The “Going Once, Going Twice” Edition

Rational Security

The Lawfare Institute

Foreignpolicy, Nationalsecurity, News, Government, Politics, Middleeast

4.8 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2024

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, Alan and Quinta were joined by Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett to talk through the week's big national security news, including:

“A Gag Order Prevents Me From Telling You What This Segment Is Called.” After former President Donald Trump attacked the daughter of Justice Juan Merchan, who is overseeing his New York hush-money trial, Justice Merchan expanded the gag order he had previously imposed to prohibit Trump from attacking his family. This is only the latest in what has become a pattern of Trump testing gag orders in his many legal cases. Why have gag orders become such an important part of the Trump cases and how far should they reach?
“The Global Importance of the Middle East Is That It Keeps the Far East and the Near East From Encroaching on Each Other.” Even by the standards of the last few months, it’s been a particular busy week in Israel. In just 48 hours, an Israeli strike in Syria killed high-level Iranian military officials, another strike in Gaza killed several aid workers in a World Central Kitchen convoy, and a controversy around conscripting ultra-Orthodox men into the IDF is threatening Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition. What comes next and is the crisis in the Middle East entering an even more chaotic period?
“Disinformation Peking Turducken.” An amazing thread on X involving Alex Jones, Russian lies about the CIA sending Nazis to fight in Ukraine, and a Chinese MAGA disinformation campaign is a preview of just how messy the 2024 electoral season is going to be. Is this just 2016 all over again, and what, if anything, can be done to safeguard the U.S. information space against foreign actors?

For object lessons, Alan suggested the new Netflix adaptation of the "3 Body Problem", Quinta shared a New Yorker article about the United Kingdom's recent decline, and Natalie recommended the Serial podcast's new season on Guantánamo Bay.

To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/c/trumptrials.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	So how are you all feeling about the ongoing law fair auction and all of us becoming
0:06.1	Q-level celebrities or I don't know what the right.
0:09.3	I was already a Q-level celebrity.
0:11.2	I guess you were. You're the original Q level celebrity.
0:14.0	But I mean you got your own black hole of political doom post-it note going.
0:18.4	What's that, are you obsessively checking your worth on the marketplace?
0:22.5	No.
0:23.7	Yes, listener, you can bid on the Post-it note
0:26.5	that I drew about the benefit to Trump politically
0:29.5	from delaying his trial.
0:30.6	I don't know why you would want to do that, but you can. I will say I thought
0:35.2	seriously about going to art school at a certain point in my life, so this is like a vision
0:39.8	into an alternative path that I chose not to take.
0:44.2	It is a handsomely drawn post-it note.
0:46.0	I'll give you that.
0:47.0	Thank you. Molly Reynolds told me that the lines were very straight.
0:51.8	So thank you to my high school art teacher. It's a quintet
0:56.4	Jurassic original. I mean it should be worth thousands. Alan what are you going
1:01.6	to contribute to the auction?
1:03.0	I already contributed. I signed the puzzle.
1:07.0	We need an Alan Rosenstein original. What's it going to be?
1:10.0	So the problem is that unlike
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Lawfare Institute, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Lawfare Institute and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.