This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Anna Bower, Tyler McBrien, and Peter Harrell to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including:

• “Faginomics.” With the recent announcement that the U.S. government would be taking a 10% stake in the company Intel, the Trump administration has ushered in a new era of state-guided industrial policy, fueled by concerns of major power competition, particularly around the race to AI. How does this new policy intersect with its other novel economic priorities, such as the imposition of tariffs? And how legally viable is it, given present (and potentially future) legal challenges?
• “Ménage à Trois.” On the margins of the recent meeting of the China- and Russia-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a point of warmly (and very publicly) embracing Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping—a move many have taken as a clear shot across the bow at the Trump administration, which has been in heated economic negotiations with India over tariffs and trade relations. What does this exchange say about the Trump administration’s handling of the U.S. relationship with India—and other key U.S. relationships?
• “Midnight Planes Going Nowhere.” In an emergency hearing over the holiday weekend, federal judge Sparkle Sooknanan stopped the Trump administration from deporting hundreds of unaccompanied Guatemalan minor migrants to their home country—a move that the government of Guatemala has now claimed that it invited. What should we make of this move by the Trump administration? And how does it fit within its broader immigration crackdown?

In object lessons, Tyler biked to City Island, NY, discovering a charming little enclave with great food, shops, and beaches. Sticking with the New York theme, Anna recommends “John Proctor is the Villain,” a play by a writer from her Georgia hometown that’s so good it’s making women cry. Scott, meanwhile, left New York behind to live his best Neapolitan life with a new backyard pizza oven that can achieve the appropriate temp for a puffy crust. And Peter’s been reading “When the Clock Broke,” a reminder that the 1990s may have been the dress rehearsal for our current political dumpster fire, all the while keeping an eye on challenges to Trump v. Casa.

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In a live conversation on Sept. 2, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Scott R. Anderson, Anna Bower, and Lawfare Public Service Fellow Loren Voss to discuss Sunday’s emergency hearing in L.G.M.L. et al. v. Kristi Noem—in which Judge Sparkle Sooknanan blocked the Trump administration’s plans to send unaccompanied migrant children to Guatemala—Judge Charles Breyer’s ruling in Newsom v. Trump which found that President Trump’s use of the National Guard and U.S. Marines in Los Angeles violated the Posse Comitatus Act, and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruling striking down Trump’s tariffs on International Emergency Economic Powers Act grounds.

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On today’s episode, Molly Reynolds, Contributing Editor at Lawfare and Senior Fellow at Brookings, sits down with Zach Price, Associate Professor of Law at UC Law San Francisco, and Phil Wallach, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, to discuss pocket rescissions as an approach to cancelling funds previously approved by Congress. They cover whether the practice is legal, how it threatens Congress’s institutional power, and how they fit in with broader efforts by the Trump administration.

For more, take a look at the following pieces on Lawfare:

• “Past Pocket Rescissions Are Not Precedents for Power Vought Claims,” by Cerin Lindgrensavage and William Ford
• “Lawfare Daily: The President, Congress, and the Power of the Purse,” with Molly Reynolds, Matt Lawrence, Eloise Pasachoff, and Zachary Price
• “Pocket Rescissions: Legal Controversy and Political Meaning,” by Philip Wallach

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In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower and Scott Anderson, Lawfare contributor James Pearce, Lawfare Public Service Fellow Loren Voss, and The Atlantic staff writer Quinta Jurecic to discuss the legality of the Trump administration’s cancellation of $4.9 billion in foreign aid funding using a “pocket rescission,” how that impacts ongoing litigation surrounding foreign aid grant cancellations, the expanding role of the Pentagon in domestic law enforcement in D.C. and across the country, Fed. Governor Lisa Cook’s lawsuit challenging President Trump’s attempt to remove her from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, and more.You can find information on legal challenges to Trump administration actions here. And check out Lawfare’s new homepage on the litigation, new Bluesky account, and new WITOAD merch.

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From August 23, 2024: Richard Albert, William Stamps Farish Professor in Law, Professor of Government, and Director of Constitutional Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, joins Kevin Frazier, Assistant Professor at St. Thomas University College of Law and a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare, to conduct a comparative analysis of what helps constitutions withstand political pressures. Richard’s extensive study of different means to amend constitutions shapes their conversation about whether the U.S. Constitution has become too rigid.

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From August 28, 2024: On today’s episode, Vanda Felbab-Brown, Director of the Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors, Co-Director of the Africa Security Initiative, and Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution joins Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien to help make sense of the recent skirmishes in northern Mali between the junta, separatist groups, Islamists, and Russian mercenaries.

They discuss what the recent ambush in Mali portends for Russian and Russian-aligned mercenaries' activities in Africa and look back at how Moscow has restructured and reframed the Wagner Group in the year since the death of its former head, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

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Peter E. Harrell, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, joins Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to examine the White House’s announcement that it will take a 10% share of Intel. They dive into the policy rationale for the stake as well as its legality. Peter and Kevin also explore whether this is just the start of such deals given that President Trump recently declared that “there will be more transactions, if not in this industry then other industries.”

Find Scaling Laws on the Lawfare website, and subscribe to never miss an episode.

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On today’s episode, Lawfare’s Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina sits down with Eric Ciaramella, a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Lawfare Contributing Editor, to discuss the history of American security commitments abroad and how it can help inform the debate around security guarantees for Ukraine.

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