Chatter
132 episodes - English - Latest episode: 9 days ago - ★★★★★ - 130 ratingsWeekly long-form conversations with fascinating people at the creative edges of national security. Unscripted. Informal. Always fresh.
Chatter guests roll with the punches to describe artistic endeavors related to national security and jump into cutting-edge thinking at the frontiers where defense and foreign policy overlap with technology, intelligence, climate change, history, sports, culture, and beyond. Each week, listeners get a no-holds-barred dialogue at an intersection between Lawfare's core issue areas and something from Hollywood to history, science to spy fiction.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
The Pentagon’s Alliance with the Country Music Industry with Joseph Thompson
April 11, 2024 07:00 - 1 hour - 73 MBFor decades, country music has had a close and special relationship to the U.S. military. In his new book, Cold War Country, historian Joseph Thompson shows how the leaders of Nashville’s Music Row found ways to sell their listeners on military service, at the same time they sold country music to people in uniform. Shane Harris spoke with Thompson about how, as he puts it, Nashville and the Pentagon “created the sound of American patriotism.” Thompson’s story spans decades and is filled wit...
Why Foreign Policy Elites Matter with Elizabeth Saunders
April 04, 2024 07:00 - 1 hour - 75.6 MBThe "deep state." The "blob." Foreign policy elites are often so labeled, misunderstood, and denigrated. But what influence on presidents and on public opinion do they actually have? Elizabeth Saunders, professor of political science at Columbia, has researched this topic deeply and written about it in her new book, The Insiders' Game. David Priess spoke with her about her path to studying foreign policy, the ups and downs of archival research, the meaning of foreign policy "elites," the di...
Nuclear War: A Scenario with Annie Jacobsen
March 28, 2024 07:00 - 1 hour - 68.2 MBWithout warning, North Korea launches a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile at the United States. American satellites detect the launch within seconds, setting off a frantic, harrowing sequence of events that threatens to engulf the planet in a nuclear holocaust. That’s the terrifying hypothetical storyline that journalist Annie Jacobsen imagines in her new book. It’s a minute-by-minute, and occasionally second-by-second account of how the vast U.S. national security apparatus...
From Right-Wing Radio to the Heart of the Never Trump Movement, with Charlie Sykes
March 21, 2024 07:00 - 1 hour - 70.1 MBCharlie Sykes recently stepped down as host of the Bulwark Podcast. He's a regular commentator on MSNBC, and has written a number of books. He tells the story here of his political journey, from being a page for the Wisconsin delegation at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, to being a working journalist increasingly disenchanted with conventional liberalism, to finding a home in Reagan Republicanism and becoming more of a political warrior than he ever meant to be--and then l...
Margaret Mead, Psychedelics, and the CIA with Benjamin Breen
March 14, 2024 07:00 - 1 hour - 77.2 MBIf you’re listening to this podcast, chances are you’ve heard stories about the CIA’s experiments with drugs, particularly LSD, during the infamous MKUltra program. But you may not know that the characters involved in that dubious effort connect to one of the 20th Century’s most famous and revered scientists, the anthropologist Margaret Mead. Shane Harris talked with historian Benjamin Breen about this new book, Tripping on Utopia, which tells the story of how Mead and her close circle lau...
Spy Disguises in Fact and Fiction with Jonna Mendez
March 07, 2024 08:00 - 1 hour - 80 MBJonna Mendez advanced in her Central Intelligence Agency career to become Chief of Disguise despite the many institutional challenges to women's promotions. And now she has written a memoir, In True Face, about it all. David Priess spoke with Jonna about career options for women at CIA in the early Cold War, her own start there in the 1960s, how photography classes set her on a path that ultimately led to service as Chief of Disguise, her interactions over the decades with Tony Mendez, the...
The Moon, Tides, and National Security with Rebecca Boyle
February 29, 2024 08:00 - 1 hour - 64.9 MBWe all know how superpower competition spurred one giant leap for mankind on the lunar surface in July 1969. But the story of how the Moon and its tides affect national security is deeper and wider than most of us realize. David Priess explored this intersection with science journalist Rebecca Boyle, author of the new book Our Moon, about her path to writing about astronomy, Anaxagoras, Julius Caesar, lunar versus solar calendars, the Battle of Tarawa in 1943, the genesis of NOAA, tides and...
President Biden’s Foreign Policy with Alex Ward
February 22, 2024 08:00 - 1 hour - 74.9 MBJoe Biden took office with a big ambition: To repair America’s reputation abroad and set the country on a new path, where foreign policy would be crafted with the middle class in mind. So writes journalist Alexander Ward, whose new book, The Internationalists: The Fight to Restore American Foreign Policy After Trump, chronicles Biden’s first two years in the White House. The central players in Ward’s cast as the president’s senior advisers, chief among them National Security Adviser Jake S...
Life and Death in Ukraine with Journalist Christopher Miller
February 15, 2024 08:00 - 47 minutes - 43.9 MBIn February 2022, Russia launched a full scale invasion into Ukraine in the largest attack on a European country since World War II. This invasion did not start a new war, but escalated the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War that started in 2014 when Russian forces captured Crimea and invaded the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. In his book, “The War Came to Us: Life and Death in Ukraine,” author and journalist Christopher Miller tells the story of the past fourteen years in Ukraine through his person...
The Global Citizenship Industry with Kristin Surak
February 08, 2024 08:00 - 1 hour - 67.9 MBSome people call it "investor citizenship" while others label it a "passport for sale" scheme. Either way, the last few decades have seen the global citizenship industry grow and evolve in ways that both reflect and impact issues around national sovereignty, tax regimes, international business, and global inequities. David Priess chatted about these and related issues with political sociologist and author Kristin Surak, whose recent book The Golden Passport takes a multidisciplinary look at...
The Long History of US Foreign Disaster Aid, with Julia Irwin
February 01, 2024 08:00 - 1 hour - 71.2 MBAmerican aid to global victims of natural disasters might seem like a relatively new phenomenon, perhaps linked to the Marshall Plan and other major programs in the past several decades. But US efforts to assist those suffering from earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, major flooding, and other such catastrophes actually goes back to the James Madison administration, followed by a burst of intense activity and the birth of the modern US approach at the very start of the 1900s. David P...
"A City on Mars," with Dr. Kelly and Zach Weinersmith
January 25, 2024 08:00 - 1 hour - 75.4 MBOuter space is back in style. For the first time in decades, NASA is sending astronauts back to the moon. Millionaires are exiting the atmosphere on a regular basis. And Elon Musk says humans may land on Mars to set up settlements by 2030. But would mastering space be worth it? In their new book, “A City on Mars,” co-authors (and spouses) Dr. Kelly and Zach Weinersmith argue that it’s probably not. From biology to engineering to international law, they charmingly survey the many charms and ...
Nuclear Launch Authority in Myth and Reality, with Hans Kristensen
January 18, 2024 08:00 - 55 minutes - 50.9 MBLloyd Austin's hospitalization and delayed communication about it have spurred much commentary and questions about the role of the secretary of defense in the US nuclear-strike chain of command. David Priess spoke with Hans Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, about his path to expertise on nuclear issues, the chain of command for nuclear strike authorization (and recent comments from elected representatives that misunderstand it)...
“The Day After” and Dad with A. B. Stoddard
January 11, 2024 08:00 - 51 minutes - 119 MBBrandon Stoddard was one of the most accomplished executives in broadcast television history. In his career at ABC, he helped bring to the small screen such legendary mini-series as “Roots” and “The Winds of War,” as well as the acclaimed television series “Moonlighting” and “Roseanne.” But arguably his most consequential and controversial decision was to air the made-for-TV movie “The Day After,” which graphically depicted the effects of a nuclear war between the United States and the Sovie...
Lessons from the Decade of Mass Protests, with Vincent Bevins
January 04, 2024 08:00 - 1 hour - 67.1 MBFrom the protests in Brazil initially focused on bus fares to the protests in Hong Kong seeking to stop an extradition bill to the protests across the Middle East now collectively referred to as the "Arab Spring," the political and economic mass demonstrations from 2010 to 2020 made it a decade of public protest like no other. Yet the vast majority of these efforts failed to bring about their desired changes--and many of them actually led to the opposite of what they wanted. Vincent Bevins, ...
Chatter Archive: Spy Movies with John Sipher
December 28, 2023 08:00 - 1 hour - 94.5 MBThis week, we're taking time off for the holidays, so we reached into the Chatter archives for one of our favorites. In this episode from January 13, 2022, Shane Harris and David Priess teamed up to talk with John Sipher, a former senior intelligence officer who has gone Hollywood. With his partners at Spycraft Entertainment, John is bringing compelling and, yes, accurate stories about espionage to the screen. Before working in the entertainment industry, he spent 28 years in the CIA, where...
Secrecy and Transparency in Early America, with Katlyn Carter
December 21, 2023 08:00 - 58 minutes - 1.26 GBModern representative democracy was born in darkness. Transparency in representative bodies can spur unintended consequences for freedom, while secrecy in those bodies can lead to optimal outcomes for the public. These are uncomfortable truths that emerge from the history of the US and French revolutionary experiences. Many of our governance challenges today, from malign misinformation to persistent leaks to skepticism toward authority, derive in part from the fact that fundamental issues a...
The Ghost Army of World War II with Journalist Rick Beyer
December 14, 2023 08:00 - 1 hour - 61.8 MBIn the summer of 1944, a group of artists, visual designers and sound engineers--all of them GIs--began a series of secret operations in occupied France. Their mission: to deceive German forces about the location and size of U.S. military units, using a combination of inflatable vehicles, sound recordings, and “actors” posing as officers. The ranks of the “Ghost Army” included future stars of the worlds of art and design, including Ellsworth Kelly, Bill Blass, Arthur Singer, Victor Dowd, A...
World War I and Intelligence in American Memory, with Mark Stout
December 07, 2023 08:00 - 1 hour - 79.7 MBWorld War I was a seminal event for American national security and foreign policy, as the United States deployed nearly two million soldiers and sailors to Europe and engaged in the most intense overseas combat in its history up to that point. Yet the development of modern American intelligence just before and during the war, and even the magnitude of the war itself, have been largely forgotten by the US public. David Priess spoke with historian and former intelligence officer Mark Stout, a...
Coups and Counterintelligence with Peter Strzok
November 30, 2023 13:24 - 1 hour - 108 MBPeter Strzok is a former United States Federal Bureau of Investigation agent. He was the Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division and led the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. He speaks with Ben Wittes about the numerous places he has called home and a career spent in counterintelligence. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The JFK Assassination and Conspiracy Culture, with Gerald Posner
November 22, 2023 09:00 - 1 hour - 90.7 MBSixty years ago today in Dallas, Texas, Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John Kennedy. For almost as long, various (often contradictory) conspiracy theories about that day have been circulating. Gerald Posner used overwhelming evidence and logic to dismantle these theories in his classic book Case Closed, first published in 1993 and re-issued with updates in the three decades since then. David Priess spoke with Gerald about why some anniversaries of major events resonate more tha...
The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop with Martine Powers
November 16, 2023 08:00 - 1 hour - 58.9 MBIn October 1983, Maurice Bishop, the revolutionary leader and prime minister of Grenada, was executed alongside seven others amid a power struggle in the island nation. Ever since, a mystery has persisted: What happened to their bodies? The whereabouts of Bishop’s remains is unknown, and for the past two years, Washington Post journalists have been trying to find them. Martine Powers hosts the new Post investigative podcast, “The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop.” She’s been fascinated by Bis...
An American Fight Against Fascism with Rachel Maddow
November 09, 2023 10:00 - 1 hour - 64.4 MBWhen she's not hosting The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow has been diving deep into the history of fascism in America. First on her podcast, Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra, and most recently in her new book, Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism, she has unearthed the stories for popular audiences both of an earlier era of foreign authoritarian influence in American politics and of those who fought against it. In this conversation, Maddow sat down with Lawfare Editor in Chi...
The British Empire's Territorial Peak, 100 Years Later, with Matthew Parker
November 02, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 61.5 MBThe British Empire was already buckling under its own internal tensions in the 1920s. One hundred years later, historian and author Matthew Parker uses stories from across the globe to fill his new book One Fine Day, centered on the territorial peak of the empire on September 29, 1923. It reveals much about the limits of empire, the effects of liberation movements on colonized peoples around the world, and the dynamics of strategic transition. David Priess and Matthew chatted about his glob...
Lincoln, Leadership, and Difficult Conversations with Steve Inskeep
October 26, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 61.1 MBMany will recognize the voice of Steve Inskeep from his nearly two decades-long role hosting NPR's Morning Edition. But he's also the author of what is now a trilogy of books about political relationships in the United States during the 19th century, including his newly published Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America. His newest book uses a unique framework to study Lincoln's leadership and growth: Describing in detail difficult interactions Lincoln had with sixteen indi...
The Secret History of Women at the CIA with Liza Mundy
October 19, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 79.3 MBJournalist Liza Mundy’s new history of the world’s most storied spy service focuses on the women of the CIA, who for decades worked in jobs that men found less glamorous or career enhancing, and that proved vital to the interests of U.S. national security. The Sisterhood covers practically the entire history of the agency, from its pre-World War II days as the Office of Strategic Services, through the Cold War and the 9/11 attacks, followed by the successful hunt for Osama bin Laden. Shane...
Manic Depression and Crisis Leadership with Nassir Ghaemi
October 12, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 74.7 MBConventional wisdom has long held that countries, and even businesses, should not be run by those suffering from mental illness, especially during times of war or other dramatic challenges. Dr. Nassir Ghaemi, Director of the Mood Disorder Program at Tufts Medical Center and Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine, disputes this notion. In his book A First-Rate Madness and other writings, he lays out a compelling case that in times of crisis, we are actually better off ...
Pluralism and Religion within Democratic Institutions with Jonathan Rauch
October 05, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 60.5 MBThis week on Chatter, Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Ben Wittes sat down with author and journalist Jonathan Rauch, of the Brookings Institution. In a wide-ranging conversation, they spoke about Jonathan's numerous books, his start in journalism, and his focus on liberalism, Madisonian Pluralism, and religion within democratic institutions. Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featurin...
Governing Space Settlements Ethically with Erika Nesvold
September 28, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 83.4 MBAs humanity builds settlements beyond Earth, myriad ethical issues will arise--many in a different way than they do terrestrially. Astrophysicist and space communicator Erika Nesvold has devoted extensive thought and research to how to ethically govern space settlements, most notably on her podcast Making New Worlds and in her book Off-Earth. In a conversation that pairs well with Shane Harris's March 2022 Chatter discussion with astrobiologist Lucianne Walkowicz about ethical space explora...
Secret Intelligence and the British Royal Family with Rory Cormac
September 21, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 69.1 MBThe British royal family and UK intelligence operations have been linked since Queen Victoria's time, involving everything from personal protection to matters of international intrigue to concerns about blackmail. Professor and author Rory Cormac, who has conducted extensive research on the British intelligence services, has recently added to his corpus of writings in the field with a book about the modern royal-intelligence intersection: Crown, Cloak, and Dagger, co-authored with Richard Al...
Covering Unidentified Aerial Phenomena with Shane Harris
September 14, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 71.6 MBChatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
A Spy in the Manhattan Project with Steve James
September 07, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 65.5 MBWhen he was 18 years old, Ted Hall, then a Harvard undergraduate, was recruited to join the Manhattan Project, becoming the youngest physicist on the U.S. team racing to build an atomic bomb before the Nazis. When it became clear that Germany would lose the war, Hall feared that the Americans might maintain a monopoly over nuclear weapons, an imbalance he thought could lead to global tyranny. So he decided to share secret designs with the Soviet Union, which was then an ally of the United St...
Geopolitics and the Rise of the English Language with Rosemary Salomone
August 31, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 73.4 MBThe English language has recently developed a historically unique dominance in the global marketplace--a situation that brings plenty of benefits and just as many downsides. Rosemary Salomone, Kenneth Wang Professor of Law at St. John's University, has researched and analyzed various perspectives on English's supremacy in her recent book The Rise of English, which has a paperback version with a new preface coming early in 2024. David Priess spoke with Rosemary about her background in lingui...
The ERAS Tour (Ben’s Version) with Benjamin Wittes
August 24, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 70.8 MBOn April 13, 2022, in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes conducted his first “special military operation” at the Russian embassy in Washington, DC. Now, Wittes is conducting these protests abroad on what he calls the ERAS (Eradicating Russian Ambassadorial Sleep) Tour. In his conversation with Katherine Pompilio, one of Lawfare’s associate editors and this week’s Chatter guest host, Wittes talks about his most successful special military oper...
Russian Spies in Reality and Fiction with Calder Walton
August 17, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 88.3 MBDr. Calder Walton, assistant director of the Applied History Project and Intelligence Project at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, has become one of the world's most highly respected intelligence historians. His most recent book, Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West, describes the long history of Russian spying--placing it into the wider context of the hundred-year espionage war between the East and West. And this gives him a remarkab...
Covering the Justice Department During and After Trump, with Katie Benner
August 10, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 62.1 MBKatie Benner is a features writer for the New York Times, who covered the Justice Department for a number of years beginning in 2017. In a wide-ranging conversation, she sat down with Lawfare editor-in-chief to talk about the challenges of walking into the Justice Department beat during the Trump administration and covering the post-election uprising within the department. She also gave a textured assessment of the department’s criminal investigation of Trump and other Jan. 6 defendants. And...
The Story of Reality Winner with Tina Satter
August 03, 2023 07:00 - 56 minutes - 52 MBIn June 2017, FBI agents arrived at the home of Reality Winner, a translator working for the NSA, to question her about an unauthorized leak of classified information concerning Russian interference in U.S. elections. Six years later, Tina Satter’s new film, “Reality,” tells the story of that fateful day, which led to Winner’s imprisonment. Satter’s screenplay relies almost entirely on a verbatim transcript of Winner’s conversations with the FBI agents. The dialogue is by turns quotidian a...
Science Fiction and International Relations with Stephen Dyson
July 27, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 89.7 MBCreators of science fiction movies and television shows often build worlds with at least some attention to governance systems and international (or interplanetary) political interactions. Sometimes, they develop central plot points out of national security matters, even if they play out in entirely different galaxies or dimensions. So it's not surprising that political scientist and author Stephen Dyson has spent years looking closely at how the genre influences--and, in turn, is influenced ...
National Security Insights from Board Games with Volko Ruhnke
July 20, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 81.9 MBGaming might seem far removed from national security, but Volko Ruhnke's experience proves otherwise. During his career as an intelligence analyst and manager, he designed and published many commercially successful historical board games that, in turn, informed his work. Additionally, he applied his skills in gaming to training intelligence officers. David Priess hosted Volko for a deep dive about board games that included discussion of various game types, the value of in-person vs. virtual...
Renaming Military Bases and Principled Conservatism with Kori Schake
July 13, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 57.4 MBKori Schake is the Director of Foreign and Defense Policy at the American Enterprise Institute. She has also worked in policy positions at the State Department, the Defense Department and the White House, taught at West Point, and more recently, served on the commission tasked with renaming military bases named for confederate figures. She sat down with Lawfare's editor in chief Ben Wittes, to talk about her unusually diverse career in national security, her work at AEI in a period when princ...
Hockey, Global Politics, and Freedom with Ethan Scheiner
July 06, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 80.8 MBPolitical scientist Ethan Scheiner appeared on Chatter in early 2022, right before the Olympics in Beijing, to talk about the fascinating intersection of politics, security, and Olympic events. This week, he returns to talk about the compelling connections between hockey and international relations--with a special focus on Czechoslovakia before, during, and after the Cold War. His new book, Freedom To Win, uses the stories of a range of larger-than-life characters across several decades to d...
Hacker Movies with Scott Shapiro
June 29, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 65.6 MBThis week, Shane sits down with law professor and hacker historian Scott Shapiro to rant, and rave, about hacker movies. From War Games to the Die Hard franchise to TV’s “Mr. Robot,” Hollywood has portrayed hackers as heroes and villains. Sometimes filmmakers get the art and culture of hacking right. Sometimes they get basic technology very wrong. But the results are almost always entertaining. Scott is a professor at Yale Law School and the author of the new book Fancy Bear Goes Phishing:...
Covering the January 6th Trials with Roger Parloff
June 22, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 56.7 MBSince joining Lawfare in November 2021, Roger Parloff has been a constant presence at the January 6th trials. Now based in Washington, D.C, he had, earlier in his career, served as a staff writer for Fortune and American Lawyer Magazine, and has been published in The New York Times, Yahoo Finance, ProPublica, New York, NewYorker.com, and Air Mail News. As a senior editor at Lawfare, he's focused on January 6 related matters, including covering the more than 1,000 federal criminal cases that ...
Water, Security, and Conflict with Peter Gleick
June 15, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 70.6 MBWater, essential to the emergence and endurance of life on Earth, has both spurred technological advances and driven many types of conflict. For the first time in humanity's long history with water, we are starting to suffer the consequences of widespread unsustainable water use, and we soon will face a crucial collective choice about what future generations' interactions with water will look like. Hydroclimatologist Peter Gleick has studied the issues at the intersection of water, climate ...
Genealogy and Intelligence Analysis with Lisa Maddox
June 08, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 71.9 MBShane and David have hosted many former intelligence officers, mostly of the American variety, during more than 80 episodes so far on Chatter. But, until this week, you haven't heard us speak with one who has turned her intelligence experience into a career as a professional genealogist. Lisa Maddox of Family History Investigations has carved out that unique path, and her story reveals much about the nature and wider applicability of analytic skills. David Priess talked to Lisa about her en...
Information Ecology with Alicia Wanless
June 01, 2023 07:00 - 55 minutes - 50.4 MBAlicia Wanless is one of the pioneers of the idea of information ecology, the notion that we should think about information and disinformation as part of a complex ecosystem, the management of which she analogizes to environmental policy. Wanless has been complaining for several years that the war on “disinformation” skates over important question: What are the collateral effects of anti-disinformation policies? How do interventions against information pollution operate in the real world? ...
Popular Presidential Communication with Anne Pluta
May 28, 2023 09:00 - 1 hour - 65.5 MBFrom the birth of the republic, American presidents have communicated with the public in one form or another. The frequency and exact nature of such efforts have varied quite a bit over time due to variables ranging from the extent of partisanship in the media to each commander in chief's personal preference to travel technology. Political scientist Anne Pluta has explored this history deeply, including extensive analysis of contemporary newspaper accounts back to the late 18th century. And ...
‘Special Military Operations’ Against the Russians with Benjamin Wittes
May 18, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 73.7 MBOn April 13, 2022, in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes conducted his first “special military operation” at the Russian embassy in Washington, DC. It involved 14 theater stage lights that Wittes and other activists used to project images of the Ukrainian flag onto embassy walls. Since then, Wittes’s special military operations have garnered increased attention and become more complex—technically and diplomatically. In his conversation with...
Politicians and White House Plumbers with Olivia Nuzzi
May 14, 2023 09:00 - 1 hour - 60 MBOlivia Nuzzi gets Washington in a way many journalists don’t. As the Washington correspondent for New York magazine, she has written perceptive, piercing, and enduring portraits of Donald Trump and the bizarre characters in his orbit. Now she’s turning her reporter’s eye to history, hosting a companion podcast to HBO's “White House Plumbers,” a five-part series that imagines the Watergate scandal through the lives of two notorious Nixon operatives, E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy. Oliv...
Private Equity and National Security with Brendan Ballou
May 04, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 61.7 MBPrivate equity firms rank among the largest employers in the United States and invest many billions of dollars in a wide variety of industries. Yet the public understanding of how private equity works and its impact on myriad areas of American life, including national security, remains limited. Brendan Ballou is trying to change that. A federal prosecutor who works in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, he has written a new book, Plunder: Private Equity's Plan To Pillage Am...