Episode 52: Trump Derangement Syndrome or a Distraction from the Forever War?

The National Security Law Podcast

Bobby Chesney and Steve Vladeck

Courses, Politics, News, Education, Government

4.8 • 646 Ratings

🗓️ 3 January 2018

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Merry New Year! 2018 is underway, but in today's episode we are looking back at 2017. More specifically, we are looking back to predictions made in early 2017 regarding the changes President Trump surely would be making to certain executive orders and presidential directives relating to national security. How did those predictions turn out? It's rather complicated. Tune in to find out what has and has not happened, and why, as we consider the fate of five key documents: EO 13491 (interrogation and the US Army Field Manual) EO 13492 (GTMO closure) EO 13567 (GTMO Periodic Review Boards) PPD 28 (foreign persons and US SIGINT activity) The "PPG" (constraints on the use of force outside areas of active hostilities) Next, the discussion turns to larger questions about the general direction of national security law commentary in 2017. Everyone agrees that the Trump Administration has generated a host of novel issues, and that these issues are garnering a great deal of attention from those of us engage publicly on national security legal issues. But not everyone agrees that the latter is a good thing. Some argue that it distracts too much from core issues associated with the use of force and other aspects of counterterrorism and military affairs, while others argue that it reflects an unjustified obsession with and hostility towards Donald Trump. We wrestle with those critiques. Last (and no doubt least), we have at last both managed to see Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and we wrap with a looooong review (one that is so preposterous that not even Rose and Flynn would go along with it...and that is saying something!).

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello from Austin. Welcome to 2018 and welcome to episode 52, the National Security Law Podcast. We're brought to you by the Strauss Center at the University of Texas. I'm Bobby Chesney. I'm Steve
0:21.6	Vladiv. Bobby, happy new year. Happy New Year to you too, my friend. I hope you had a nice,
0:25.8	were you here in Austin? Because we had snow, which is, I realized, some of our listeners, not news.
0:30.9	We had ice. We had, you know, locusts. It's been quite the, quite the weather week. Well, for our listeners out there, it is Wednesday morning, 10 a.m. Central Time as we're recording.
0:42.5	And I got to tell you, it is cold.
0:44.8	Well, it was cold, but it's blue skies now and heading into the 50s.
0:49.0	And I can't complain considering what everyone else is going through.
0:52.3	So stay safe.
0:53.4	If you're in the colder climbs, which is pretty much everywhere, but here. And we're both going later in this
0:59.9	week. Southern California. Why are we going? Steve, why are we both going there? The Association
1:04.9	of American Law Schools, the membership organization for law schools and law professors is
1:09.9	holding its annual meeting
1:11.3	in San Diego. You know, I tend to think of double ALS, as everyone right shorthands it, as an awkward
1:18.7	trip into cold weather, right? So last year it was in San Francisco where it was like 47 and
1:23.6	raining the whole time. Sometimes it's in New York. The last two times it's been in New York,
1:27.3	there have been epic cold fronts in New York where
1:29.7	I think one of those conferences, it never got above zero.
1:32.3	It was even cold the time most recently.
1:34.0	We were in New Orleans.
1:34.8	Right.
1:35.1	New Orleans was like rain and was in the 40s.
1:37.0	And so this is actually the rare AALS where the weather is net positive for just about
	...

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