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A
Most people don't realize how much of their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet, then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where Aura comes in. Aura actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But Aura goes beyond data protection. With one app you get a vpn, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance, all backed by 24. 7 US based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit, monitoring, or even just a vp. Again, Aura gives you all of it together at the same price. Competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today at aura.com safety protect yourself now@aura.com safety.
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B
Hey everyone, Scott R. Andersen here as a senior editor with Lawfare. You might know me as the guy always rambling about treaties and war powers, or perhaps as the host of Rational Security. What you might not know is that Lawfare has been a part of my life a lot longer than I've been contributing to it. Before I came to Lawfare, I was a national security lawyer, an occasional diplomat working for the government, both here in Washington, D.C. and overseas. They were the sorts of jobs that wrestled with hard national security choices of the type Lawfare specializes in, which is why Lawfare is one of the first things I opened when I got to my desk each morning. From Iran to Venezuela to back here at home, I those questions haven't gotten any easier. Policymakers, journalists and citizens all need the sort of deep, non partisan expertise Lawfare specializes in now more than ever. Lawfare is also a nonprofit, meaning we're committed to keeping all of our core content from getting put behind a paywall. We can't do it without help from the people who read and listen to us. People like you. So if you can visit lawfairmedia.org support and join our community of supporters. Just $10 a month will make a world of difference in helping us keep Lawfare free to everyone for a long time to come. I feel like I should let you all know that if I have a little bit of a more craze than usual look in my eye, my hair is a little more vertical and creamer like than usual, I have a little bit of spittle drilling up out of the corner of my mouth. It's because I'm in my third or fourth consecutive day trapped in this basement, my basement recording studio slash my toddler potty training ground over the past weekend. You would think a rainy day weekend would be the perfect day to teach someone potty training, but it turns out it really, really makes it really a very claustrophobic experience that may have driven me more than a little insane over the weekend. So thank you all for helping me break out and being the first human contact, not screaming at me about the potty or vice versa I've had in days at this point.
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C
Scott, I will take your rainy day weekend and I will raise you quarantining with COVID which is when we potty
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B
trained our, our child. That is a different game. I guess it's a little more claustrophobic.
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D
I should know this by now because I have three nieces and nephews and I feel like, I mean we, I've been through the whole potty training thing, but like what is that, what are, what are the, what's the system here that you got going on, Scott, for potty?
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B
I got to tell you, you've. If you, you, you are, I know, one of the best aunts in the world. You've not been through the full potty training thing because it's a whole, the whole thing is a whole thing. I think the dominant method now is the three day marathon where you take all the things off the floor of your house to just your hardwood you care the least about. Take all the kids clothes out and they're just naked for three days and they just kind of like, it just happens. And then you steer them towards the potty again. That's what I'm in right now. That's my basement.
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A
Foreign.
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B
Welcome back to Rational Security, the show where we invite you to join members of the Lawfare team as we try to make sense of the week's big national security news stories, whether they are in our lanes or not. I am your host, Scott R. Andersen. Thrilled to be back here with you and with several members of our Lawfare team and friends and family to talk over the week's big national security news. Joining me for the first time in a little while is none other than Lawfare senior editor Anna Bauer. Anna, thank you for coming back on the podcast in your stately brick estate. As ever, I'm assuming you're not blazing a fire because it's like warm now, but you look like you could be. And that's the important aesthetic. Look, we get out of this apartment,
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D
you would think that it's warm, Scott, but we had a terrible Memorial Day weekend in New York City. It was very cold and rainy, but the Knicks won. The Knicks are going to the finals for the first time since 1999. So I can't complain.
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E
Anna, you're not a Hawks fan.
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C
I was gonna say, have you just adopted the Knicks?
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D
I'm jumping on the bandwagon here, Eric. I'm a new New Yorker, so I've gotta be a Knicks fan. It's a rite of passage. I think at this point, by the
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B
end of this playoff series, Anna is gonna have the Patrick Ewing flat top straight back from the 90s in celebration and solidarity with her new team.
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E
Those of us who've been rooting for the Knicks since long before you were born welcome you to the bandwagon.
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D
Thanks.
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B
Well, and that other Knicks fan is none other than Lawfair's other senior editor, Eric Columbus. Also back on the pod. Eric, thank you for coming on and us sharing our both our nixdom and you know, talking about topics once you did a double header of pieces for us, our lawfare. So thank you for finding the time.
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E
Glad to be here as always.
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B
Awesome. And joining us back on for the first time in an extremely long time back from her new status as my boss at the Brookings Institution is none other than Brookings Senior Fellow. Not even your fellow? No. You're like vice president. Well, you're still a senior fellow.
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D
Right.
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B
I never really understand what these work. You have like nine titles. I was going to say Molly Reynolds. Molly Reynolds is back on the podcast. I'm sorry, Ms. Reynolds, my boss at the Brookings Institution is back on the podcast. Molly, thank you for finding the time. Molly, for folks who may not have guessed, is extremely busy these days, so it's hard to get her schedule arranged so she can make it back on. But it's been such a fun week in Congress this last week or two. I was going to say had to
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C
make the time when Scott said that we were going to talk about YOLO Congress today. How could I pass up the opportunity to return to rational security in order to do that?
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B
That's so good. There's so much to talk about. Well, without further ado, let us get into our topic. We have a lot to talk about. Topic one for this week, the grift that keeps on giving. Last week the Justice Department announced the creation of a so called anti weaponization fund of nearly $1.8 billion, $1.776 billion, to be precise. Taxpayer dollars, which purported victims of politically motivated prosecutions can apply to receive payments from. It's created as part of a settlement between President Trump and his sons, who sued the IRS for $10 billion or the leak of his tax returns. But so far, individuals like pardon January 6th rioters, former Congressman Jorge Santos, President Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen, even former FBI Director James Comey have all indicated they may be applying for compensation. And we've seen, I believe, three lawsuits filed at this point challenging it on different legal grounds. How did this sort of fund arise from this settlement? It's highly unorthodox, to say the least. And where do we see these legal challenges and the broader political challenges facing this fund? Going topic 2 lame duck around and find out. President Trump's preferred primary picks have cruised to victories in Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana and Georgia Republican primaries, ousting incumbents like Senator Bill Cassidy and Representative Thomas Massie that have served as some of the few voices of dissent within the Republican Party within Congress. But Trump's involvement in the primaries has come at a political cost, as these outgoing members are now voicing their criticism a little more vocally. They've even gone as far as to buck the president on certain prominent legislation, most notably in Senator Cassidy's case, a resolution relating to the Iran war. What do the close margins in Congress mean we should expect from this new YOLO set of legislators who have a few months left to disrupt or support President Trump's agenda in Congress before they leave office? And what does it mean for the broader arc of President Trump's policy agenda in the months and years to come? And topic 3 Justice may be blind, but she's got a taste for vengeance. The Justice Department lost two high profile prosecutions in Tennessee and Illinois. Last week. In Nashville, a judge dismissed charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, finding that prosecutors had selectively singled him out in response to a civil case against the administration around his improper deportation to El Salvador early in the administration. And in Chicago, prosecutors had to withdraw charges with prejudice against four protesters after misconduct by an Assistant U.S. attorney in front of a grand jury came to light as the trial was about to begin. How did these cases break down and what did the losses say about President Trump's ability to weaponize the Justice Department against his enemies? So, for our first topic, I want to come and start with you, Anna. This weaponization fund has become such a huge topic of conversation for very good reasons. It's highly Strange. It is an unorthodox arrangement, and it seems on its face, it's not. Even the press release about it is not really hiding the fact that it has a strong partisan valence, even though a strong case has been made by the acting Attorney general and others that it's not strictly partisan. Democrats can apply for compensation from this fund as well. So talk to us about what the settlement arrangement is, that we are aware of, what the fund looks to be structured with and the kind of context it's arising from. Fill us in on some of the details for folks who have been following the story.
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D
Yeah. So just to kind of set the scene here, to give you an idea of how all this came together, you might remember a few years ago, there was a series of stories that ProPublica and the new York Times ran about the tax returns of wealthy Americans. And the way that they got those tax returns, including the tax returns of Trump and the Trump family, was because a contractor named Charles Littlejohn basically took that tax information and then leaked it to those publications who then wrote stories about it. Little John subsequently was prosecuted. He was sentenced to five years in prison. Many years have passed since then. But Trump, once he becomes president, subsequently, In January of 2026, files suit over the leak of his tax information. And along with his adult sons as well, in the Trump Organization, they bring this suit that relates to, you know, the leaking of this tax information. Now, keep in mind, on its face, this isn't like, really the craziest suit that Trump has ever brought, because there is, you know, under federal law, you
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B
can clear a privacy violation.
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E
Yeah.
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D
And you can bring suit over, you know, the unauthorized disclosure of your tax information. So it's. It's not totally crazy on its face. The issue for Trump, though, is that he's clearly outside of the statute of limitations. I also will mention as well that the federal government, in other cases related to the Little John Leaks, has. Has made the argument that he's a contractor, he's not an employee, and so therefore, the United States isn't liable. So there's all these, you know, defenses that the United States could, and very much would in any normal case raise in defense of this $10 billion suit. That's the other thing I should mention as well, that the damages sought was $10 billion. The only case that the government had settled in was a case brought by the billionaire Ken Griffin. And in that case, there was no agreement for a monetary settlement. It was, you know, just a public apology for what happened with the tax returns. All of which is to say that Trump's suit in any normal administration probably wouldn't go anywhere. At a minimum, what at most you'd probably get would be some kind of agreement for a public apology, because that was the precedent. Now, instead, what happens? This case goes to a judge named Kathleen Williams. She's an Obama appointee. And in the course of the parties indicating that they might have settlement discussions, this kind of raises a red flag for her because you have on one side Trump, and he's suing his own administration that he controls. And so to her, that raises this question of whether the parties are sufficiently adverse in order to give her subject matter jurisdiction. So she asked for briefing on this. She even asked outside counsel to write a brief on this to kind of help guide her in her analysis. But before DOJ ever even gets around to filing its brief with its. With its own kind of position on this, before the judge even gets to a hearing to hear questions about this, about whether she should dismiss the suit for lack of jurisdiction, we all of a sudden have news from DOJ that there's a settlement. Now, the question is, what is in the settlement? The settlement agreement purports to not provide Trump and his family with any direct monetary compensation, although there's another aspect to it related to immunities that I can let Eric discuss a little bit more. But in terms of the settlement itself, it says, you know, the Trumps aren't going to get direct compensation, but we're establishing this $1.7 billion fund that is going to go to people who claim that they have suffered from weaponization. And, Scott, you know, you're right that there are have been arguments that anyone can apply for this. But I think the reality is that, you know, it's clear who actually is going to be eligible in terms of actually receiving funds. For a long time, Trump has talked about, you know, how he thinks that many of his allies have suffered from political weaponization. He's talked about compensating the January Sixers. So it seems clear that those are some of the intended beneficiaries. I will also mention that in the settlement text itself, it makes it very clear that although it seems like anyone, Democrat or Republican, could maybe be eligible, the text itself mentions something about lawfare or weaponization being defined as, you know, the use of the law by Democrat politicians. Like, that's the term that it use uses. So there's this question of whether someone who has been targeted by a Republican administration would be able to apply for the weaponization compensation. But we don't know a whole lot about how exactly this is going to operate because the structure is such that it creates this board. The Attorney General Todd Blanch is supposed to appoint five people to sit on this board. They are responsible for setting up their own procedures, their own way of doing the claims. And those procedures can, according to the settlement text, remain secret. So we may not even really know ultimately how exactly they're making these decisions and who gets compensation. So that's kind of an overview and hopefully it gives you a good sense of how we got here and what exactly this settlement is.
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B
It is a wild outcome, not just because of the ambiguity, because of the uncertainty about all the structure, because of the lack of a clear relationship between $1.8 billion and the kind of harms you would suffer from disclosure of even as a prominent wealthy individual if your tax releases. There's just no real correlation there. It's astounding. So Eric, dig into us a little bit more. I know you and Anna wrote a piece on this together. I should flag, I think entitled the President who Sued Himself, which is a great piece on lawfare. Everyone should check out Eric, to bring us the other part of the story. This seems like it is a hard thing to imagine with standing scrutiny. Yet this is the plan that the administration has settled on. So why do they think they might get away with this? Why did they, why might they get away with this? And what are the vulnerabilities, the routes of challenge we're likely to see, including these three lawsuits that have already gotten filed.
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E
Sure. I just want to start off with how they are publicly justifying this and what they're doing is they're comparing it to a settlement during the Obama administration in a case called Keeps Eagle, which was a long running class action suit involving claims by Native Americans that the alleging that the Department of Agriculture legally discriminated against them when issuing loans. And the Obama administration settled that case for $760 million in establishing a court approved fund to administer the claims. And one part of the agreement was that, well, if there any, if there's any money left over out of this fund, it'll go to nonprofits working in Native American communities. And apparently both the government and plaintiffs assumed there might be like you know, a couple of million in loose change sitting around after all the claims were paid out. As it turned out, there was around $300 million left sitting around after the claims were paid out, which was obviously a huge amount of money and not a dime of it would be going to the actual people who alleged that they suffered harm. Some of the plaintiffs tried to challenge that, but judges, first the district judge and then the court of appeals, concluded that they were bound by the final judgment years ago that had set up the fund and set up the payments out of the fund and the provisions for what would happen if money was left over. So in essence, Department of Justice is saying, look here, there's a precedent for when their money needs to go to someone else, allowing money to go someone else who wasn't involved in the suit. Now, there are lots of reasons why that's a bad example to use. Not necessarily saying that it was a happy resolution of a case at all, but it was. It's not really at all.
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B
It's.
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E
This is kind of even worse in that in Keeps Eagle, the government settled a case that had been going on for over a decade. Here, there really is no case other than this kind of collusive lawsuit that arguably should never have been heard in the first place. And in fact, the judge, Judge Williams, was quite possibly on the verge of tossing the suit because she seemed poised to conclude that she did not have subject matter jurisdiction because there was not true adversity between the parties. Secondly, because keepsigl was a class action, the original settlement was approved by the judge hearing the case, including the provision that any leftover funds would go to nonprofits. Now, it was far greater than it turned out to be, far greater amount of money than anyone anticipated. But at least the principle was established. It was signed off on it by a judge. Third, in keepsake gold, it was clear in what way the government allegedly violated the law in a manner that gave rise to the settlement. Here there's just alleged weaponization. I mean, whatever that means. And fourth, the government says, oh, in their, in their press releases, they say, oh, this is actually better than what happened in Keepsakel was any money unexpectedly left over goes back to the government rather than being doled out to the non profits left in the case. But here, the entire anti weaponization fund is being given to people not involved in the, the underlying case. That's the whole ball game. And then it turns out the Republicans, as you might imagine, were not happy about the Keepsakel settlement. And there have been back and forth efforts in the Trump, various Trump administrations to prevent any payments to third parties in the future. And even under the Biden administration, their regulations would not have approved something as broad as the keepsakeal settlement. So basically, this is something that they're doing, is something that their own administration, their very own Trump administration, Two Trump administrations tried to ensure never would happen again. And we are kind of in. In undiscovered territory in terms of the. The legal ramifications, because it is. It is. I would say it's likely. It's. It's not entirely clear that this is illegal to do. It's one of these things that, like, your, you know, your kids would tell you was illegal. But then when you get to, like, kind of fancy lawyers and judges, they look at the law and they're like, well, it's actually kind of complicated.
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B
Or it might be illegal, but there may not be a remedy for addressing.
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E
Exactly, yes. And the statute that allows payments in settlements by the United States doesn't say anywhere you cannot give out money to third parties or you cannot do anything stupid or collusive. You could perhaps make an argument that if there is no case, no underlying case, then there is no settlement of a claim to be paid out. But on the other hand, the government does often pay claims where there is only a threatened suit, and it could be a threatened suit that may be kind of questionable. If there's absolutely zero chance of a plaintiff prevailing, then it's presumably illegal to pay a settlement. But if there's doubt, the government pays in cases of doubt all the time. And I would say it's not 100% clear that this case would have been dismissed on subject matter jurisdiction grounds for lack of adversity. Now, the question then becomes who has standing to challenge a suit? Because the mere fact that something is illegal doesn't give me the authority to go into court and file a suit. I need to have some skin in the game. And generally speaking, standing as a taxpayer does not suffice. I can't go in there and say, hey, my money is being used to fund illegal activity. I need to have what the Supreme Court has called a concrete and particularized injury. So an injury that's real, it could be, in some cases, a kind of a psychological or emotional injury, but it has to be sufficiently real and definable, and it has to be particularized, meaning somewhat specific. To me, it could be an injury shared by millions, but it can't be an injury that is shared by every American. And there have been three suits filed so far. In somewhat increasing order of plausibility, there is a suit filed by a nonprofit called crew, the kind of a good government watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, in Washington. And their theory of standing seems to be that they do a lot of good government work and they file and that they are. They are harmed by the government's failure to not abide by laws and more specifically by apparently not agreeing to preserve certain records regarding the slush fund. And this CRU is a very frequent FOIA requester and we should know.
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B
CRU is representing law firm and it's current lawsuit against the State Department. We should note that as a note of disclosure.
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E
I did not know that. Wow.
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D
I didn't know that either.
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E
CREW is. I'm a little bit skeptical of that theory of standing. It's not. I'm not really familiar with it. Maybe there is some precedent there. I think there's also kind of a somewhat separate ripeness issue there. Ripeness goes to whether a suit is ready to be, whether the harms that you're complaining about are actually happening yet, or whether you need to kind of wait and see whether they will happen in order to sue. And given that the weaponization fund has yet to be set its own rules and procedures, it's not necessarily clear that they will be as bad about record keeping and preservation as CREW indicates. And these were all filed, I believe, on Friday. The second lawsuit was filed by a couple of cops who were there on January 6th and who are claiming it's a little bit clever. They're claiming that. Not that they are emotionally harmed by money quite possibly being given to people who literally try to kill them, but that the establishment of the fund is likely to boost death threats against them and that they have experienced, which I doubt anyone, I don't think anyone doubts a lot of threats over the course of the past few years and whenever Trump rails against them and that this will lead to more of that. I think this is probably a bit too speculative for there to be a claim. And there's also the further question whether it would be redressible by a court decision. Like if the court then kills the fund because of your lawsuit, is that. Isn't that going to lead to still more threats against you? And you know, there's. There's. Obviously we don't want there to be like a. A heckler's veto, if you will, that in. In the law that like, you lose your suit just because the bad guys will yell at you. But when the. The very premise of your standing argument is that you have standing because the bad guys are about to yell at you, it doesn't seem to work if the remedy you request is something that will just further exacerbate rather than ameliorate that harm. The third lawsuit was brought by Democracy
- [26:46]
B
Forward, whom we've also worked with and represented some litigation. So I will note them as well. Note that as well for those.
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E
Another excellent organization that has done a just tremendous amount of litigation during the Trump administration, and they are bringing the suit on behalf of a few kind of very different plaintiffs. And they have a variety of upstanding arguments. One is someone who was was fired, a prosecutor who was fired on January 6. There are also this, the city of New Haven that claims it is it has had funds taken away from it because of the Trump administration's crusade against sanctuary jurisdictions. There's also a professor who out in California who was who was indicted for protesting and was tried what he claims was a politicized prosecution. He lost. He was acquitted. Rather. There's a couple of organizations that claim that the existence of the fund will lead to more violence against their members, including the National Abortion Foundation. They have somewhat interesting First Amendment and equal protection arguments, which I believe I need to research, but more to have some sense of their plausibility. One thing that the individual plaintiffs are alleging, plus the city of New Haven, is that they have experienced weaponization at the hands of the Trump administration that they are not, they do not have a chance to recover money from the fund and that this is a violation of the equal protection clause. So that's interesting. That's possible. One possible rebuttal on part of the administration might be that, well, the government is allowed to look at certain harms one after another, and that the government can choose and say that certain harms are worthy of creating a fund to remedy. And in essence, kind of the government spending its money on certain and it gets kind of complicated when you're thinking about that in terms of not something that Congress has appropriate or the executive branch has deliberated on, but that is a settlement for a lawsuit. So we'll see how these suits play out. It should be fascinating.
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B
So I want to circle back to the idea of legal challenge because I think there's something here. But there's obviously the most vocal response we've gotten this so far has been from a audience one might not expect. That's Senate Republicans. Now, we don't know exactly what happened, but we've gotten these reports, including from Senator Ted Cruz, has given some of the most dynamic descriptions of this fairly fiery confrontation between Senate Republicans and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche last week. Molly, talk to us about that and what it means, perhaps more importantly, for either the future of this particular program or other things that might be in the Senate's control that might give them some leverage over the administration.
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C
Yeah. So The White House and DOJ announced on, I guess a week ago Monday, the 18th of May is when the announcement came out about this anti weaponization fund. And then On Thursday, the 21st top Blanche went to the Senate Republicans regular periodic lunch for folks who don't pay closer attention to the Senate than you need to. Both parties meet regularly as the Democrats and Republicans for these lunches. Sometimes they have guests, sometimes it's someone like the acting attorney General to talk about something that the White House wants. And Scott, as you indicated, the visit by Todd Blanche to the Republican lunch was apparently quite. It did I believe that the first reporting on this I saw used the phrase it did not go well. So lots of Republicans voicing opposition to this, this fund. And this is, you know, it's politically important both because like this is a big deal, this is a thing that the White House is trying to do. And for all of the reasons that Anna and Eric have just outlined, we really should be concerned about it. But also Senate Republicans last week were trying to move a piece of legislation that would provide additional funding for, for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. And because they had on the floor an active live bill related to the same topic as this anti weaponization fund, they realized that if they tried to continue working on this bill, there would be votes on the floor of the Senate for Republican and Democratic senators where they would have to take a position on how they felt about this anti weaponization fund. Indeed, the pressure to have those votes was not only coming from Democrats. So Senator Bulcassidy, who I think we'll talk about more in a moment, had actually filed himself an amendment that would prohibit payouts from this fund that he was planning to offer to this bill. And so Republicans sort of immediate reaction to this problem was say, okay, we can't keep working on this bill, which is a really big policy priority. We can talk about sort of the series of events that led to Republicans in late May of 2026 attempting to finish the budget for these parts of the Department of Homeland Security. That should have been done by October 1, 2025. So this is a big policy priority for Republicans. And it got derailed, at least temporarily, by the fact that the White House made this proposal and it met with really by all accounts significant opposition within the Republican conference in the Senate.
- [32:52]
B
And it sounds like we got at least some concessions from Todd Blanche out of this. Right, made some concessions about transparency that they would to some extent share some degree of these reports that's coming forward and other measures are intended to address it. That's where we get this talking point about Democrats also being able to apply Hunter Biden being specifically referenced as a Democrat who would be eligible for this, notably Hunter Biden, a Democrat or a not, you know, not, not somebody in the alt right kind of community that people assume this is mostly for, but was prosecuted under the administration of his father, the Biden administration. So a Democrat administration. Do we have a sense about what has been may have been assuaged the senators? And is there any vehicle by which they could actually do anything about it other than, you know, kind of gripe about it? And I guess is there also seeing any echoes in the House at the same time about discontent about this?
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C
Yeah. So most of the reporting so far has been on discontent among senators, in part because the discontent was sufficient and was loud to the point that it made Republican leadership sort of make a substantive change in their legislative plans for the end of last week, which then had follow on consequences for the House. Because the original plan was the Senate was going to vote on this immigration funding bill and it was going to send it over to the House and the House was going to try and force it through and then everyone was going to go on Memorial Day recess and they were all going to be pleased with themselves for finally having solved this particular funding problem at dhs. And so I don't know whether negotiations went on over the weekend, whether negotiations will continue over the course of this week on exactly what kinds of changes the Justice Department could make to this fund that might mollify some of these Republican senators. We don't need to get too far into the procedural weeds here, but suffice it to say that if there are enough Republican senators who are upset about this, the exact sort of procedural posture and the rules of the reconciliation process don't matter so much like if they have 60 votes so all of the Democrats and enough of the Republicans, they could put in the bill something that says, you know, you can't no payouts from the judgment fund for this purpose. They can also, if this can if they sort of solve the immediate term problem in the direction of the reconciliation bill and we get later in the year to any number of bills to fund the government either in the near term or the longer term. There are all kinds of places that if Republicans are actually sufficiently upset about this to get together with Democrats and, you know, say no to the White House, say no, we are not going to do this. They have those legislative tools available to them exactly what they would look like, look a little bit different, depending on whether we're talking about the context of the reconciliation bill or we're talking about something later in the year. But it's really a question of kind of political will on the part of the Republicans who seem unhappy about this if they're willing to use the tools they have to push back against the White House.
- [35:54]
B
Hey folks, Scott R. Andersen here. Springtime has arrived and here in our nation's capital, it usually brings the heat and humidity with it in the daytime while leaving the evenings still crisp and cool. It's the time of year when I always have to be a little more deliberate about what clothes I'm wearing, weighing whether they'll be cool enough for biking to the office in the morning, but warm enough for after the sun goes down. And as I'm usually bouncing from work to lunches to events to recordings to the pickup line at my kids school, I'm always looking for clothes that are comfortable, flexible and classically designed enough that I can rely on them all day long, no matter the context, and preferably for years to come. That's why more and more often I turn to Quint's. It has all the essential wardrobe staples for spring, from light and airy European linen shorts and shirts to incredibly soft Pima cotton tees. Every item is made of high quality materials in classic designs at incredibly reasonable prices. Personally, my standard work from home outfit has become a pair of Quince's Warren Straight stretch jeans and one of their luxe Touch Pima cotton pocket tees. Both are classic looking but comfortable, and they've held up to all the wear and tear my kids can throw at them. I'm about to spring for more of Quince's Flowknit workout gear, which is, quite honestly some of the best I've owned. Like everything at Quint, these Items are priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find at other luxury brands. That's because Quint's works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen, meaning you're getting premium materials and designs without the markup. So refresh your wardrobe with luxury you'll actually use. Head to Quince.com Security for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com Security for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com Security now let's get back to the show.
- [37:37]
C
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- [38:10]
D
Help is always ready before, during and after your stay.
- [38:15]
C
We've planned for the plot twists, so
- [38:17]
B
support is always available because a great trip starts with peace of mind. So I want to get back to YOLO Congress. That's our second topic in a sec. Before we do that, let's spend one minute more on where we think this fund is likely to go. There's a chance maybe it gets nixed by Congress or sufficiently constrained by Congress. That's one possibility. We've got this act of litigation. I want to float an idea by you, Eric and Anna and Molly, if you have thoughts on standing, do you want to pull in? You've been hanging around with me long enough that maybe you've absorbed some views on standing doctrine. Standing is this bar we've seen get raised gradually since 1992, the Lujan decision, that kind of articulate and crystallize this doctrine, this three part test, and goes up. But it's also one where we see it's a flexible doctrine. And usually that's flexibility in the way of court saying I don't want to deal with this. I'm going to say there's a standing issue and exercise a little bit more scrutiny. But we've also seen courts sometimes going the other direction. Like Biden v. Nebraska is the clearest one, right? Where like the Supreme Court said the state agency or instrumentality usually gets money about student loans and they didn't get. But they're not going to. They're going to lose some profit money. And that agency or instrumentality, even though it's independent, still comes back to the state of Missouri. And Missouri can sue over Biden's student loan program. Right? That's the basic standing holding in Biden v. Nebraska. Very extremely simplified. I think that was a little bit of a stretch compared to the usual trajectory of standing doctrine. But it's just a reflection of the fact that standing doctrine is a little flexible in this environment where it is so clearly a unpopular B, transparently corrupt, and C, partisan on its face, at least in the pressing documents. Do we really think it's likely to be such a major barrier? Our court's going to be so reluctant to engage on this. And in my mind, doesn't it get a little easier as time goes on? Because once we start seeing actual patterns of pats, if you can get the transparency, which I actually think is something you might able to get through litigation, because some of this you might be able to get like jurisdictional discovery, right? If you're making particularly like a First Amendment allegation and you can say, well, we need to know what, what the payout looks like, if you can get some transparency around that, you can show where the money's actually going, then you begin to see something like, oh, competitor standing is one possibility, right? Like I am an organization. I'm, I am a Democrat coded or otherwise not eligible organization. I'm seeing oan get paid out by this. They're a direct competitor to me. They're getting subsidized by the government in a way that I contend is illegal. I think that's a valid standing theory. So doesn't this get more tenuous as time goes on, once we get past the hypothetical, or am I wrong about that? I'm weirdly bullish about the idea that somebody's actually going to successfully sue over this. Maybe it wouldn't withstand Supreme Court review, but I kind of think it's never going to get there because there's going to be political pressure and everything else, but it'll be enough to kind of get off the works. But it sounds like you guys are much more skeptical about that. What am I being overly optimistic about, in your view, or is that just a possibility? We don't know which way it's going to go. I'll start with you, Eric. Just because you set us up on the standing.
- [41:19]
E
That's a good question, and it's interesting. I don't know. I mean, one question, I guess is whether if you get into the courtroom door, do you have standing to try to take down the whole thing, or do you have standing only in order to establish eligibility for yourself to sue or to block your competitor from receiving funds? And I don't know the answers to the question, those questions, and they will obviously be case by case, they may, I mean, it may wind up being. Being able to take down the whole, the whole program because if you, if you sue and you get, if you're denied on the merits, if you will, then it's possible for the, the whole thing to come crumbling down. I mean, it's possible not only for maybe a Democrat was oan, you know, reportedly was is applying for, for funds. And they are a somewhat unintentionally comical right wing news outlet. It's possible they could be challenged not just by a Democrat, but by a more mainstream conservative organization. If they have the courage to take flak, they could challenge money going to oan. In that case, the challenge may go more towards the heart of the fund rather than kind of ideological issues. And the ideological issues could be remedied, I suppose, by just kind of broadening the scope of eligible applicants. And DOJ could say, hey, look, we all know what's going to happen. We can't, we can't guarantee you're not going to get money until you apply. So it might be in some weird way easier for a ideological confre, if you will, to get standing than an ideological opponent to the administration. I don't know. I don't know. It's, this is weird and new and I'm not so sure the administration is going to give in that easily. So it may in fact go up while you have the Supreme Court.
- [43:17]
B
Well, we'll have to wait and see to get there, though. It is going to have to get through Congress. And there's a lot of other stuff happening in Congress. We still have, in addition to this, we have votes happening on war powers resolution, related joint and concurrent resolutions trying to push for the termination of US or withdrawal, pardon me, of US Forces from hostilities in Iran, I think is the paraphrase, the language of those resolutions. We've got a potential vote on both this additional CPP funding, ballroom funding, although I know they got dropped off from the bill, I think even before this latest conflagration. But the administration still wants it. We may still get a request for supplemental funding regarding the Iran war that's still been floated multiple times, although I don't think we've seen any concrete indication of when that's coming. Earlier they had said before the August recess, so you would expect to start getting teed up soon if they're going to have time to debate and actually enact this thing, because that's where they wanted the money. There's a lot of things on the plate. And of course, I should not forget somebody's confirmation as the Attorney general eventually because Tom Blanche can only do this so long. Molly. All of this seems like it is ironically because of President Trump's really dramatic success at shaping the results of Republican primaries over the last week or two last Tuesday was, I think, what they call it, mini Super Tuesday. Right. One of the big primary days where we saw all these people in the Republican Party who have been critics of President Trump at times fall in their primaries. Ironically, because of that control, it looks like it actually be hurting his legislative agenda. Right. Like, talk to us about what the prospect of all these things look like under this new Congress where you have, you know, yolo, Bill Cassidy to joining Thom Tillis in some of his last gas paras here among a number of other people who may not be as inclined to go along with the Trump administration's agenda like they might have been a year ago when they were still contenders. What does that do to the dynamics?
- [45:04]
C
Yeah. So here I think it's helpful to start with a couple of, I think, important differences between the House and the Senate. So in the Senate, the two most consequential political events that have shaped the perspectives of some Republican senators in recent weeks are Cassidy's defeat in the Louisiana Senate primary and Trump coming out last week and endorsing against John Cornyn in the Texas Senate primary runoff. It's important here to remember that like Cornyn in particular is a well liked longtime senior member of the Senate Republican Conference. He's raised a lot of money for Senate Republicans and the idea that despite all of that, Trump, for reasons we don't need to get into, has decided to insert himself in the race and endorse someone else in that runoff. And I think this has left particularly senators feeling, you know, pretty unhappy with the White House. Now, does this mean we're going to see kind of a full on revolt against the Trump White House? No, it does not. But I do think it is opening up some space for some of these places where there are particular things that enough Republican senators are unhappy with. So the anti weaponization fund that we were just talking about, you mentioned the ballroom funding. So in this same reconciliation bill, which was moving along to solve a very particular political problem on the part of Republicans, which is that they could not get these particular elements of DHS funded under the regular order because they would not agree to demands from Democrats related to transparency requirements. All kinds of things flowing from the exercise of immigration enforcement, principally in Minneapolis back in January, they had to use a different legislative maneuver where they weren't going to have to overcome the threat of a filibuster. That was moving again, driven by Senate leadership with a particular really narrow focus. They sort of staved off pressure from House Republicans to make the bill a Lot bigger to cover a lot of other things. They said, no, we are doing this little narrow thing. Again, not to say that funding these parts of the agency isn't important, but certainly in the scope of what they could be doing. This is like one very skinny piece of legislation. And then the White House comes along and says, actually we would also like some money in this bill for the Secret Service. Listeners may not see my air quotes, but it was really clear.
- [47:43]
B
You can hear the air quotes, the way you pronounce Secret Service. I think on that one it was
- [47:47]
C
really clear that the White House's goal in requesting this money was to support the construction of the ballroom where the east wing of the White House used to be. There were some procedural questions about whether they could do this in a reconciliation bill. But fundamentally, while they were sort of noodling over how to square the procedural circle, it became clear there were not 50 votes among Republicans in the Senate for funding for the ballroom. So that's a thing that some senators were upset about. The anti weaponization fund is something that they're upset about. We have seen in Scott's wheelhouse slowly over the course of the last several months the number of Senate Republicans who are willing to vote with the Democrats, or all of the Democrats except John Fetterman, to vote to sort of try and restrict the White House's exercise of war powers in Iran. So we're definitely seeing all of this. At the end of the day, I think it may well be the case that like Senate Republicans are going to keep sort of pushing and House Republicans have a different calculus that they're making. So I think even with the Supreme Court's recent decision allowing a number of Southern states to redraw their congressional district lines in ways that are favorable to Republicans before the midterms, Democrats still have a really strong, really strong hand in the House going into the midterms. I think House Republicans, particularly the ones from vulnerable districts, are just much more laser focused on what do we need to do to have our truly best shot at keeping the House in, in November. And that is leading them to, you know, pursue some different things than Senate Republicans. But here again, I think we are just seeing this, this point where enough of these Republicans are frustrated and whether they're, they're not going to sort of make a full blown break with Trump. But on these particular things where they, they really do feel like the White House is overstepping, it's its boundaries they are willing to push back.
- [49:50]
E
Yeah, I would just say that, like one interesting thing that I've noticed through the years is that it's almost been a superpower for Trump that he legitimately could care less or could not care less. I never know which is the right way to say it about the fate of the Republican Party. Whereas like most presidents, grew up within the party that they belong to and that they became elected as a member of and care ultimately about what happens. And, you know, Barack Obama was not going to knowingly and willfully do things that would lead to the collapse of his party for his own personal benefit. But Trump just doesn't really care. So pointing out, you know, problems, to pointing out to him that certain actions would have bad political consequences just is not something that Republicans can do to him. And so that he could, he's much more able to kind of bring them along because he is basically ride or die for himself. And no one ever went broke betting against Congressional Republicans willingness to buck Trump. And I'm not convinced that this will necessarily be different. I will note, and I'm by no means the first person to note this, is that to the extent and the moments when Republicans have rejected things that Trump wants, it's often been by inaction rather than action. They don't vote down nominees. Rather, the nominees are quietly drunk, dropped. And these are nominees usually on the sub cabinet level. They don't affirmatively take up bills that will overturn his priorities, but they just decide literally to go home rather than put something in a bill that would support him. And we may see more of that as the months go ahead. And also, Trump, his political power is waning at, I mean, not, not all, not only in the sense of his actual popularity, but in terms of he's becoming more and more of a lame duck or given the decoration of the White House, perhaps I should call him a lemay duck. I'm sorry for that. But after this midterm elections, there will be, I counted and if my math is right, at most 19 Republicans will ever be running for reelection while he is still president. And that doesn't mean that the rest are going to suddenly start rejecting him. But his force within the Republican Party, just due to the linear nature of time, is going to decline.
- [52:44]
B
Yeah, I mean, it is this classic arc. I feel we talked about this podcast a lot where the President's power is at its maximum. January 20th kind of hits a little bit of a dip down as you get to the kind of off year elections in November, because it begins where you see the coalition begin to look a little bit vulnerable, then it kind of coasts through the end of primary season because of consolidation with his own party. And then it really drops precipitously because all of a sudden, once you get past primary season, everybody's got to look towards the generals. And in this case, the president is. Seems like he's accelerating that trend even further, more aggressively, because he is actively antagonizing these people who will still be in office if from his own party, but that he's decided to back contenders from a different political faction.
- [53:25]
C
Yeah. And I think another, another thing that's helpful to think about here is that the places. So Eric's absolutely right that sort of Trump's relationship with the institutional Republican Party is really different than we have seen most of his presidential predecessors. He is, he's not a creature of the institutional Republican Party in the way that most other presidents have. Republican presidents have been of the Republican Party and Democratic presidents have been of the Democratic Party. But a place where he tends to be particularly kind of inflexible are on these issues that are sort of particularly associated with him. And his vision of himself is maybe the best way to put it. So, like, it is not coincidental that these two things that we're talking about from recent weeks that have really sort of raised the hackles of some Senate Republicans are the Ballroom, which is like a personal Trump vanity project, and the Anti Weaponization fund, which is this thing that stands to financially benefit him and his political allies. And so it's not just that these are things that where Republicans are to some degree saying, like, okay, this is a line too far. But there are also things where Trump himself is kind of more likely to dig in. And, you know, at some point last week, there was a he made a veto threat where he said that, you know, if the reconciliation bill came to him without the ballroom funding and with language constraining the Anti Weaponization fund, he wouldn't sign it. Which even by Trump standards is like a pretty implausible threat, in part because, like the substance of the policy there is actually quite important to congressional Republicans and to other people in the Trump administration, even if Trump himself is mainly focused on these kind of personal projects of his that he's. He's talking about. But I think that's another part of kind of why we are where we are is because we're talking about some things on which he is likely to be particularly intransigma. And also they're things that have crossed a line for some members of Congress.
- [55:37]
B
So to me, when I think back to the first Trump administration, where I Feel like President Trump must have learned some lessons, right? You would think one of them seemed what you would think would be oversight really painful, right? Like the second half of the first Trump administration was a much more difficult time for the Trump administration in the first half, in part because all of a sudden you had a Democratic House that was able to engage in oversight, willing to engage in oversight. You had a bunch of other measures that were able to be installed, a bunch of litigation that particularly was being pursued, try and enforce different types of oversight activities, enforce variety of subpoenas. We saw a whole multiple years of litigation over this, some of which resolved, some which never resolved, that we followed here at Lawfare. Why isn't that compelling him enough? I mean, do we have a sense of that? Like, what is his vision for where this actually goes? If he has a Democratic House or Senate that's obviously going to be bad starting in 2027. Is that something even this House or Senate could be persuaded by if they want to create gap with this administration? I mean, a lot of what even if they can't actively strike down some of these things, maybe they have reticence around that. But could we see them make some budge around oversight measures? Whether it's, I mean, the traditional thing you get would be a pound of flesh at concessions of some sort from nominees while you're confirmin them. Right. But you could see more concrete measures, like you could say, okay, we're going to install some hard reporting requirements and transparency measures and maybe with private causes of action, something this Congress has been willing to do in the national security context, modally, because we're suing under a few of them that has been able to stall these measures, saying, hey, this information needs to be made public. And if it's not, private parties may well have standing to sue. Alternative could be, I mean, in the war powers context, something I'm going to have in a piece, I think this week, one thing you could see come out of a process of particularly a concurrent resolution, joint process that doesn't have to get Senate approved. It probably won't have legal weight of a law because of INS v. Chad, a Supreme Court case that came out since the war power resolution was enacted. But you could see Congress do other things on its own measures through concurrent resolution, through the expedited procedures like authorizing a lawsuit. So I'm just kind of curious, is he just not worried about this stuff? Is it just lack of foresight? Is it because people like Todd Blanch are too yes man to even give him the advice say, sir, this is actually bad for you. And is that dynamic going to change between now and November or now in January or now in January 2029?
- [58:01]
C
Yeah. So I have two answers to this question, and they're going to seem at odds with each other, but I think they're both true at the same time. So the first is that on this question of are there places where we might see narrow, focused, targeted efforts by Congress to try and restrict various behaviors by the Trump administration, not just oversight, but actually write them into law? Yes, I think that's entirely possible. Indeed, we have seen some of that in the current Congress. So to the extent there has been pushback by Congress against the executive branch, it has often taken the form of some Democrats and some Republicans finding some very specific thing that they are annoyed about. Sometimes it's the administration's lack of compliance with the reporting requirements, government, sometimes it is any it's been any number of other things. And then they write into often a spending bill some very specific language that says you don't get Pete Hegseth, you do not get access to all of your travel budget as the secretary of Defense unless and until you provide this information that we have been asking for. Now, as an aside, one consequence of what Republicans are doing right now in terms of trying to fund ICE and CBP through the reconciliation process as opposed to through the regular appropriations process, is that we may actually see more and more parts of federal operations that if Republicans were to still have a unified party control after the midterms, that they would try to just cleave off from the regular appropriations process, which would dramatically limit the ability of, of Democrats and Republicans who are annoyed about things to unite around them. But we'll just sort of I'll leave that aside for the moment. The other thing, though, is that while we may well see some targeted efforts to respond legislatively, at the end of the day, I think one lesson that the Trump administration learned from the second two years of the first Trump term is that the executive branch has a real advantage in terms of trying to run out the clock on a Congress controlled by the other party. So I had to refresh my memory of this recently for another purpose. But the entire episode where the House of Representatives tries to get Don McGahn's testimony over the course of the second
- [60:22]
B
two years, that was a great season of law.
- [60:25]
C
The Trump administration, the first Trump administration, and then it the whole thing doesn't ultimately get resolved until after Joe Biden takes office. And the fact that that then you had a Democratic Congress and a Democratic administration really shaped the settlement. I would refer everyone to really great treatment of this issue on lawfare by our old friend Jonathan Schaub. Like, you should all go back and read it if you really need to relive this moment. But I just think that they, I think they looked at what happened in the second Trump administration, and then if you look, or excuse me, the second half of the first Trump administration, and then if you look at what they've done in the first two years, years or first year and a half of this administration, where they regularly will just do things and then try to take advantage of how long it takes to challenge them in court to, you know, get some of what they want while litigation proceeds. That's sort of particularly on the oversight side. That's kind of what I expect. Like Democrats should they control one or both chambers, will try to do a lot of oversight, and then the Trump administration will simply try to run out the clock in a kind of even more extreme way than they did during the first Trump administration.
- [61:31]
E
I don't think Trump remembers the latter two years of his first term all that negatively. And I think the way he looks at it, especially after coming back to the White House in the end, is that Democrats didn't really lay a finger on him, even with impeachment. And he was still up there, you know, squawking, saying his things, flying around in his big airplane and playing golf. And in large part because, as Molly says, oversight takes a long time to work. And I would add also that in a world with a filibuster, which is likely the world we will still be in in 2027, even if you, all of Congress is against you, you still have a great deal of power as a minority party.
- [62:16]
B
Yeah, I don't disagree with that. The one thing I will say is that your ability to run out the clock, I think in a second half, a second Trump administration is a narrower than it is in the first, second half of the first Trump administration for the simple reason that a lot of these issues have now been litigated. And while they don't result always and often don't result in, like, binding determinations and decisions, there's still a lot of consideration around these issues that's gone forward. So, like in a hypothetical where you would have, like a renewal of Emoluments Clause litigation. Right. Which are a series of cases that got debate on standing up and down the courts for the whole first Trump administration, ultimately never got resolved on the merits of several of those people were Ultimately, at least, they were never found to not have standing. I think the only case that actually got thrown out for lack of standing was a general taxpayer one, and then the one by a group of individual legislators. Other ones were still viable, although they'd face different sorts of constraints and some plaintiffs had fallen out and stuff like that. So if you were to pick up that out, if you had the same theory, I think you could pick up the lawsuit a lot further along. It'd be harder to stall to the same extent that you did before. I think that's frankly, as I've talked about in the podcast before, I think that's part of the reason why the Trump Organization, for example, its business strategy this term is completely different than the first term and based on a completely different thing, commodities and cryptocurrencies that have very different relationships. And it would be much harder to get the same standing theories through than it would if they were just to reopen a Trump Hotel or lean into other aspects of their business. So I don't know, I'm like somewhat, I wouldn't say I'm bullish on the percentile of oversight. I think that would be absurd as somebody who's seen too many of this stuff. But I'm not sure it's going to be I'm not sure it's not going to be more painful this time around, the last time around. Adding to that also just the general background optics that this stuff is so much more transparent. You don't even have the veil of normalcy around a lot of this stuff that I do think really bears into how courts, even though it shouldn't, even though it's not supposed to, how courts view this stuff and their willingness to engage on it. But we'll have to wait and see with that. We are out of time today. We did not get to our third topic. Apologies. We've got a few hard outs here. We had a lot to talk about. Our first two topics were very interesting. We'll circle back on those last that last topic in a future week. But until then we are out of time. 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. Molly, why don't you kick us off so I know you have to step away shortly. What did you bring for us for an object lesson this week?
- [64:37]
C
So for anyone who has been listening to Rational Security long enough to hear my previous appearances, you will know that one of my favorite things is a great locally produced NPR podcast and I am happy to recommend the third season of one of my favorite examples of this genre, which is a podcast called the Big Dig, which is produced out of WGBH in Boston. The most recent season is called Catching the Codfather, which I think Lawfare listeners will particularly enjoy. It is at its heart about a prosecution of someone for violating various laws and regulations around the New England fishing industry. It takes a really strong turn to discuss Loper Bright at the end of the season. So it's not just about me and my interest in this particular genre of public media, but I think folks who like lawfare content will find it enjoyable as well.
- [65:41]
B
Wonderful. It is always good to see weird local NPR stories be taken at great length. That's the beauty of NPR is the sort of navel gazing we need more of in this world. Eric, what did you bring for us this week?
- [65:53]
E
I made a rare trip to a movie theater over the weekend and I saw a film that was pitched to its star, Hugh Jackman, when they're trying to get him to sign on as Knives out meets Babe, which is a movie about a pig from a couple of decades ago. And this movie is called the Sheep Detectives. It is in large part a murder mystery and there are sheep in it who in essence are are unpaid detectives to some extent. It is, it is nice. It's charming. It's a small movie. It is also a little bit touching. And if you're a fan of the of Succession, you will very much appreciate one of the actors who is actually the second Succession actor to have played opposite a a non human mammal in a in a movie because one of the other another Succession actor was was the lead actor in in Babe.
- [67:04]
B
I love it. It's based on a book, right? I think it's three bags full or
- [67:08]
E
I did not know that until I read the until I sat there through the credits. But yes, that is correct.
- [67:12]
B
I think people really like the book too. I've heard really good things about the movie. I thought for a second you were talking about Song. I did not realize Hugh Jackman was in this movie because I don't watch TV and I don't know what's happening in popular culture. I thought you're talking about Song Sung Blue, the Neil diamond weird by the biopic about Neil diamond cover Ban. I was like that's a murder mystery. How do you get the knives out from that? It really takes a twist. I had no idea. But maybe I've got slightly relieved. Although I think that does take a dark twist. But maybe not Quite that dark. Regardless, I am going to do the ultimate middle aged dad thing and share a YouTube video I saw on the Internet that I think maybe everyone is talking about. And I just have been. I actually found this a couple of weeks ago, so I don't know if I'm late to the party, but it's stuck around long enough. But tell me if this is too basic to share because I think it's interesting. Have you guys seen the Generation Young Lean video? The Story Storm video at the prep school? Anna's laughing. You've definitely seen this? No. Oh, okay. Then I'm actually sharing something 100 worthwhile. It's gotten a lot of pickup.
- [68:04]
D
The idea of Scott knowing who, like,
- [68:07]
B
Young Knowing who I am.
- [68:09]
D
No, like, sorry, like, I didn't know that you knew who Young Lean is. Scott.
- [68:17]
B
I, you know, I have my, you know, music scene is something I try and keep up with a little bit. I know Young lie. And it's. Could I say I knew a lot about him before I discovered this music video? No. This music video is simply one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. It's 100% worth checking out. It's from Generation, which is like a techno music, and they collaborate a lot with a guy whose name I'm blanking on right now, who's like a French choreographer. But this whole video, I think it's actually two songs brought together into one extended video about a prep school in the future where Young Lean is a stereotypical bully who's like, you know, doing drugs and beating up the other kids. And in some ways it's very traumatic. And I probably wouldn't have watched it the first half if I hadn't got it recommended to me by someone because it's just like, oh, man, it's just like high school bullying trauma all back. And it makes me now worry about my children and their high school bullying. But instead, halfway through, those parts of the video are compelling enough. Halfway through, it turns into the craziest choreography I've ever seen, which is essentially all of these prep school boys stood up on bleachers as if for a class photo. And then they do this incredible choreography for the whole last half of the video on the bleachers that creates this, like, twisting pattern using their jackets and their ties and their shirts. It's strictly amazing. I think it's one of the coolest things I've ever seen. So I'm going to share that. That's the generation gen 8. G e n e r number 8. I o n annoying to say. Generation Storm starring Young Lean. That's the video, at least at the version I'm watching. Check it out. It's a legit cool. Even if you're an old middle aged dad like me, whether you know who Young Lean is or not that I recommend it. And check it out. Anna, bring us home. What do you have for us for this week?
- [69:50]
D
Yeah, well, Scott, as I indicated earlier, I'm in my.
- [69:53]
B
I'm assuming it's the latest Young Lean album. If not.
- [69:57]
D
No, I'm talking about when we were talking about the Knicks. I'm in my basketball era, apparently.
- [70:01]
B
Oh, nice.
- [70:03]
D
My New York basketball fan era. And I went to my first New York Liberty game the other day, which is the WNBA team, and it was so much fun. And I know that right now, obviously the Knicks going to the finals. I read that the tickets for the finals costs like there are two seats that sold for like $270,000 or something insane like that. So let me just tell you, you can get really affordable tickets to a basketball game if you go to a New York Liberty game. And it's so fun. I saw Ellie the elephant, who is like the little mascot, and I also had the craziest experience in which someone fell on top of me in the, like they were trying to go, like to their seat and this woman fell, like right on top of me. And I was like, I'm so sorry. And I was helping her up and then I realized that I knew her and we'd met like six years before or something. So just one of those.
- [71:03]
B
Was she a future appointed U.S. acting District of Virginia?
- [71:08]
D
No, it was not Lindsey Allegan. No, it was this woman named Noel who was like a friend of my roommate when I lived in Turkey. Anyway, weird connection, one of those like, New York is the smallest town in the world moments. And it was just a great time. So if you want to go to basketball game, go to New York Liberty game.
- [71:27]
B
Hey, there you go. I've heard wonderful things about Liberty. It's supposed to be a great experience. I think they're very. They're usually very good. I don't know if that's true this season. I feel like usually they're like up there.
- [71:34]
D
Yeah, we lost the game I went to. But yes, they are. Usually they have a reputation for being good.
- [71:39]
B
There you go. There you go. Well, folks, that brings us to the end of Rational Security. But remember, Rational Security is a production of Lawfare, so be sure to visit lawfaremedia.org 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 Lawfare's other phenomenal podcast series. While you're at it, be sure to follow Lawfair on social media. Be sure to leave a rating 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, among other special benefits. For more information, visit lawfairmedia.org support our audio engineer Producer this week was me of Me and as our music, as always, was performed by Sophia Yan. Someday I'm going to perform the music too and we are once again edited by the wonderful Jen Pacha. On behalf of my guests Molly, Anna and Eric, I am Scott R. Andersen. We'll about talk to you next week. Until then, goodbye. Activecampaign is the marketing automation platform built for big swings and big dreams with intelligent suggestions. Powered by AI and your data. Generate ideas in seconds, import your brand and create full campaigns with simple front prompts. Send personalized messages backed by real time feedback, smart segmentation and effortless reporting that tracks every win. Let's redefine what's possible together. Get started for free@activecampaign.com.