The “Inadequate Chicken Moved to Inferior Location” Special End-of-Year Edition
Rational Security
The Lawfare Institute
4.8 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 30 December 2025
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For the podcast’s annual end-of-year episode, Scott sat down with co-host emeritus Benjamin Wittes, Senior Editor Anna Bower, and Managing Editor Tyler McBrien to talk over listener-submitted topics and object lessons, including:
- Which sphere of influence is Western Europe in today?
- What should we make of President Trump's lawsuit against BBC?
- After nearly a year of the Trump Administration, how do you view the record of Attorney General Merrick Garland?
- What does the military campaign against alleged narcotics traffickers tell us about checks and balances within the U.S. system around the use of military force (or lack thereof)?
- With the escalating rhetoric in the Caribbean, what lessons should we be keeping in mind from the lead-up to the Iraq War?
- What can be done to reverse Americans' tolerance for the slide towards illiberal democracy?
- And importantly, is Ben's martial arts challenge to Putin still on?
For object lessons, our listeners really came through! Blake recommends a couple of coffee table books right up Tyler’s alley: “Building Stories” by Alastair Philip Wiper and "Closure: The Final Days of the Waterford Bicycle Factory" by Tucker and Anna Schwinn. Keenan points out a good companion listen to this podcast in NPR’s Sources and Methods. Liz really embraces the variety show that is “object lessons,” introducing us to Danylo Yavhusishyn—a.k.a., Aonishiki—a Ukrainian-born sumo wrestler, hyping Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as her Game of the Year, waxing poetic about The Sun Eater book series, and log-rolling her work on the Final Fantasy TCG. Speaking of variety shows, Lisa spotlights the Live from New York: The Lorne Michaels Collection exhibition at UT Austin’s Harry Ransom Center. And Riley asks the crew about their top fiction recommendations for 2026. Tune in to find out what they are!
And thank goodness, that’s it for 2025! But don’t worry, Rational Security and the whole Lawfare team will be back with you in the new year to help make sense of what’s to come in national security in 2026!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Anna, I think you're the only one who brought the Christmas spirit to this end of your |
| 0:04.2 | holidays episode with your beautiful tree behind you. Just gorgeous. Where are you? Thanks. I'm in Georgia |
| 0:10.2 | at my family's house and we, yeah, we've got the tree up and we're ready for Christmas or kind of. |
| 0:17.5 | I did some really last minute shopping yesterday. And my nephew has COVID and strap. So that whole |
| 0:27.1 | side of the family is kind of like quarantined. But otherwise, we are ready for the holidays. |
| 0:33.9 | And there is a huge, like, internal kind of scandal that's going on in the Gainesville |
| 0:43.7 | chicken capital of the world. Which I feel is worth telling, although I think I've already on |
| 0:50.7 | Rational Security told about how my hometown is the chicken capital of the world. |
| 0:55.4 | And every year we have the great chicken lighting where this chicken that is made out of chicken |
| 1:00.8 | wire that sits on top of the town square is lit up in festive lights. |
| 1:07.2 | And everyone goes out and has a countdown for the great chicken being lit. |
| 1:11.6 | It's like a huge, you know, festive experience in the town and everyone loves it. |
| 1:16.6 | This has a little bit of a wicker man vibe. Is anybody tucked inside this? |
| 1:19.6 | If you've never seen Anna's video of this, it's a thing of beauty. |
| 1:22.6 | It is a real thing of beauty. It's incredible. We have so much fun with it, and it's a real point of pride in the town. |
| 1:29.6 | But we have like a real life holiday movie in the making this year because someone new bought |
| 1:37.8 | the building where this chicken sits on the roof. Rumor has it around town that he's kind of a grinch about the chicken and decided that he |
| 1:48.8 | didn't want the chicken on the roof. |
| 1:51.0 | So he took it down without like telling anyone. |
| 1:57.0 | It flew the coop. |
| 1:58.7 | And the chicken was all the sudden gone. |
| 2:01.7 | And so the town council had to speed order a new chicken for this festive experience that we have in the town square every year. |
... |
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