Lawfare Archive: Mike Johnson’s National Security Agenda
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 4 July 2025
⏱️ 51 minutes
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Summary
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.
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| 0:18.2 | Also, check out Lawfare's other podcast offerings, Rational Security, Chatter, |
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| 1:29.4 | Music Learn more at FreshWorks.com. I'm Mary Ford, intern at Lawfare, with an episode for the Lawfare Archive for July 4th, 2025. |
| 1:37.2 | On Tuesday, President Trump's, quote, one big beautiful bill, unquote, passed in the Senate with Vice President Vance casting the tie-breaking vote. The domestic policy bill has faced challenges |
| 1:42.5 | in the House of Representatives, though, as a coalition |
| 1:45.4 | of Republicans have voiced concerns over the costs of the bill and demanded changes that could |
| 1:50.8 | prevent the bill's passage altogether. Facing pressure from President Trump, and after a night |
| 1:55.8 | of cajoling his party, Speaker Mike Johnson was able to open the floor for a full debate and vote on Thursday |
| 2:02.0 | morning. For today's archive episode, I selected an episode from November 7th, 2023, in which |
| 2:08.7 | Lawfare editor-in-chief Ben Wittes sat down with Molly Reynolds to talk about the then-newly-elected |
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