The “Leftover Chicken Kyiv” Edition

Summary

Rational Security – The “Leftover Chicken Kyiv” Edition

Date: February 26, 2025
Hosts: Scott R. Anderson, Benjamin Wittes, Anastasia Lapatina, Natalie Orpet

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Overview

This episode of Rational Security marks a rare occasion: the Lawfare team records entirely in-person for the first time in years. Amid nostalgic jokes about their soon-to-be-decommissioned shag-carpeted studio, the hosts plunge into an urgent and deeply consequential discussion of recent developments in U.S. foreign policy, particularly in relation to Ukraine and Guantanamo Bay. They're reacting in real time to breaking news, offering a blend of analysis, personal perspective, and clear distaste for some recent U.S. actions that, as the conversation makes clear, may come to define America's global image for years to come.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. “Chicken Kyiv Served Cold” – The Trump Administration’s Ukraine “Peace” Deal

(Begins ~06:00)

Breaking News on the Ukraine-U.S. Minerals Agreement

• The U.S. and Ukraine have reportedly reached a minerals agreement, dropping a previous demand that Ukraine match $500 billion in resource value.
• Under the deal, about half of Ukrainian mineral proceeds go into a special account which the U.S. will have some interest in, but security guarantees and NATO membership are absent.
• The deal sidesteps existing Ukrainian extraction companies, heralding U.S. companies’ involvement.

Key Insight:

• This move is seen not as a security arrangement but a starkly transactional economic deal, with strong echoes of 19th-century U.S. banana republic interventions.

Analysis – Ukrainian Perspective

• Anastasia Lapatina: “Ukraine didn’t have a choice here... the best we can hope for is that our diplomats are going to finesse some sort of less than terrible ARR and that's gonna be it... I don't think anyone seriously considered us fully, like flat on rejecting to sign it. And then what?” (08:06)

  • Lapatina notes widespread anger and shock in Ukraine—even among those who never held out hope for Trump’s support, the magnitude of the “absurdity” (misinformation, personal attacks on Zelenskyy, unmoored policy demands) surpasses expectations.

• Quote: “Trump is already spreading all sorts of lies about Ukraine, about Zelenskyy, clearly attacking Zelenskyy personally. So this isn’t... a political diplomatic disagreement. This is, I feel like, Trump’s personal feelings about the matter.” (08:21)

U.S. Domestic Reaction

• Scott R. Anderson: Recognizes the deep distaste for the deal among Americans as well, but notes the “psychological hurdle” for Ukraine is Trump’s persistent assertion that “this is just nothing we have an interest in” (14:14).
• Suggests that a deal this large and "gross" could paradoxically make Ukraine more secure in the short term by engaging U.S. interests when nothing else can—an “incredibly bitter and unfortunate pill.”

Historical Context & Moral Outrage

• Benjamin Wittes: “The United States took a country that is fighting for its continued existence... and then used that pressure to extort a mineral deal... I cannot think of a time that US Foreign policy has been oriented this way unless you go back to the era of the banana republics in Latin America.” (18:46)
  • Wittes draws explicit parallels to exploitative practices of old, emphasizing the lack of dignity or moral responsibility in this approach.
• Quote: “I actually think I want to end the sentence with this is disgusting.” (18:46)

The New Precedent — A Caution for Allies

• Natalie Orpet: “This whole thing was actually supposed to be about security guarantees... and that's just completely absent from this deal.” (22:20)
  • Raises concern over the shifting goalposts and the normalization of fracture between rhetoric and policy under Trump, warning of damage to U.S. alliances and global credibility.

2. “Eurovision” – Will Europe Step Up?

(Begins ~31:14, continues through ~46:00)

Europe Ponders Strategic Independence

• Newly elected German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has called for greater independence from the U.S., as transatlantic trust plummets under Trump.
• There’s talk (from Macron and others) of Europe possibly deploying troops to Ukraine and offering mineral deals of their own as leverage.

Key Quotes & Analysis

• Benjamin Wittes: “The delta between sincere European rhetoric about what Europe is going to do and European action is often very substantial. And right now, money talks, Mirage jets talk. I want to see French weapons. That’s what I want to see.” (30:50)

  • Skeptical of Europe’s capacity or will to meaningfully fill the American void in Ukraine, especially as timelines for ramping up defense industries stretch years into the future.

• Quinta Jurecic (paraphrased by Natalie Orpet): Macron is positioning France diplomatically for a future where Europe—out of necessity—steps up, but right now this is mostly posturing, not firepower.

Eastern European Perspective

• Lapatina: Ukrainians are intensely frustrated with both the Trump administration’s abandonment and Europe’s historical inability to “figure itself out.” Europeans have long talked a big game, but “keep talking this big game, as Ben said, you keep all this noise, but then you’ve been at it for several years and also, like, years before that… So, yeah, I mean, there is still a realization that ultimately NATO is what we want... But I don't think there is big hopes for Europe to step up and really figure itself out, unfortunately.” (37:01)

Value of Article 5 Now in Question?

• Anderson: “Europeans who have Article 5, it is at its absolute nadir in terms of value to them.” (39:11)
  • The credibility of the U.S. as a security guarantor is at rock bottom, with NATO allies now openly worried that “we’re not there for you.”

3. “Baywatch in Reruns” – Guantanamo Bay and the Return of Military Detention for Migrants

(Begins ~48:16, through ~75:00)

Massive Expansion of Migrant Detention at Guantanamo

• Trump’s executive order expands Guantanamo’s migrant operations facility to 30,000 beds, up from just 37 occupants—most recently held at a time—raising logistical and humanitarian concerns.
• Recent deported Venezuelans were not violent criminals as claimed; reports of isolation, suicide attempts, and lack of legal access have emerged.
• Detainees cycled through both the migrant facility (run by ICE) and Camp 6 (military), blurring lines of legal authority and rights.

Legal & Ethical Quagmires

• Natalie Orpet: “It’s really like a law school issue spotting exam…” (52:39)

  • Raises alarm about possible violations of Posse Comitatus (military involvement in law enforcement), lack of lawful basis for ICE to detain non-citizens outside the U.S., and the lack of access to counsel or any oversight.

  “One of the things that's really alarming here is that some of the detainees were held at the migrant operations center... Some of them were detained at Camp 6, which is part of the detention facilities for the Law of War detainees... This is sort of the extreme example of what is a broader issue, which is the military potentially seemingly being responsible for detaining migrants on a military base.” (52:39)

• Benjamin Wittes: While previously defending Guantanamo’s use for law of war detention, finds these current actions appalling:

  “If you're doing this to thump on your chests, because Guantanamo is where we take the bad hombres... because [the name] excites the Fox News crowd... that's disgusting.” (60:58)

Policy and Political Backfire?

• Anderson: Wonders if this policy will quickly become a huge bungle for Trump—a move rooted in optics and cruelty, likely to bring legal headaches and negative attention.

  “Americans were offended and horrified by Abu Ghraib. Right? It is still a mark on our national psychology... I'm not sure the same logic holds for migrants.” (72:37)

• Orpet: Suggests Guantanamo is a "test-case" for deeper military involvement in immigration enforcement—potentially laying the groundwork for even more dramatic illegal actions.

  “Guantanamo is sort of a test case or a bellwether for the use of the military in immigration enforcement matters.” (75:39)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Wittes (on Trump’s Ukraine policy): “He’s not playing three-dimensional chess. He just frickin’ hates you.” (24:20)

• Anderson: “We just became a country whose foreign policy is a giant extortion racket.” (26:18)

• Lapatina (on economic ‘silver lining’): “If Trump is gonna want this deal signed... it's gonna take years and years and years and billions of American investment to make it happen... all of that is jobs, all of that is money into the economy.” (16:57)

• Wittes (on European dreams of defense): “I want it to happen, you know, Slava la France, Slava Alemanna, you know, like, bring it on, guys. But you can't do it without money.” (32:30)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 06:10 – Introduction to Ukraine minerals agreement and the shape of the U.S. “peace” offer
• 08:06 – 18:29 – Ukrainian reaction, illusions shattered, resistance to Trump’s characterization of the war
• 18:46 – 26:35 – Historical analogies, moral outrage, the U.S. as extortionist; implications for other allies (e.g., Taiwan)
• 31:14 – 46:00 – Can Europe fill the gap? Macron’s diplomatic maneuvers, strategic autonomy, limits of European capacity
• 48:16 – 52:39 – Expansion of Guantanamo as a migrant detention site; legal and ethical analysis
• 52:39 – 69:19 – Deep dive into jurisdictional, legal, and moral problems around Guantanamo’s use for migrants
• 69:27 – 75:39 – Will this policy self-destruct? Legal activism, optics, historical patterns, and worries about future escalation

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Object Lessons & Closing Reflections

(75:55 – End)

• Natalie Orpet: Describes the successful “Baby Summit” at her house—a lighthearted, diplomatic gathering of children under two, a brief respite from grim headlines.
• Anastasia Lapatina: Announces the launch of the Lawfare/Goat Rodeo podcast “Escalation”, a narrative on U.S.-Ukraine relations. (77:03)
• Benjamin Wittes: Reflects on the relative lack of Ukrainian political mobilization in the U.S., contrasting a recent Ukrainian rally (~thousands) with a pro-Israeli demonstration (~300,000), citing lessons for effective political organization. (80:33)
• Scott R. Anderson: Recommends Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunrise / Before Sunset / Before Midnight” trilogy, muses on generational experiences.

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Conclusion

The “Leftover Chicken Kyiv” episode offers a bracing, sometimes bleak tour through the current state of U.S. foreign policy and its reverberations for Ukraine, Europe, and the U.S.'s own self-image. The tone is darkly humorous, self-aware, and unflinching—blending first-hand Ukrainian perspective with legal nitty-gritty, policy analysis, and historical memory. The hosts’ consensus is clear: the U.S. is entering a period defined by short-term, transactional “wins”—but at the risk of its credibility, alliances, and reputation.

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Transcript

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[Anastasia Lapatina]

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[Scott R. Anderson]

Guys, this is like a momentous occasion. I don't know if we've actually done this. A 100% live in person podcast recording since before the pandemic maybe.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

Oh, wow.

[Benjamin Wittes]

I mean, because, you know, usually Alan's in Minnesota and sometimes you and Quinta are in your apartments, houses, your bat caves. And this time and. And now we have Nastya in Washington. Usually it's just Natalie and me in.

[Natalie Orpet]

The office holding down Lawfare hq.

[Scott R. Anderson]

There you go. Well, I mean, I will say we are thinking we are planning on decommissioning our in person studio because we don't use it that much, but it is nice to give it a proper setting off. I feel like we should crash a bottle of champagne over it or something. I guess you do that when you start a ship. What do you do when you sink a ship?

[Benjamin Wittes]

You scuttle a ship.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Just blow it up. Maybe that's what we should do.

[Benjamin Wittes]

That would be the Vegas solution, right?

[Scott R. Anderson]

Yeah. Yeah, maybe that's our plan. Let's turn into coral reefs.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Somewhere with shag carpet.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Exactly. In our case, a lot of shag carpet on the walls. Peculiarly, it is strange. People I think would think this looks like less of a weird environment, but it's gotta be one of the weirdest looking environments. Now, Ste, this is your first physical time in here.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

No, it's actually not.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Oh, it's not.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

I've been here like years ago. I was doing something in D.C. and I.

[Benjamin Wittes]

What were you, like 17 or something?

[Anastasia Lapatina]

I thought you were about to say seven. Pretty much. Either of those is yes, how old I was and I had to do some sort of. Some sort of interview. I don't remember. But anyway, Ben let me use it.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Oh, there you go. Okay. So you're familiar with the foam padding and shag carpeting on the walls.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

I forgot how interesting it is.

[Benjamin Wittes]

It's very 1978. It's like an feel all like my childhood.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

That explains a lot to me because I know what things were like in 1978.

[Scott R. Anderson]

It's like an M.C. escher drawing of a bachelor's apartment from partially populated shade carpeting. But just at 90 degrees off center, you know.

[Natalie Orpet]

So this was your decorations?

[Scott R. Anderson]

Something like that. My decorations? Perhaps not. This is more of a. This is more of a. This is a very professional podcaster studio vibe. I do like this black one. It's very soft. So. But maybe, maybe I'll take them and put them on my floors. Maybe this is the. This is the next plan when I get my man cave in my garage. I've been agitating for.

[Natalie Orpet]

Good luck with that.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Rational Security. I am your host, Scott R. Andersen. Thrilled to be back with you on the podcast. We invite you to join members of the Lawfare team as we try to make sense of the week's biggest national security news stories. I am thrilled to be joined by several members of our Lawfare crew here in person, live in a studio. Meaning we are all going to be sweating bullets in about 15 minutes. It's going to get agitated. People are going to get heated, literally, physically, emotionally. So get rid for it. As we live through this and remember why we switched to remote recordings so long ago. Not just the pandemic folks, but still excited to be here, of course, with a first to start out with Rational Security co Host emeritus and Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Yo.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Thrilled to be joined as well by Ukraine fellow Anastasia Lapatina.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

You remembered my title.

[Scott R. Anderson]

I got it. I got it down.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

Thank you. Yes.

[Scott R. Anderson]

I wrote it down in my little script to make sure I got it back. Wonderful. And of course, we have Lawfare Executive editor Natalie Orpet. Natalie, thank you for coming back on the podcast.

[Natalie Orpet]

Thank you for having me.

[Scott R. Anderson]

And we have a lot to talk about. We have breaking news happening on one of our topics, literally as we speak. We delayed recording by 10 minutes. We could desperately read the news to try and figure out what is happening. So we are, I will note now at the top of the episode we are recording around 2pm on Tuesday, February 25. Things may change dramatically between now and when you actually listen to this, so bear that in mind before you start blue skying at us agitatedly over some of our comments on this particular episode. Without further ado, let us get into our first set of three topics. Topic 1 Chicken Kiev served cold. The Trump administration's vision for a peace settlement in Ukraine is coming into focus, and it's not the one many Ukrainians and Europeans were hoping for. In negotiations that have largely excluded Ukrainian European partners. And amidst a barrage of hostile attacks on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's democratic legitimacy, among other things, The Trump administration appears to be insisting on some U.S. stake in Ukraine's rare earth minerals, while remaining unwilling to support Ukraine's NATO membership and resistant to providing hard security guarantees in respons? Are the contours of such a deal something Ukraine can agree to, something that's in line with its interests? And will it advance the United States national interests any better? Topic 2 Eurovision in some of his first comments since emerging from elections as Germany's new chancellor, Friedrich Merz called for European independence from the United States in light of the Trump administration's increasing neglect and even hostility to its long standing transatlantic partnerships. And Ukraine may be the first front for this new policy orientation, as European officials have suggested an increased willingness to deploy ground troops to Ukraine, increase their own assistance levels, and even make an alternate offer for access to Ukraine's rare earth minerals. How much potential is there for a truly independent European foreign policy and what will it mean for US national interests? And topic 3 Baywatch in reruns as part of its aggressive campaign against undocumented migrants, the Trump administration has expanded its use of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay for what it claims to be the worst of the worst undocumented migrants involved in violent crimes. But recent reporting has cast serious doubt on whether everyone who has been detained at Guantanamo meets this qualification, while others have raised questions about the conditions in which detainees are being held and the legal basis for the involvement of military personnel there. What is the Trump administration really trying to accomplish here? And is Guantanamo Bay once again becoming a black mark on American rule of law?

[Natalie Orpet]

Yes.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Well, there we go. We're still going to talk about it. We're still going to go a little more at length on that one. So for our first topic, it's worth noting this is a topic we are getting breaking news on. As we spoke, as we were sitting down, working through some technical issues, getting ready to record, we got reports that Ukraine and the United States have actually reached an agreement on minerals. So far, the reporting we're seeing indicates that the United States has dropped what was a prior condition of this deal, which is that the amount contributed by Ukraine eventually has to equal $500 billion, about three times the amount of assistance the United States has provided Ukraine to date. A little more than that.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

Even more. Yeah.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Truly astronomical sum. Instead, though, there is some agreement where about half of Ukrainian proceeds from the extraction of minerals is going to go into some sort of account. The United States is going to have some sort of undetermined interest in that account. That's going to be worked out in follow on agreements. And that account is going to be used to reinvest in Ukrainian development of different types, particularly resource extraction, but not through the main two Ukrainian existing oil and mineral companies, but instead through some sort of new apparatus, or maybe there are other companies they can work through, or maybe they will be US Companies involved in this role. A lot of big open question marks right now about this deal is notable also what it doesn't include, it doesn't include security guarantees, doesn't include NATO membership. It doesn't really appear to include anything on the defense side. This appears to be strictly a sort of resource extraction arrangement. So, Nastya, let me start with you on the front end on this. This is obviously, I think, a bitter pill to swallow.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

Absolutely.

[Scott R. Anderson]

I have no doubt for anyone involved on the Ukrainian side, particularly, although I don't think that many, I think a lot of Americans probably don't feel that great about it either, if I'm being honest. Talk to us about what you think it means if Zelenskyy and his government have signed this, how that's going to be received domestically in Ukraine and how they may or may not be able to sell it to the Ukrainian people as a legitimate step towards a peace settlement that they can actually live with.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

Well, I think, unfortunately, to be honest, Ukraine didn't have a choice here. And I think that that was the understanding in the past few weeks that the best we can hope for is that our diplomats are going to finesse some sort of less than terrible ARR and that's gonna be it. But I don't think anyone seriously considered us fully, like flat on rejecting to sign it. And then what? Like, even amidst these negotiations, the hostility is already so high. Trump is already spreading all sorts of lies about Ukraine, about Zelenskyy, clearly attacking Zelenskyy personally. So this isn't some sort of, you know, political diplomatic disagreement. This is, I feel like this is like Trump's personal feelings about the matter. And so with tensions that high, I don't really think we had what you said sounds a bit less than super terrible, I guess. And we still haven't seen the final agreement. This is still reporting by the Financial Times, like literally half an hour ago or something. So it's going to be very curious to see what's actually in the deal. But I saw reporting that one draft that was floated, including America taking revenues from Ukrainian ports and other infrastructure. So the agreement used to be, I think, a bit more absurd than its current form. But again, we'll see. We'll see what ultimately happens. If it's true that they dropped to the 500 billion number, I'm glad, because that's not a real number. Like, that number doesn't exist. The real number of the American aid to Ukraine is roughly 115 million. That's if you combine all humanitarian aid, USAID, direct budget support and military.

[Benjamin Wittes]

115 billion.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

Sorry. I'm sorry. Billion. Huge difference. 115 billion. So that's, you know, the numbers that Trump is spreading. 350 billion, 500 billion. None of that is real. So, yeah, I mean, it doesn't include security guarantees, because the American officials and people in Trump's orbit, they're trying to solve this as a sort of de facto guarantee. Right. They're trying to say that because we're going to have our interest in Ukraine, we're going to have American companies doing this, it's going to be in our interest to protect what's ours. To which Zelenskyy said, look, you've had American companies work in Russ and under Russian occupation, on territories under Russian occupation, like, several dozen of them. So I'm sorry, but we're not buying into it. Like, we're not buying that. And also, your president said a week ago that we don't care if this becomes Russian territory. So, sorry, but we're not buying that. We need the guarantee in writing. But again, the reporting suggested that American officials just wanted. They didn't want this to be one agreement. They were looking at this critical mineralsso called critical minerals deal as a purely economic arrangement, and they just didn't want to. To merge kind of the security and economic concern. So, yeah, I don't think there's going to be any significant pushback to Zelenskyy because the entire country is rallying around him right now because of all of these attacks by Trump. I'm pretty sure his approval ratings went up in the past several weeks because people, even those who criticize him, even politicians in opposition, like, literally Petro Poroshenko, one of the opposition figures, who Zelenskyy sanctioned kind of absurdly last week even he came out and was like, our party does not question Zelenskyy's legitimacy. This is our elected government, like, we're all unifying around him. So, you know, I don't think anyone is going to, like, criticize Zelenskyy for this or anything. I think everyone understands that we are really in an impossible situation even more than ever before. So, yeah.

[Natalie Orpet]

So, Nastya, not to interrogate you too much, but I was really curious about one thing. Which is that the starting point of these negotiations from the Trump administration were so insane, if I may use a technical, diplomatic term. The goalposts changed so much with this 500 billion number. And in Zelensky's victory plan, he had come up with this idea of minerals as what was widely understood to be a sort of incentive to a possible incoming Trump administration. So that didn't come out of nowhere. But still, the sort of opening bid from the United States was so dramatically different than it had been before January 20, when the Biden administration was in power. And you've talked previously about how in Ukraine, there was some hope that a Trump administration would be different and would ultimately be good for Ukraine. So I'm wondering how, after a month of this administration and after a week or so of this deal being floated, if you have any sense of how that is playing now in Ukraine, a.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

Lot of us are asking that question. A lot of people on social media are just like, okay, Trump optimists, where are you these days, guys? What are you doing? Also, the same about people who think that this war is a proxy American thing, that America is doing something proxy with Russia here. It's the same question, what are your sense now? But no, yeah, I mean, I think there's just such a shock in Ukraine right now, because even people. What I've heard is that even people who thought that it's gonna be bad when Trump comes, they didn't realize just how bad it's gonna get. So even people who weren't optimists, they're shocked because it's just such absurdity, Right? Like, it's just outright lying. I mean, questioning who invaded first kind of thing. Like, questioning who's to blame. Like, it's so bad that I think the prevailing two emotions right now are anger and shock. Because if you live in this reality for three years and you're completely and utterly sure that this is how it is, you see this in front of your eyes, this is the right side of history. And then you have the leader of the free world exist in a separate reality, as Zelenskyy, very eloquently put it, in a disinformation space created by Russia, then it's. There's just no words to really describe how we feel.

[Scott R. Anderson]

So I 100% agree with this. I think this is basically piracy and it's gross. I'm going to briefly launch what's going to sound like a defense of this, which it is not, but where I think it actually makes logic. If this is the world we're living in for Zelensky and others to agree with it. Setting aside the domestic sales point, which I think is a really hard one, and that's one only he can judge, and I'm not in a position to judge when you're dealing with the Trump administration. The biggest barrier Ukraine has is this idea that Trump very clearly has deeply embedded his brain, that this is just nothing we have an interest in. We have no interest in this whatsoever. And overcoming that psychological hurdle is the biggest barrier to sustained US Assistance. This could well do that. That's what I think the reason you see Waltz and other people, Rubio and other people who have traditionally been, for the last four years, fairly good on Ukraine backing this and making it actually a priority, saying this needs to be item number one because it's how we get Trump demands that is a really unfortunate thing for the United States to have to navigate around for Ukraine, certainly to have to navigate around. But I think it is probably the reality we're living in at this point. And then the question becomes, well, what are the terms that are better for Ukraine on this sort of deal? And here I kind of think, and we had a slack exchange about this earlier, I kind of think the bigger and grosser, the better, in a weird way, because what you're going to get is that in the short term, the next three or four years that Trump is in office, there's going to be limits to what you can actually do. To get any meaningful amount of money out of this, they will have to substantially boost Ukraine's production of mineral rights and whatever else they're getting income from, which will require US Assistance or US Companies coming in and providing upfront investment to do that, not to mention substantial peace to make that sustainable. That is going to be something that Ukraine may get substantially more money out of that under peace conditions, you will get a peace dividend. And then hopefully, three or four years down the road, you'll get a responsible American administration that is not going to hold people to this. And in the interim, in Trump's mind, it is a prize he won for $500 billion, whatever the amount is, and that becomes an amount that's too big for Russia to outbid him. We saw over the weekend Russia very directly try and outbid Ukraine by promising access to its own rare earth minerals and access to its own deals. Clearly, Russia understands the game that's being played here, and what appeals to Trump's mind and the fact that Russia did that over the weekend, I think, is actually an indicator that they're actually worried the strategy may have some grab on him. So I don't like this deal at all. I think it's extremely gross, and I think it's a gross place for American foreign policy to go. I'm not convinced this isn't actually in the political reality. We live in a step towards an outcome that's going to be better for Ukraine.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

So to go back to Natalie's question, this is actually what a lot of the optimists are saying. They're saying that, look, if Trump is gonna want this deal signed, which seems like it already happened, the reserves of critical minerals that we keep talking about, the vast majority of them are untapped and undiscovered. These are all guesses that maybe somewhere, you know, somewhere in Ukraine we have all of this stuff. So it's gonna take years and years and years and billions of American investment to make it happen. You'll then also need to build all the infrastructure around it. All of that is jobs, all of that is money into the economy. So that's how some people are interpret it. Don't collapse completely into this depression hole of okay, we're all screwed and this is the end. Think about it also from this side, that all of this truly can be a bunch of economic opportunities for Ukraine. So, yeah, some people are also. But those people, I think are just completely delusional who think that Trump is playing some incredible mind chess game with Putin, sucking up to Putin, so then something genius can happen. And I'm just like, no, sorry, guys, I've been listening to talk like that for half a year. At what point are you gonna just see the truth kind of thing? What has to happen? What does Trump has to say? And then there are also some people who are like, don't follow every word he says. None of it matters. What matters is the actions. But then again, at what point do you see that his words kind of reflect the actions and you just actually have to listen to what he says.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Yeah, all these conversations sound a lot like the United States in 2018 and 2019, where now everybody's come around to the view that, no, he actually does mean to do what he says. Just sometimes his communication isn't 100% spot on, but it's in the right direction.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

But the economic opportunity is a real point of discussion.

[Benjamin Wittes]

I want to focus on the word that Scott used at the beginning of your remarks, which is piracy. In Scott's very cautious defense of this and in Nastya's looking for the bright side. If there is a bright side. Of it. There's a skating over over a little bit of the nature of what just happened. And I do think we should pause over it, which is that the United States took a country that is fighting for its continued existence and supported the aggressor country in a UN vote, did a public diplomacy dance with Russia in, of all places, Saudi Arabia, and then used that pressure to extort a mineral deal on. We have not figured out yet how disfavorable terms to Ukraine. And I just think it is well and good and correct for Scott to say, this is disgusting, but it might work okay for Ukraine. And it is well and good for Nastya to say, yeah, this is disgusting, but here's how the possible silver linings. But I want to stick with this is disgusting point and say that I cannot think of a time that US Foreign policy has been oriented this way unless you go back to the era of the banana republics in Latin America. And that is like not a period of US Foreign policy that we, you know, that we don't say the United Fruit Company with, you know, admiration historically, nor should we, by the way. And that did not end well for any of the countries involved, some of which are still struggling partly, but not completely as a result of that period. And it did not end well for US Reputation in the region, which has never fully recovered from it. And it did not end well for anybody's economic benefit, except in the short term, the United Fruit Companies. And so I. I actually think I want to end the sentence with this is disgusting. If it has some positive benefits, I'll acknowledge them later. But for my purposes, I find it very painful and angering to see the United States behave this way. And I really want to call out a particular individual, which is Marco Rubio, who was, you know, until a couple weeks ago, was on the right side of all of these issues and now has, you know, sold his birthright for quite less than a mess of pottage, which is being the nominal Secretary of State, while the actual Secretary of State is a gentleman named Pete Maraca. And so good move, little Marco. You've done well for yourself.

[Natalie Orpet]

Yeah, I want to add one thing to that, which is sort of to circle back to what I was saying earlier, which is that the starting point of the rhetoric around this makes this deal put in a completely different context. And if you back up just a little bit, this whole thing was actually supposed to be about security guarantees, or at least security assurances, or at least security support for Ukraine. And that's just completely absent from this deal. And so it entirely makes sense to try to identify, as Scott was doing, the rationale behind why one would do this, to try to reach a settlement of some sort. And as Nastya was saying, how to look for among the optimists, what the silver lining might be. But it's just because the goalposts have changed so dramatically. And I think that that is, as it was domestically during the first Trump administration, as it continues to be domestically in this administration, an example of how Trump works. There's always a space between the rhetoric on Twitter or even in official briefings and then what the action is. There's not that much difference between it. As you were saying, Nastya, there's people need to learn to take him seriously and not just say, oh, he just says things. But maybe what he does seems a little bit reasonable based on the fact that it's at least a little different from what he said. But this is a repeating phenomenon and it's just changed the entire nature of what we're talking about in a way that I think deserves pause. And the other thing I want to say quickly is that I commend to all of you Ben's recent article about all of this, which is quite brutal to the United States about what it's done here in abandoning Ukraine, and in my estimation, completely fair. And I very much agree with it. So everyone should check it out on Lothair.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Thank you for that, Natalie. But just to clarify, I would love to praise the Trump administration on this. And as Nastya can tell you, every time we've talked about the Trump optimists, I have prefaced my disbelief that Ukrainians are taking this view with the strong desire to be wrong. But one thing Trump is very consistent about is that he hates Ukraine. And this goes back to 2016. You can find all kinds of daddy issue psychological explanations in his relationship with Putin. You might observe that Zelenskyy is a little Jew. You might observe that, that he needs somebody to blame for the 2016 election interference. And that works really well for Ukraine for some reason because some Republicans don't like Ukraine anyway. Who knows what the explanation is? But he's very consistent about it. And while he's a pathological liar, he's not capable of not being emotionally transparent. And if he says he hates you, he hates you. He hates you. He's not playing three dimensional chess. He just frickin hates you.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Yeah, I mean, that's part of the reason why I think this deal plays in into if you're dealing with Donald Trump. I'm not sure there's another way forward for Ukraine other than you just got to pay him off. Now, where I think this is bad. Well, I think this might actually be a incredibly bitter and unfortunate pill, but one that Ukraine has to swallow to maintain U.S. security assistance. I think it's really bad for the United States, which is astounding. That should maybe go without saying. This makes America look awful in front of the eyes of the world. It undermines all our foundational relationships. It puts in doubt a lot of our partnerships we've relied on for extremely long time. And when we look back on this, it is going to be a real mark of shame for America.

[Benjamin Wittes]

And when Taiwan comes to us and says, hey, we need help defending, are we going to demand they turn over Taiwan semiconductor? That's the probably. That's the analog here. We just became a country whose foreign policy is a giant extortion racket.

[Scott R. Anderson]

And we have to remember this actually feeds into the narrative that so many parts of the world plays against us that China in particular is very astute as using, which is that China says we extend economic partnerships generously, but they're partnerships, meaning we get proceeds. We don't put a lot of conditions on them. We're not trying to dictate your internal policies. You can be a dictatorship, you can be whatever you want. We want to do belt and road and build economic relationships. The United States comes in and establishes all these conditions. It's imperialism. It's tied up with Western identity and colonialism. Although I will say this is much more colonialism and imperialism. This is blatantly that what people call colonialism, imperialism for the last 25 years, 30 years, all of which are legitimate things to criticize. Man, this looks so much more like.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Colonialism than I thought.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

I mean, it does. It's just like, don't be mad at us. We build roads. We might have done some other things and killed your people, but hey, railroads, it's the same. It's like Trump administration now being like, this is economic opportunity. What better could Ukraine wish for? Somebody said something like that. This is absurd.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Yeah, it's a bitter pill to swallow. There is one concession is not quite right. One notable revelation that came out from specifically discussions with Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron, who flew to Washington apparently in efforts to get Trump to not sell out the Ukrainians too aggressively to be seen how effective that was to be determined. But they actually had at least a joint press statement that was both warm. Macron is a very weirdly, a very good Trump whisperer. He definitely has a line of communication to him in part because he flatters him so effectively every time he comes to Paris with huge parades. I remember his first time in Paris. He job did great, a huge military parade. And since then it's gone swimmingly. But the thing that really stood out as interesting is that he put forward the idea of there being the potential of European troops in Ukraine. Something that we've heard the uk, France, a few others throw about for the last few months, really? And more seriously the last few weeks. But notably Trump said something that I thought was interesting. I think this might prove notable. He said Vladimir Putin said he was okay with it too. When I talked to him, I positive that's not true.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I've heard Lavrov or someone in Kremlin's order.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Kremlin denied it.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

Right, of course.

[Scott R. Anderson]

But the question is, if you're Donald Trump, does the fact Trump said he did this now mean that you have.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

To stick to that?

[Scott R. Anderson]

Yes.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

Maybe that's too three dimensional chess for Trump.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Okay, I want to say a cynical word about Emmanuel Macron. God bless him, he's doing God's work. European, hypothetical European troops in the future in the event of a ceasefire that is not going to materialize anytime soon. Much less important than actual European weapons now delivered when they're needed. Because the major thing that Trump's absence of, it's not, you know, you can go talk to Vladimir Putin and have summits and have him visit in Washington if you are continuing to supply Ukraine with military hardware. And people in Ukraine would find that disgusting, but they would keep their mouths shut about it. The thing that Trump has done that is so shocking is he's turned off the supply of weapons assistance. And if France, you know, God bless Sweden, which sent air defense, is sending air defenses. But if Europe wants to be a significant player in this, talking about hypothetical troops at the time of a ceasefire is much less important than real weapons now. And so as disgusted as I am with US Policy, I am always cynical about Europeans saying this is the moment in which European, Europe develops an independent and defense policy. You know, show me the hundred billion dollars in weapons that's going to Ukraine over the next three years and I'll.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

You know, consider relieving you.

[Benjamin Wittes]

No, I mean, I look, I believe it is all very sincere, but the delta between sincere European rhetoric about what Europe is going to do and European action is often very substantial. And right now, money talks, Mirage jets talk. I want to see French weapons. That's What I want to see.

[Natalie Orpet]

Yeah, I don't disagree with that at all. I read the situation a little bit differently. Which sort of gets into our second topic, which is that I think Macron is trying to position himself and trying to position France as the new diplomatic leader in a post NATO, completely different role for the United States in the transatlantic relationship sort of role, to be the sort of intermediary between this new United States under a Trump policy and a Europe that's going to have to change its security posture and its degree of responsibility for Ukraine in this conflict. And I think it was notable that he was in the United States meeting with Trump while many, many European leaders were in Ukraine meeting with Zelenskyy on the anniversary of the invasion. I think that he is playing a bit of the long game here. I don't disagree with the idea that the real support for Ukraine should be now, but I think that there is something bigger picture at play here.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

It's also probably worth saying about Macron that as far as I understand, he's been trying to get into those shoes for a while. I mean, remember the calls to Putin or whatnot in the beginning of the.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Hostile invasion before him? I mean, this is a very long tradition, traditional French, of trying to have a completely independent foreign policy while slipstreaming off of the US Security umbrella. And look, my, my view of that was, has always been contemptuous. Now my view of it is I want it to happen, you know, Slava la France, Slava Alemanna, you know, like, bring it on, guys. But you can't do it without money. You can't do it without a radical change in your defense posture and your defense production posture. And you can't do it while simultaneously holding back the Nordics who are actually trying to do this stuff. You actually have to change policy if you're going to compensate for the United States. And I welcome all the noise of it. But if you're not actually resupplying Ukraine now, it is mostly noise.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Well, I think this gets to a capacity and timing problem as much as anything, right? If you have the shift in mindset with Europeans saying this is what we want, we want an ability to execute independent foreign policy like this, what do you need? Among other things, you need a completely reinvigorated industrial security complex, right? Building weapons, building arms, maybe buying them from the United States. But then if you really want to be independent, maybe not, probably not. At least not for the core things you need. That is just something that has a very multi year timeline. We've heard talk about this for a while. We've seen genuine efforts by Europeans to step up arms production in different capacities over the last few years, shift to more defense spending. A lot of that is an express goal of the Trump administration, as it has been for US Administrations prior to that. Like they kind of had wanted this to happen. And now Europeans appear serious about it because they actually think the American security umbrella might be effectively going away or at least not extending as far as they really want it and need it to extend. But in the interim, you're still stuck with the United States. It seems like in the short to medium term, in the time frame that matters most for Ukraine, which is probably, I think, a little bit about what you see the Europeans doing now. I suspect they are trying to to A get a seat at the table so they understand what's happening and their interests are represented as well, but also B give a little bit nor negotiating leverage to positions that are a little more Ukraine friendly because they are more European friendly. So what happens? Americans come in with this kind of absurd minerals deal. The Europeans come in and says we'll give you a better mineral deal, Ukraine. Do they actually want Ukraine to take that minerals deal? My guess is probably not because I know that would piss America off too much. But in doing that, providing that alternative, you give a little bit more bargaining leverage. European troops on the ground I take for reason to be skeptical, but also pretty significant as a potential deterrent for re escalation and invasion. The same way reason that American troops in Poland and Germany are like a deterrent for doing that. Right. I don't think it is a game changer, but I think it's notable and significant as there are French and UK troops where it being their nuclear powers, I think even more significant.

[Benjamin Wittes]

So again, it's totally significant unless you're not actually prepared to do it and you're just setting up what will ultimately amount to a bluff that Putin will call. And he's listening very carefully. And it seems to me if you want to talk to him and say we are really serious about this, the important thing to do is not merely talk about 5 to 10 year security horizon posture, but to talk about what you're going to do right now.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Nastya, I want to come to you for a follow up question on this. When you were on the podcast a couple weeks ago, we talked about this idea of a European alternative security commitment or guarantee Ukrainians and the fact that there's a reason why Zelenskyy seemed so focused on an American security guarantee Not European security guarantees. I'm kind of curious how that logic has survived the last three weeks, or whether there is a shifting towards an idea that if these are the terms of an American security guarantee, and if it's coming from someone as fickle and, frankly, hostile to Ukraine historically as Trump, whether they're maybe not as high value as we wanted them to be, and do Europeans look a little more seriously, is there a sense in Ukraine of these changing dynamics between America and Europe, or is it kind of too soon to tell?

[Anastasia Lapatina]

No, I mean, definitely all of these changing dynamics are impacting the mood and the vibes in Ukraine and the conversations that we're having. I wouldn't say that Trump's antagonism and these attacks against Zelenskyy that that somehow made NATO's Article 5 less valuable. Of course not. Or American guarantees less valuable. We all ultimately understand that, you know, American guarantees or NATO guarantees is the only thing that can actually keep us safe. Or nuclear weapons, which is something that Zelenskyy said openly. I am not tenting any real hope for a European solution here. I mean, there is hope, and there is this kind of realization that, okay, our last hope kind of thing, apart from our own, whatever it is that we can do as the nation of Ukraine, our last hope is that Europeans figure themselves out. But also Europe has had so much time to figure itself out. And in that way, Trump and Vance and the rest of them, they aren't wrong in saying that Europe has to step up because it is their problem. That's true. And it's not okay that the vast majority of military stuff that we got comes from the U.S. so the way that they presented that at the Munich Security Conference certainly was terrible. But the substance, some parts of that makes sense, and Ukrainians actually agree with that. So there is a lot of frustrations with European part in Ukraine as well, that, hey, guys, this is on your doorstep. We are dying to protect you, quite literally. And you couldn't figure it out. And now you're having these meetings in a room in Paris and nothing really happens. And you keep talking this big game, as Ben said, you keep all this noise, but then you've been at it for several years and also, like, years before that. Right. Like Russia invaded in 2014. So things started changing a while ago. So, yeah, I mean, there is still a realization that ultimately NATO is what we want. Like, NATO Article 5 is the only thing that can keep us safe. But I don't think there is big hopes for Europe to step up and really figure itself out, unfortunately.

[Scott R. Anderson]

It's just such an interesting position to have at this moment where I think Europeans who have Article 5, it is at its absolute nadir in terms of value to them.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

Really.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Yeah.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Because nobody trusts Trump to follow up, to follow up on anything. You can denude NATO of its values simply by not having confidence in the United States. And One thing that J.D. vance said very clearly in Munich was don't have confidence in the United States because we're not there for you.

[Natalie Orpet]

Yeah, I mean, I think that's what's really different now. Right. I mean, the messaging from the United States has been since 2014 has been very clearly Europe. You need to be serious about your defense. You need to start building this up. You need to stop relying so exclusively on the United States. And it's been the message consistently. It hasn't apparently been compelling enough to really force action in any meaningful way, but maybe now it will. Because if European countries don't trust the United States either, they have, even in their own self interest, completely separate from Ukraine, the incentive to really dramatically scale up their own defense capacities. And so maybe there will be a major change. But as you said, Scott, it's going to be on such a long timeframe that it won't be of immediate help to the current situation in Ukraine.

[Benjamin Wittes]

And to be fair to Europe, Europe is not an it, it is a they. And it is if you are not Hungary and not Slovakia and you are close to the border with Russia, you are probably spending well more than 2% of your GDP on defense. And some of the countries like Estonia are spending really, really substantial percentages of their gdp. Finland, obviously. So the levels of commitment are highly variable from country to country. Generally speaking, Eastern Europe does better than Western Europe and Northern Europe does better than Southern Europe. The Nordics are kind of in a class by themselves. That said, there are these giant big European economies, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, that are just still free riding. And there's just no, you know, Trump and Vance are not wrong to find that very frustrating. And Biden and Obama were not wrong to find that very frustrating. That's not a partisan view in the United States. Undermining NATO as an entity in response to it is a partisan view in the United States.

[Natalie Orpet]

You're right, that's an important point. And I apologize to those nations in.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Europe, the entire nation of Finland.

[Natalie Orpet]

Thank you.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Well, I do think this is a point that gets lost in terms of the American interests and lack of interest in this particular approach to these sorts of things, is that you have a Lot of these European countries that have been such strong boosters of American foreign policy in ways they would have no interest to do that, except for the close transatlantic relationship. So you think of all the contributions that Nordic countries have made to Iraq and Afghanistan, which have been substantial for Denmark in particular. Denmark in particular. Denmark has probably been, I would say, the closest ally to the United States in terms of security posture, certainly on legal macro policy questions.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Look what it got, though.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Yes, exactly.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Now we're going after Greenland.

[Scott R. Anderson]

It's just astounding. And some of those may have been faulty ventures. I think there's lots to criticize about the war in Iraq and war Afghanistan, how they've been pursued, although I think there's lots of efforts that were reasonable, even if they did not play out as effectively as one would have hoped. And those were tended to be the ones the Europeans were on board with. And America's going to find itself in a position again. Hopefully not like Iraq, where we invade another country. Hopefully not like Afghanistan. But we don't know. But we've had at least three emergency episodes of the Rational Security podcast since I took over three years ago as the lead host. And we're going to keep having them. It just is. The world doesn't stop, even if America tries to keep its nose out of it. What do you do when you no longer have those countries backing you up? It makes it that much more expensive, costly, difficult. And this just is just one more step in that direction, which is, I think, the untold cost of all of this that gets lost in the America first rhetoric and the fact that we don't have anybody being a strong counterpoint to that in American politics right now.

[Natalie Orpet]

Yeah, I think that's a really important point that bears emphasizing, which is that we talk, even just in this conversation, because of the disproportionate nature of U.S. security capacity. We sort of talk like the transatlantic relationship, and all of these alliances with European countries are mostly to the benefit of the European countries, and that's simply not true. It may be that, yes, we have more money and more military capacity, but alliances are important for a lot more than that. And I think Americans are really unaware of the usefulness to the United States of those alliances. And it is certainly absent from the discussion right now in the United States about these policies.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Yeah. And I think the one form where you really see that is Asia, because Europe really does not care nearly as much about Asia as the United States does. And the only reason they've backed us up on a lot of China balancing is because we backed them up on Russia. I think I may have said this last week on this podcast.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

We have a big beautiful continent in between them, is what Europe would say.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Yes, exactly. Exactly. And that is really going to hurt the United States when it's trying to balance China. And it can no longer count on the Europeans to back them up and implementing economic sanctions and other measures because the other tools you have are a lot more expensive and costly to Americans. Hey folks, Scott R. Andersen here. Things are finally beginning to cool down here in Washington, dc. There's a nip in the air. The days are getting shorter, Football is back on tv. All the signs are here. Autumn is coming. While the kids are sad to be back in school, it's a favorite season for those of us who are bearded, burly and sartorially inclined, as it's finally a chance to bring back the flannels, sweaters, denim and tweed we had to put away for the summer. But if you need a little help getting your closet ready for the season, don't sweat it. Quince has you covered. From new denim jeans to leather jackets to woolen sweaters, Quince has everything you need for cooler days ahead. And all of it is comfortable, classic and high quality. The types of items that will stay in rotation for years to come. The Mongolian cashmere sweaters, which go for an incredibly reasonable 60 bucks, are what got me into Quince in the first place. And if you are going to be back at my regular rotation this fall, I also picked up an Italian wool overshirt that's set to be my main light layer when things get nippy, and an organic cotton long sleeve polo that's already begun to make its way back into my regular outfits. Plus, Quince is now offering more than just clothes. From houseware to luggage to rugs, Quince has tons of the everyday items you need. Personally, I'm thinking some flannel sheets may be just the thing to get before the temperatures really drop. And the best part is that by cutting out the middlemen, Quint's offers all these high quality products at half of what they would cost you at other stores. Plus, Quints only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices. So keep it classic and cool this fall with long lasting staples from Quince. Go to Quince.com Security for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com Security to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Again, that's Quince.com Security now. Now let's get back to the show.

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[Scott R. Anderson]

So I think we've effectively handled our first two topics which were, let's be honest, one big topic I kind of tried to artificially split into two topics. So let us go to our third topic with our remaining time because we have seen a pretty dramatic set of developments happening here on the home front, or arguably just outside the home front, in a weird gray penumbra area along our homefront, however you would call it.

[Benjamin Wittes]

One might call it an insulin Insular territories.

[Scott R. Anderson]

One of the more insular territories we have certainly a lacuna legally, politically in our strategically ambiguous. Strategically ambiguous. And that is of course Guantanamo Bay, a place that has a reputation for a lot of pretty bad things, particularly the detention of various law of armed conflict detainees. At least that's what we admitted they were eventually since the 911 or shortly thereafter. And now we see this new unit for it or an expanded use, we should say. Since the 1990s, a use of Guantanamo Bay has been for detaining certain categories of migrants. Usually this has been people intercepted at sea, usually Cuban, sometimes Haitian Dominican migrants as well, intercepted on boats, usually by the American Coast Guard and then taken to Haiti where they've been detained. There was a series of litigation around in the 1990s that's pretty well known. There was a book around about it racing to the court. Is that what it was.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Yes, it was a book, part of which was set in my old house in New Haven.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Later owned by the hero of that book, Harold Coe, then a young law professor at Yale. And there are scenes in that book that are set in the house that I lived in in New Haven.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Oh, that's so funny. I had no idea. Harold Coe, my former boss and somebody I used to work very closely with, although I haven't talked to him in a while now. Yeah, a phenomenally interesting book about this litigation. But now we've seen, and that use has continued, it's worth noting, for the last few years. So we've seen it used primarily again for this kind of maritime migrant interception detention operation. Donald Trump comes into office a little over a month ago now, and he unveils and very quickly implements a plan to dramatically expand the migrant detention center, the facility used to house these individuals, which it should be noted, were generally not high volume, not for long term detention, usually short term. Small numbers of people detained because they were at sea before they could be transited back to their country of origin.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Except for a certain group of Cubans who were there for a very long time.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Yeah, good caveat. Good caveat. And there have been a couple of exceptions and weird cases over the years as well, and unusual uses for it. But now we're at the point where it has become a very common event on social media and other places where you see the administration trumpeting rounding up who they describe as kind of the worst of the worst unlawful or undocumented immigrants in the United States, putting them in hoods and chains and kind of body suits, marching them onto planes. The White House in particular released what may be the grossest thing I've ever seen, which is an ASMR quote, unquote, ASMR video of somebody being detained. And essentially one of these things, which is something I never thought I would see my government release. And it is really atrocious and horrifying celebrating these sorts of acts. And now we have a case where there's reporting coming out where the first tranche of 170 odd, mostly Venezuelan detainees have been relocated back to Venezuela, except for one person who came back to the United States. New York Times Wentz interviews a bunch of them, confirms that at least the three they interviewed have no criminal records other than the fact that they were in the United States unlawfully. The idea of them being the worst of the worst is unreasonable. Horrific stories about their treatment, basically complete isolation, not being allowed outside, rumors at least one potentially attempting suicide, other people screaming and attempting suicide. And now we are getting rumors that another tranche is being moved to the same center even as Secretary of Defense Hegseth is set to visit Guantanamo in the next few days.

[Natalie Orpet]

Is he there today?

[Scott R. Anderson]

Is he there today? He's there today. In fact, Natalie, you have worked on Guantanamo, on the law of armed conflict, detainee aside, for many years. Years. This is a whole new sort of twist on this angle. I know you talked to Chris Marisola, one of our contributing editors, about this a few days ago on the podcast Lawfare Podcast. Talk to us about what we know about what's happening and the big questions it's raising. Because is this story, amidst the flood of things the Trump administration is doing, has gone depressingly beneath the kind of fold in a way that's really surprising, I think, for people who grew up as part of the Guantanamo generation.

[Natalie Orpet]

Yeah, absolutely. A lot of these, actually same legal issues were coming up in the early 2000s around the detainees who were being brought there as part of what was called the war on terror. Private law firms were absolutely rallying to go down and represent these detainees. And this was the most important legal issue of the time. And now it's, as you say, completely beneath the radar. So for some background, this executive order that you mentioned came out on January 29th, and I just want to emphasize the discrepancy in the numbers that you referenced, which is that the order said to the Defense Department that it should expand the migrant detention center to be able to house 30,000 people. The center, it's been used for decades. In the period from 2020 to 2023, it housed 37 people. And before that, it was in the single digit for most of the time, except for a couple of these rare exceptions. So it's just an extraordinary expansion. There are a lot of issues here. So as I said to Chris at one point on our podcast, it's really like a law school issue spotting exam, but I'll try to run through them as an overarching matter. This is sort of a confluence of two major issues at play relating to immigration in the United States, which is, number one, is whether the military can be used for immigration enforcement. And number two, what the United States is going to do about the fact that there are simply not enough ICE detention centers in the United States to be able to detain the number of migrants that Trump has promised to detain and deport. I want to focus first on Guantanamo itself, because there are a number of things happening there that are really alarming and I think people are generally unaware of. So as you said, there were 177, I think all Venezuelans who were initially brought to the United States, they were called the worst of the worst. But then later in representations, the government said actually the only qualification for being sent there was that you had a final removal order. That seems to me like it can't possibly be true because there is reporting that at least eight of those people had been had been detained since Trump took office. And final deportation orders are not permissible until 30 days after the start of immigration proceedings. So that math doesn't line up because these Transports began on February 4, so that is not 30 days from January 20. In any event, the people who were brought there had no access to attorneys. That was something that a lawsuit was filed on a couple of weeks ago by, not ironically, I think some of the real all stars of the early 2000s Guantanamo litigation, including several people at the ACLU and the center for Constitutional Rights. One of the things that's really alarming here is that some of the detainees were held at the migrant operations center, which is in the process of being expanded pursuant to the Executive Order. Some of them were detained at Camp 6, which is part of the detention facilities for the Law of War detainees. It has been empty for a little while, but it is right next door to Camp 5 where the 15 remaining law of War detainees are being held. Now, it is under control of the military. So this is sort of the extreme example of what is a broader issue, which is the military potentially seemingly being responsible for detaining migrants on a military base. The military is not supposed to be allowed to do law enforcement. This is the Posse Comitatus act that does not apply outside of the United States. So query whether the US Government would make the argument that Guantanamo is not the United States for the purpose of that side of the base where detainees are being held by the military. And yet on the other side of the base, at the migrant detention center, apparently ICE is detaining people. And so ICE is operating on a military base. We don't know why they haven't explained under what legal authority they're doing that. Chris's expert guess, informed guess, was that it's probably pursuant to the Economy act, which is an act that allows one agency to provide support for a different agency as long as it's on a reimbursable basis. So this is something that happened, for example, when we evacuated Afghans from Afghanistan during the US Withdrawal, where people were held temporarily on US Bases. We don't know that for sure. But the question there is how can ICE detain people on a US Military base if they are outside of the United States? Because the Immigration and Nationality act, which is the legal authority under which ICE detains migrants inside of the United States, doesn't apply outside of the United States. So I'm really hoping that the government doesn't make the argument that one side of the base is not the United States and one side of the base is the United States. But it seems based on their sort of legal framework that they seem to be throwing out there, admittedly as part of spaghetti at the wall melange of completely internally contradictory legal theories about why this is all okay. I'm really hoping that's not the argument they go with.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Ben, I'm kind of curious about your thoughts on this. As somebody who's watched, you've seen and reported on what, three generations of uses of Guantanamo Bay now, in a way, right? Kind of the original migrant thing, I think, when you were probably a CUP reporter, but it's probably within your beat, I would guess. I think I recall talking about at various points, obviously the 911 thing very involved in and now this new chapter, and there are arguably a couple of gray area chapters in between.

[Benjamin Wittes]

And unlike Natalie, I have been predominantly a defender of the use of Guantanamo Bay for law of war detention. And so I don't come to this. Although I have many problems with many things that have been done, I was never somebody who was especially offended by the idea that we would the military would do some of its detentions at this particular base. I come to this from a somewhat different orientation than Natalie does, and yet I end up in very much the same place. So look, if the administration had said, okay, we have a bed problem in ICE detention, we need to build a new facility that can house a large number of people. And we've scanned all of the locations available. The best place to do it is Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. I would scratch my head and say, well, that sounds a little improbable to me, given the logistics of getting people to and from Guantanamo, given the fact that it has to generate all its own power and water, it's not actually a convenient place to operate. But I don't have a problem in principle with the proposition, okay, so and so has been adjudicated fully deported. They are required to be taken into custody. They are required to be held somewhere until you effectuate their deportation. Guantanamo Bay is a physical location, mostly like any other physical location. And if you want to do it there. And there's a good reason to. I'm not going to be the one who says that's outrageous because it's named Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. I will say that that's not what's going on here.

[Natalie Orpet]

Well, and the thing that's outrageous about it is unless the US Government is going to change its argument that at least for convenience's sake, Guantanamo is outside of the United States.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me get to that. So it seems to me they're doing it for three possible reasons and it's actually a combination of the three. One is, as Natalie says, a jurisdiction trick stuff, right. To be able to argue that certain rules don't apply, certain rights don't adhere, certain whatever. That's just totally unkosher. If you're going to deport somebody, deport them. You don't want them to have access to US Courts, Deport them. This transit stop for deportation. If you're doing it for purposes of depriving people of access to US Courts or access to certain substantive rights. This is really, really gross. The second one is even grosser, which is the one that you alluded to. If you're doing this to thump on your chests, because Guantanamo is where we take the bad hombres and I promised, I'm the president, we're going to reactivate Guantanamo and maybe the generals, they're too woke to bring new Yemeni people there, but damn it, I can sure bring Venezuelans I'm going to deport. Right. And, and part of that is these disgusting videos that you refer to. But part of it is also just trading on the name Guantanamo because for exactly the same reason as the name offends the human rights community. The name excites the Fox News crowd. And by the way, I don't believe in doing things either because they offend the human rights community or because they that they attract the Fox News crowd. And then there's a third reason, which may be the grossest still, which is the belief right or wrong. I suspect it's always been wrong historically. But there's this belief that affects military circles sometimes that what happens in Guantanamo stays in Guantanamo and that you can. And this turns out to be the opposite of the truth. Right. What happens in the Bagram stays in Bagram. But what happens in Guantanamo gets litigated in the D.C. circuit, right?

[Natalie Orpet]

Some of what happens in Guantanamo gets.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Litigated, but much more, much more than Bagram.

[Natalie Orpet]

Sure.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Than. Than where else we have held people. And I guarantee you, when we unload a plate of 170 Venezuelans who've been held at some ICE facility, every single one of them doesn't get interviewed by the New York Times about the treat, their treatment at the ICE facility, but you hold them in Guantanamo and they'll interview every single one of them. So I actually think the premise is wrong. But if the premise is you're holding people at Guantanamo because you can treat them there worse than you can treat them at an ICE facility, that's disgusting. So that's my view. I don't have an in principle objection to it. It's just that every reason that they proffer that they want to do it is more disgusting than the next one.

[Natalie Orpet]

I also think, though, even if you were to take all of that as true, which I absolutely do not, there is something inherent about Guantanamo to making it out of sight and out of mind. I don't actually think that the New York Times was able to interview everyone. They were able to interview some people after they were repatriated. It is very hard to get to Guantanamo when you are a reporter. When you are a lawyer, it is entirely controlled by the US Military. You have to get certain permission. It takes a long time. It is a, you know, even with the best of intentions, it is extremely difficult to actualize. People are not getting access to their lawyers. Maybe that'll improve, maybe it won't. In the meantime, people are not able to, for example, see the detention facilities, which are reportedly horrific and probably violate international and US Law. Having it physically in Guantanamo makes a significant difference, even if all of the things that you were suggesting might be true are true.

[Benjamin Wittes]

So I actually agree with that. But that's my first point. If you're doing it to keep it out of some. Or my second point, if you're doing it to keep it out of sight because you have this belief, right or wrong, that what you know, that you can have a kind of Vegas principle at Guantanamo. You and I might disagree about how valid that point is, like whether that point is going to end up true or whether you're going to end up with, oh, say, 20 years of litigation about the status of Guantanamo. But we're not the disagreeing about the end result, which is you shouldn't be doing it for that reason, whether you're right or whether you're kidding yourself.

[Natalie Orpet]

Well, the other thing I want to challenge you on, though, is the significant difference with, even if you were to say, as you started your discussion, even if you were to say, okay, we need more beds for ice, having it be in Guantanamo Having the decision to spend all of the resources to expand facilities there, rather than anywhere inside of the continental United States, is a farce for all the reasons that we were talking about. Because I think it is for all of the purposes that you were describing in your three points, even if that were not the case, the military is in charge of Guantanamo. The military should not be being used for law enforcement, for immigration enforcement that is unlawful under US Law. So if ICE is doing the detaining on Guantanamo, that's theoretically a little bit better from a legal perspective. If they are exercising all of the things that they are supposed to be exercising under domestic law, and they've created within the confines of this one facility, the United States, only ICE is in charge. The military stays far away. I don't think that that's true in any way. There's all sorts of reporting that the military is directly involved in detaining operations. Even if it were true, even if they magically came into compliance with that, the military still controls security writ large on the base. There's still the problem of access that I was talking about to the public. There's still a ton of lack of transparency. And I simply think that there is also, by the way, to have your investment to expand facilities for the sake of having beds for ICE on Guantanamo, an island that is hard to get to, that requires military installations, that requires military resources, has got to be much more expensive, even just to fly migrants from the continental United States to Guantanamo.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Right? Why not the nonstop to Venezuela rather than the one?

[Natalie Orpet]

Well, and also, it bears noting that Venezuela started sending its own planes to the United States to pick up its own citizens that the US Was deporting. But even setting that aside, it's simply not plausible that there is nowhere inside of the United States that a fraction of the amount of money that is being spent to expand the migrant detention center could be used to create more beds, if that were the goal.

[Benjamin Wittes]

But look, this gets to the distinction I was trying to draw before between an in principle objection and a practical objection. My point is, if you could persuade me that this is the most efficient way to do it. I don't have an objection in principle to doing it this way. And your response is, yeah, but the idea that there is a practical reason that this is the most efficient way to do it is ludicrous. With which I agree. But I do think that's not a in principle objection, that's a. Come on, how could this be the most efficient way to do it? And the answer is it couldn't. Be people want to do it because of the machismo factor and because of this perception that there's a quietness that you can keep.

[Natalie Orpet]

Well, no, but I think the thing I was using to challenge her in principle was that the military is inherently going to be responsible at Guantanamo, where that is not the case inside of the United States. And that I think destroys your in principle.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Let me go and take a slightly different tactic I think we can take as a assumption, although I think it's a very well founded assumption. The Trump administration is doing this for the optics.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Correct.

[Scott R. Anderson]

They are doing this too because they think they can look tough. Maybe they genuinely want to treat optics. There is a logic that we have seen in this administration, particularly 1.0, where they think if you treat migrants badly, it will deter future migrants. So maybe that's something slightly different from optics, but it all leads in the same direction, saying we're going to treat people badly and we're going to scare them away. And either we're going to celebrate our ability to treat them badly for our domestic audiences or we're going to scare away foreign audiences.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

Why can't they do this with the Russians? I would so much prefer them to treat the bad guys badly and to treat difficult guys lawfully. Can that. Anyway, that's my 5 cents on the issue.

[Benjamin Wittes]

I'm sorry, not Naftuli's contribution. Flawless stuff to the Russians.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

Yes, yes, I'm done here.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Fair question. It's a fair question. Before you circle back to that though, the question I want to have is, is this an example of the Trump administration doing something foundationally kind of stupid because they have a short term policy desire and no ability to check themselves on things that will backfire on them because they're doing this in an area where there's confirmed habeas jurisdiction for these people. There is an open legal debate over conditions of confinement and sort of things are subject to habeas challenge. I don't know what the administrative procedures are. I have trouble imagining they live up to an alternative to habeas in the current state of which it's living at Guantanamo. So presumably these people, if they're detained there long enough, could actually not legalize that.

[Benjamin Wittes]

That's the critical thing. Their calculation, I think if they've lawyered this in any way that's is to do it quickly enough, is that is that they can moot out any habeas case before it gains any steam. And since these cases take a long time, if you just, you know, if you don't get into the trap, those sort of lobster trap, roach, motel quality of Guantanamo that it played in counterterrorism where Congress forbids you to remove anybody. Basically then you get these persistent long term habeas cases. But if people are there for 30 days, no federal judge is gonna have time to care very much.

[Scott R. Anderson]

I wonder whether that is true.

[Benjamin Wittes]

I don't doubt that they are cruising for a bruising on this one.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Yeah, I wonder whether that actually holds up.

[Benjamin Wittes]

But I do think that like the shorter term stuff is the more likely they are to get away with more of it for longer periods of time.

[Scott R. Anderson]

I 100% agree with that. But I do wonder now that we see this strategy, we know what they're doing. You don't get the ACLU or other groups that are very savvy litigators, go to communities where they know there's at risk of people being snapped up in this and say the moment a relative gets snapped up, let's find a relative to file a habeas on their behalf and immediately challenge our conditions of confinement based on all this evidence we have. Because we can get affidavits from the dozens or hundreds of people that have already been through this process, process about their miserable conditions of confinement. And I think that is a legal loser at a certain point. And then there's the optics side of this. I mean, Americans were offended and horrified by Abu Ghraib. Right? It is still a mark on our national psychology. Maybe I'm more sensitive more than others.

[Benjamin Wittes]

But Americans were consistently less offended by Guantanamo than elites were. And the polling data on Guantanamo was never white. What CCR and the ACLU wanted it to be, they won with judges, didn't really win so much with, you know. And the ultimate expression of that was in 2016 when one of the candidates ran on Guantanamo and it was Donald Trump promising to bring many, many more people there. And Hillary Clinton didn't talk about it at all.

[Natalie Orpet]

The reason that America Republicans didn't care is because there was so much disinformation about Guantanamo.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Look, I'm not saying it was because it was good. I'm not saying it was because your reasoning is wrong. I'm saying people didn't react to Guantanamo the way Democratic Party people think they would.

[Scott R. Anderson]

That may be right. I'm not sure the same logic holds for migrants.

[Benjamin Wittes]

I'm not either.

[Scott R. Anderson]

But that's the real question. I'm not convinced that.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

So what do you think is going to be.

[Scott R. Anderson]

I think six months from now we may see this as a huge bungle by the Trump administration. In fact, I would put money on.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

It because you mean that like Americans are going to be very mad about it.

[Scott R. Anderson]

I think it's going to give a lot of talking points for people contesting this policy and they're going to have to roll it back.

[Natalie Orpet]

Yeah, I mean the one thing I will say actually I want to put a plug in first. We are tracking the case that I mentioned. It will be interesting to see if that case is mooted by the fact that some the of of the individuals who are represented. It was a habeas case. They have now been transferred out. They were part of the first group. So we are tracking that case along with 80 some other cases on our Trump administration litigation tracker that you can find on the website. The other thing I want to say though, which goes somewhat counter to your point and this was part of the conversation that I had with Chris in a podcast on Lawfare Daily earlier, earlier this week and part of a piece that Chris published in Lawfare earlier this week as well. His theory is that Guantanamo is sort of a test case or a bellwether for the use of the military in immigration enforcement matters, which is legally problematic in all sorts of ways. And if they can get away with doing it here, if they can experiment with the different ways in which the military can be deployed, can we do it this way? Can we do it this way? What if the military is only providing this type of support but isn't actually doing this type of thing? Does that count as a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act? Then maybe the idea is to be able to get the administration closer to its goal of wanting to use the military to round up migrants and deport them, which is illegal. But he really portrayed this as an important case, an important, important situation in the broader context of whether we are going to allow the military to act unlawfully on immigration enforcement.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Interesting. Well, I think that is a sign. We will probably have reason to revisit this topic in the weeks and months to come. But unfortunately we are out of time for today's discussion. But this of course would not be rational security if we did not leave you with some object lessons to ponder over in the week to come. Natalie, what do you have for us this week?

[Natalie Orpet]

Well, I am pleased to bring breaking news which is that there was a super top secret, extremely exclusive diplomatic convening at my house over the weekend. We called it the Baby Summit. It involved two Americans and a Ukrainian under the age of one, under the age of two, I should say. Everyone got together there was sharing of toys. There were no meltdowns. There was one diaper blowout. I will not disclose which baby it was.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Maybe my baby.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

It was your baby. I just put you on the spot, Scott. It was not my baby.

[Natalie Orpet]

But the four of us had observer status. I think we can all agree that it went quite well. And so, you know, peace in our times.

[Scott R. Anderson]

There we go.

[Benjamin Wittes]

There were some older, not quite babies anymore at the baby cemetery.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

You were there.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Natalie Orpet]

That'S true. There were some, some older children too. But I thought that the babies really did the most impressive diplomatic work.

[Scott R. Anderson]

That's definitely true. Definitely true. Nastya, what do you have for us this week?

[Anastasia Lapatina]

I am going to use this amazing opportunity for self promotion because the podcast that Lovefair and Goat Rodeo, which includes me, has been working on for almost a year is finally out. I can't believe it's real. I feel like I've been writing this thing my whole life. The first episode came out yesterday on February 24th. It's called escalation. It is a narrative podcast about the history of the Ukraine US relationship. We cover everything from the 90s when the Soviet Union falls apart to the present day. And we are right now wrapping our heads around how to write the final episode because it's kind of being written in front of our eyes. And yeah, go check it out wherever you're listening to podcast Escalation under Lawfare Presents Feed and let us know what you think about the first episode.

[Benjamin Wittes]

And Rachel Maddow and Darth Putin KGB just tweeted about the first episode. So those of you who don't follow Darth Putin kgb, you really should. He's very funny.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

Yes, he is very funny.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Well, for my object lesson this week, I will stay in the entertainment domain. I'll throw something out there that maybe for the elder millennial parent said, I've proven to be a satisfying read, of which there's at least one other at the table with me that is. I'd be curious if you've watched these now. Have you watched the Richard Linklater movies Before Sunrise and Before Sunset Before Midnight? So I had never actually watched these. I like Linklater. I reliably like his movies, I think. I don't know if I love any of them and I've been watching them and I enjoy them. It's very interesting to watch as probably the closest to the third of the movies, which is the one I haven't watched yet, which is Before Midnight, about them being middle aged parents, but seeing them as young teenage or college students who kind of meet and have a one night tryst where they're falling in love and then 10 years later they reunite in Paris. But I think it's an interesting watch. I encourage people to watch it. I really liked Before Sunrise was very charming and kind of captured that kind of naive young love sort of vibe. And Before Sunset I found slightly annoying, mostly because it was just so very early 2000s. But then the last 20 minutes completely saved the movie. And I thought the last 20 minutes was phenomenal. The first 20 was. The last 20 are great. The middle really dragged, but I thought I really turned it around was great. I'm very curious, although slightly apprehensions about the third movie as that is probably closest to my actual life stage. But I'm enjoying it. It's a good experience watching it. These movies actually filmed 10 years apart to capture these actors in their face. Ethan Hawke and Julie Dolpy. So what was your thoughts on them? Did you enjoy them or you find them a little too saccharine? I think, as some people tell me.

[Natalie Orpet]

Well, I think I watched them much more proximate to when they came out. So I was much more proximate in age. So I think we are like the.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Exact age they are trying to capture in the movies now. Like we're 10 years younger than the actors now, I think.

[Natalie Orpet]

Yeah, but I think they're older. I think the characters are older than we were at the time that the movies came out. I could be wrong.

[Scott R. Anderson]

The actors like 10 years older than us and the last one came out 10 years ago. So like, yeah, I think they're like two or three years older than we are. Maybe like maybe mid-40s. The last movie.

[Natalie Orpet]

Yeah, okay. I don't think I saw the last movie but the earlier ones, I think I was like you. I liked them. I didn't love them. Maybe I should rewatch them and see what I think in my wise, old, elder, millennial age.

[Scott R. Anderson]

I think I like them more now watching them than I would have if I'd watched them at the age that they're intended to portray would be my guess. But anyway, with that recommendation, Ben, I'll turn it over to you. What is your object lesson this week?

[Benjamin Wittes]

So yesterday, in addition to being on the bright side was Escalation podcast release day. On the less bright side was the third anniversary of the Russian full scale invasion of Ukraine. Leave it to the listener to decide whether those two anniversaries or whatever are related in some way. But to commemorate the anniversary, there were a number of Protests and gatherings this weekend in Washington, including a mass rally at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, which I attended and was struck by how mass it was. Not this was, you know, several thousand people. And I was struck in comparison to the 300,000 people who turned out for the march for Israel after the October 7, sometime in November last year. And I was thinking to myself, is there a relationship between the ability to turn out 300,000 people on the Mall and not having President Trump betray your country, Betray the country that you're. And I think the answer is yes. I think there's like, you know, people, you know, sometimes say AIPAC as though it's a dirty word or say, you know, the Israel lobby or whatever. And there's much to criticize, in my view, about the substance of positions that they take. But the idea that an American politician would get elected president and turn on Israel is basically unthinkable. And the reason is not some secret Jewish conspiracy or George Soros hovering inflated in the background. The reason is that if the Jewish community decides or the pro Israel community decides to put 300,000 people in the streets of Washington, they can do it. And that relates to all kinds of other expressions of political power. And this is something that was developed over a very long period of time. And my big takeaway from the weekend is that the Ukrainian community and those of us who support it actually need to think about how to develop mass politics from within a small community. And that this is something that that AARP and gun owners and people who care about Israel and a variety of other organized the American Restaurant association have really done. And it is doable. And it is doable from a minority position. It is not self executing. And there's a reason why people don't cross the Armenian community on whether there was a genocide during the First World War in American politics. And I was just very struck by how much work there is to do for those of us who actually really spend a lot of time thinking about the first issue that we discussed in building a Don't fuck with us coalition. And so that was my reflections on a mass rally that was big and the organizers have a lot to be proud of and was approximately a tenth the size of what I would have liked it to be.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

As a Ukrainian, I sign off on all of that.

[Benjamin Wittes]

Yeah, that's my directions from now just.

[Anastasia Lapatina]

This is not insulting to the Ukrainian nation as I think it's a very fair to comment.

[Scott R. Anderson]

Fair, fair, fair, fair. Well, that brings us to the end of this week's episode. But remember Rational Security is of course a production of Lawfare, so be sure to Visit [e-mail] for our show page, for links to past episodes, for our written work and the written work of other Lawfare contributors, and for information on lawfair's other phenomenal podcast series, including Escalation now in a podcatcher near you. While you're at it, be sure to follow Lawfare on social media wherever you socialize your media. Be sure to leave a rating or review wherever you might be listening, and sign up to become a material supporter of Lawfare on Patreon for an ad free version of this podcast and other special benefits. For more information, visit lawfairmedia.org support our audio engineer and producer this week is Noam Osband of Goat Rodeo and her music, as always, was performed by Sophia Yan and we are once again edited by the wonderful Jen Patcha. On behalf of my guests Ben, Nastya and Natalie, I am Scott R. Andersen. We will talk to you next week this until then, goodbye.

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