Who's More Libertarian? Iran, Guns, and the Limits of Law

Law Talk With Epstein, Yoo & Cooke

The Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin

Politics, News, History, Government

4.8 • 704 Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2026

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

John Yoo, Richard Epstein, and Charles C.W. Cooke dive into the legal firestorm surrounding U.S. actions in Iran—debating “imminence,” anticipatory self-defense, and whether international law has any real teeth. Then, they tackle a major 2nd Amendment case testing whether drug use can justify a permanent gun ban—and whether courts or legislatures should draw that line. Finally, a heated clash over parental rights, the Constitution, and California’s school policies raises a deeper question: where do these rights actually come from?

Transcript

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0:00.0	I don't even know whether John disagrees with you on this. I don't think he does, actually.
0:03.9	I bet we do, but we'll find out.
0:12.2	Welcome to Law Talk. I'm Charles C.W. Cook, and I'm here, as always, with John U. and Richard Epstein. John and Richard, welcome to the show. Great to be here,
0:24.4	especially with John. Hey, Richard. Hey, Charlie. Great to be with you. This is a production of the Civitas
0:31.5	Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. Our first topic today is the war in Iran.
0:41.3	It is a war.
0:42.3	Some people have said it isn't a war,
0:44.3	but I think that is a semantic game.
0:47.3	And because it is a war, or at least we are making war on and in Iran. There are many legal questions that have arisen.
0:58.7	Now, in the past, on the show, we've talked a lot about the domestic questions under our
1:04.5	constitution. What can the president do without Congress? What can the president do with Congress? But today we're going to start
1:15.2	with international law. The White House saw a resignation. Joe Kent, who previously ran for
1:23.7	Congress in Washington State, left his role and in a missive that contained, let's be
1:31.5	honest, quite a few conspiracy theories, including some that at least flirted with anti-Semitism.
1:37.9	He argued at root that there was no imminent threat here, that this was a war of choice as the phrase has it.
1:48.4	So I'll start with you, John.
1:51.1	If it is the case that this was a war of choice, if it is the case that there was no imminent threat,
1:56.5	in the context of international law, why does that matter if indeed it does?
2:04.6	It's a great question, Charlie, because eminence is important both for our domestic constitutional system and for international law, but in different ways.
2:14.6	So in international law, there's a prohibition on the use of force in the
2:19.8	UN Charter, but there is an exception for either UN Security Council approval, which is not here,
2:28.0	or self-defense. And so it doesn't say this in the UN Charter, but the idea of self-defense and international law has always been thought to be broader than just waiting for the enemy to send tanks across the border.
	...

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