War Powers and the Biden Administration
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 12 March 2021
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
President Joe Biden has conducted military strikes in Syria, has articulated legal theories under which the series of strikes were proper and has temporarily reined in the use of drone strikes. To talk about Biden and war powers, Benjamin Wittes sat down with John Bellinger, who served as the legal adviser at the State Department and the legal adviser for the National Security Council in the Bush administration; Lawfare senior editor Scott Anderson, who worked in the State Department's Office of the Legal Adviser, as well as in the Iraqi embassy; and Rebecca Ingber, who also worked in the State Department's Office of the Legal Adviser and is currently a professor at Cardozo Law School. They talked about how the Biden administration justified the strikes in Syria, the reports it has not yet given on its legal and policy framework for counterterrorism, whether this is the year that AUMF reform might finally happen and which authorizations to use military force might finally see reform.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 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. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:32.6 | But I don't think anyone is looking at this and thinking, oh yeah, it was so clearly |
| 0:38.0 | necessary for the US government to act in self-defense in this immediate way with no time |
| 0:43.1 | to truly consult with Congress and certainly no time to get congressional authorization. |
| 0:48.0 | Days and days later after we were struck in Iraq that we're going to hit a facility |
| 0:53.3 | in Syria that we can't even say in our statement to Congress was itself a base for launching |
| 0:59.5 | attacks. |
| 1:01.3 | I'm Benjamin Wittis and this is the LawFair podcast March 12, 2021. |
| 1:09.2 | Joe Biden conducted military strikes in Syria. |
| 1:14.2 | He's also reigned in temporarily the use of drone strikes and he has articulated legal |
| 1:20.7 | theories under which the serious strikes were proper. |
| 1:24.6 | It's a good opportunity to have a conversation about Biden and war powers and we have |
| 1:30.1 | just the group to do it. |
| 1:31.8 | John Belinger was the legal advisor at the State Department and the legal advisor for the |
| 1:37.8 | National Security Council in the Bush administration. |
| 1:41.8 | LawFair senior editor Scott Anderson worked in the State Department legal advisor's office |
| 1:47.0 | as well as in the Iraqi embassy and Rebecca Inber also worked at State Legal and is currently |
| 1:55.9 | a professor at Cardoza Law School. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
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.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.