Preview: This War is Obscenely Illegal
Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts
Slate Audio
4.6 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 2 March 2026
⏱️ 8 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Trump’s actions in Iran have massive global impacts, but they also have serious legal implications. On this extra episode of Amicus, exclusive to our Plus members, Mark Joseph Stern is joined by military law expert Eugene Fidell, a visiting lecturer and senior research scholar at Yale Law School. Their conversation focuses on constitutional constraints, the role of Congress, and the principles of international law, and emphasizes the need for Congress to reclaim its war powers. While it seems like real consequences are unlikely for those responsible for flouting these laws, there are serious implications for American democracy. Fidell explains why he’s calling for impeachment as a response to these unconstitutional actions––even if such a move is very unlikely to succeed.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is amicus, Slate's podcast about the courts, the law, and the Supreme Court. |
| 0:13.9 | I'm Mark Joseph Stern, with an extra amicus outside of our regular schedule. |
| 0:22.4 | This past weekend, Donald Trump, who ran for re-election on a promise of no new wars, |
| 0:28.8 | started a new war with Iran, bombing the Islamic Republic in a joint campaign with Israel |
| 0:34.2 | dubbed Operation Epic Fury. Among President Trump's many stated goals was regime |
| 0:40.5 | change, and Israel got the ball rolling by quickly taking out the Republic's 86-year-old |
| 0:46.1 | Supreme Leader Ayatollah Kameney in a strike. What comes next is, to put it mildly, not so clear. |
| 0:53.5 | Iran has launched retaliatory strikes across the Middle |
| 0:56.5 | East. As of this taping, four American service members have been killed, and Trump has said there will be, |
| 1:02.4 | quote, likely more American deaths to come. The Iranian Red Crescent says 555 people have been killed in Iran, |
| 1:14.2 | and in Israel, at least 11 people have been killed. |
| 1:19.4 | One question hanging over all this, of course, is whether any of it is legal. |
| 1:23.2 | And that's why we are bringing you this extra edition of amicus. |
| 1:30.2 | There may be a temptation to say that the, is it even legal question doesn't matter, which is what Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith declared in an article titled, Law is irrelevant to the U.S. |
| 1:35.8 | attack on Iran. Maybe so, but my guest today does not agree that a shruggy emoji is the correct |
| 1:42.9 | legal response to this war of aggression. |
| 1:45.7 | So we're going to explore how the president is breaking the law, why it matters, and further, |
| 1:51.5 | does it matter if ordinary Americans believe this war is legal or not? |
| 1:56.2 | Eugene Fidel, a visiting lecturer and senior research scholar at Yale Law School, and expert on the law of armed conflict, joins me now to discuss whether international law or the Constitution still matter when America goes to war. |
| 2:10.0 | Gene, welcome back to Amicus. |
| 2:12.4 | It's great to be here. |
| 2:13.6 | The attack on Iran has been prosecuted in a way that clearly shows a president who feels |
... |
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