Rational Security: The “We Need to Talk About Kevin ... Again” Edition
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 17 September 2023
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Rational Security, with Scott traveling, Quinta and Alan were joined by Lawfare Senior Editor Molly Reynolds to break down the week’s big national security news stories, including:
- “What is Impeachment, Really?” Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy has announced an impeachment inquiry against President Biden seemingly with the goal of finding something to impeach him over. Will this do anything to hold back the right flank of McCarthy’s caucus from coming for McCarthy’s speakership?
- “The Investigation of the Investigation of Donald Trump.” House Judiciary Committee Chairman and fearless Trump defender Rep. Jim Jordan has fired back against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over the Georgia state indictment of Donald Trump, announcing that he’s planning to investigate Willis for engaging in what he terms a politically motivated prosecution. Willis has responded by accusing Jordan of seeking “to obstruct a Georgia criminal proceeding.” What kind of authority, if any, does Congress actually have to conduct this kind of oversight?
- “Still Musky.” A new biography of Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson has sparked controversy thanks to Isaacson’s description of a decision by Musk to turn off Starlink coverage near Crimea to block a Ukrainian maneuver. Isaacson has already walked back his own reporting … but the incident still raises questions about Musk’s power on the global stage and his ability as a private actor to shape the course of war.
For object lessons, Alan recommended the novel “Song of Achilles.” Molly shared a PBS documentary series about the Troubles called Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland, and Quinta shouted out the HBO documentary series Telemarketers.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair, that's patreon.com slash |
| 0:16.9 | LawFair. Also check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:35.5 | I'm Kila Benjamin, intern at LawFair with an episode of Rational Security for September |
| 0:40.1 | 17, 2023. For today's episode, the team at LawFair decided to cross-post this week's episode |
| 0:46.4 | of Rational Security. A podcast hosted by Scott R. Anderson, Quinta Jurassic, and Alan |
| 0:51.3 | Rosenstein, in which they cover the week's big national security news stories. Today's |
| 0:56.0 | episode is entitled, we need to talk about Kevin, again, edition. This week, Rosenstein |
| 1:01.5 | Jurassic sat down with Molly Reynolds to discuss Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy's announcement |
| 1:05.5 | of an impeachment inquiry against President Biden, the back and forth between Representative |
| 1:10.0 | Jim Jordan and Fulton County District Attorney, Fanny Willis, and the controversy sparked |
| 1:15.1 | by reports that Elon Musk had decided to turn off Starlink coverage near Crimea to block |
| 1:19.3 | Ukrainian maneuver and more. This is Rational Security. |
| 1:25.8 | So Alan, I hear you made it through quite the obstacle course to be with us here today. |
| 1:32.6 | My car, my trusty Subaru, which I love so much, my cherry red Subaru Outback, it decided |
| 1:38.2 | to turn on me. The trunk refuses to open or refused to open, and it was just beep, and |
| 1:44.7 | it was terrible because it got stuck in the closed position, but it thinks it's open. |
| 1:50.3 | And when the trunk is open and you start to try to drive the car beeps at you, which |
| 1:53.6 | is ordinarily good. But if the trunk is closed and the car just beeps at you with this |
| 1:58.3 | incessant, like, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, and it's been |
| 2:02.9 | had to do this for three days now. But it will stop beeping after like 30 seconds of driving. |
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