The “Three-Ring Circus” Edition

Rational Security

The Lawfare Institute

Foreignpolicy, Nationalsecurity, News, Government, Politics, Middleeast

4.8 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 January 2024

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, Quinta and Scott were joined by Lawfare Senior Editor and Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Molly Reynolds to talk through some big stories at the intersection of politics and national security, including:

“Over the Hill.” Congress is back in town and up to its old tricks, kicking the can of government funding down the road and still debating a funding package for Ukraine and other Biden administration priorities. As President Biden prepares to meet with congressional leaders at the White House, what are the odds of any sort of functioning legislature in this heated election year?
“Rewarmed Deterrence?” After weeks of threats, the United States and its allies finally took military action against the Houthi movement that has been threatening maritime traffic through the Red Sea in purported response to the Israeli military operation in Gaza. But will this solve the problem or only invite another cycle of escalation?
“The Frozen Corn Primary.” The first step of the 2024 election is officially over and the race is down to three candidates, with former President Trump having won the Iowa caucuses handily over rivals Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley. What does this first race tell us about the trajectory of the 2024 race—and how it intersects with Trump’s legal travails?

For object lessons, Quinta recommended Paul Murray's book “The Beesting” as a pleasantly sad-funny read. Scott gave his annual PSA about why it's worth watching the divisional round of the NFL playoffs and endorsed the amazing "Art But Make it Sports" account on Twitter and Substack. And Molly told the story of Bob, the man who found the Alaska Airlines door plug in his backyard.

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

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	If you care about the state of the world and want to set it on a better course, we have a solution that may be somewhat surprising.
0:07.0	Work in finance. At CFA Institute, our programs and courses are deeply rooted in ethical perspective, but we don't just teach.
0:16.0	We create codes of conduct and impact key policy issues with global governments and regulators
0:22.0	to join a global network of investment professionals,
0:25.1	visit CFA Institute.org slash set the standard today.
0:29.8	It looks like both of you survived which I guess appears to be some sort of
0:36.9	of winter apocalypse by Washington DC standards. A blizzard of 24. The
0:41.3	Blizzard of 24, all three inches of it. Three to four inches. I would say.
0:44.7	Four to five. And maybe where you are. I have my place definitely more of a three to four
0:49.5	situation. But nonetheless, somehow a complete disaster, mostly of a man-made sort and I'm not talking about climate change
0:56.4	Here in our nation's capital as we struggle it once again to deal with the most basic weather event, it's just insane.
1:04.0	So I don't think DC salted the roads.
1:09.0	Like everyone just kind of pretended it wasn't going to happen
1:12.0	and hoped that it wouldn't happen and then it did happen.
1:15.3	Yeah, I mean that is in part because this was like the first measurable snowfall we've had in something like two years.
1:23.0	Snow drought.
1:24.0	So in the interim, there were plenty of times when we were led to believe that the snow
1:30.6	apocalypse was coming and then there was in fact no snow. It is also now just very
1:36.4	cold outside for Washington DC, much colder than it usually is.
1:41.0	It's legit chilly. I do like when we finally get the big snow, which is like, which may not happen for a while yet, but we're like, the whole DC is shut down for like three days, you have to walk everywhere. If the snow, that's kind of fun when it happens like if you're
1:53.9	prepped and you're ready to camp out. The first winter that I lived in DC I had a very DC snow
1:59.7	experience which was that was the year in like 2015 when there we got like a lot of snow like a lot of snow
	...

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.