer
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Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, June 13
16 juni 2025 · 1 uur 36 min
In a live conversation on June 13, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Legal Fellow James Pearce and Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower, Quinta Jurecic, and Roger Parloff to discuss the legality of President Trump federalizing the California National Guard to send them to L.A., the pretrial detention hearing of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, updates in Alien Enemies Act litigation, the indictment of Representative LaMonica McIver, 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 Lees meer
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Lawfare Archive: The Court at War
15 juni 2025 · 1 uur 3 min
From December 26, 2023: The Supreme Court during World War II issued some of the most notorious opinions in its history, including the Japanese exclusion case, Korematsu v. United States, and the Nazi saboteur military commission case, Ex parte Quirin. For a fresh take on these and related cases and a broader perspective on the Supreme Court during World War II, Jack Goldsmith sat down with Cliff Sloan, a professor at Georgetown Law Center and a former Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure, to discuss his new book, which is called “The Court at War: FDR, His Justices, and the World They Made.” Lees meer
They discussed how the Court's decisions during World War II were informed by the very close personal bonds of affection that most of the justices had with President Roosevelt and by the justices’ intimate attachment to and involvement with the war effort. They also discussed the fascinating internal deliberations in Korematsu, Quirin, and other momentous cases, and the puzzle of why the same court that issued these decisions also, during the same period, issued famous rights-expanding decisions in the areas of reproductive freedom, voting rights, and freedom of speech.
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Lawfare Archive: Protests, the Police, and the Press
14 juni 2025 · 48 min
From June 21, 2023: Carolyn Cole, a Pulitzer-Prize winning staff photographer for the Los Angeles Times, has covered wars and other conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Kosovo, Liberia, Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti, and the U.S.-Mexico border. Over the course of her 30 year career, she has been seriously injured on the job precisely once—when members of the Minnesota State Patrol pushed Cole over a retaining wall and pepper sprayed her so badly that her eyes were swollen shut. Cole was in Minneapolis in the summer of 2020 to cover the protests after the murder of George Floyd. She was wearing a flak jacket marked TV, a helmet, and carried press credentials at the time of her attack. Lees meer
Cole’s story is not unique among the press corps. According to a new report out this week from the Knight First Amendment Institute called “Covering Democracy: Protests, the Police, and the Press,” in 2020, at least 129 journalists were arrested while covering social justice protests and more than 400 suffered physical attacks, 80 percent of them at the hands of law enforcement. As Joel Simon, author of the report and former Executive Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, writes, “The presence of the media is essential to dissent; it is the oxygen that gives protests life. Media coverage is one of the primary mechanisms by which protesters’ grievances and demands reach the broader public.”
Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sat down with Joel, as well as Katy Glenn Bass, the Research Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, to discuss the report, the long legacy of law enforcement attacks on journalists covering protests in America, who counts as “the press” in the eyes of the court, and what can be done to better ensure press freedom.
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Lawfare Daily: U.S. Troops on the Streets of Los Angeles
13 juni 2025 · 1 uur 25 min
For today's episode, Lawfare Senior Editor and General Counsel Scott R. Anderson sat down with three leading legal experts on domestic military deployments: William Banks of Syracuse University College of Law, Laura Dickinson of the George Washington University Law School, and Chris Mirasola of the University of Houston Law Center. They discussed the legality of the Trump administration's decision to deploy U.S. troops on the streets of Los Angeles, where the state of California's legal challenge is likely to head, the Trump administration's broader ambitions to involve the military in immigration enforcement, and what it all may mean for the domestic use of the military elsewhere moving forward. Lees meer
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Escalation, Episode Seven: Boiling the Frog
12 juni 2025 · 58 min
Today, it’s Episode Seven of Escalation, our latest narrative series co-hosted by Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien and Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina. Throughout the show, Nastya and Tyler trace the history of U.S.-Ukrainian relations from the time of Ukrainian independence through the present. You can listen to Escalation in its entirety, as well as our other narrative series, on our Lawfare Presents channel, wherever you get your podcasts. Lees meer
In the season finale of Escalation, Nastya recounts Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The western world is shocked, as President Biden and Congress attempt to send weapons to Ukraine to fight back. But fundamentally different perspectives on the fight emerge, leaving Ukraine's fate uncertain and its relationship with the United States in jeopardy.
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