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The Lawfare Podcast
Lawfare Archive: War Powers and the Latest U.S. Intervention in Yemen with Brian Finucane, Jack Goldsmith, and Matt Gluck
01:04:43
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- [00:01]
Scott R. Anderson
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Matt Gluck
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- [00:15]
Brian Finucan
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Matt Gluck
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Scott R. Anderson
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Jack Goldsmith
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Brian Finucan
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- [01:51]
Jack Goldsmith
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Unnamed Intern
Cornett Intern at Lawfare with an episode from the Lawfare archive for March 30, 2025 on March 15, the United States carried out large scale airstrikes on Yemen, which officials said was the beginning of a new offensive in the ongoing conflict against the Houthis. The strikes received renewed interest following revelations that top Trump administration officials used signal to discuss the attack plans for the strike. The US first began airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen in January 2024, shortly after the Houthis began attacking ships in the Red Sea. For today's archive episode, I selected an episode from January 30, 2024 in which Scott R. Anderson sat down with Brian Finucan, Jack Goldsmith and Matt Gluck to discuss the then burgeoning conflict in Yemen and what it might mean for war powers. They talked about their recent pieces on the topic, the war powers Reports the Biden administration provided to Congress the administration's legal theory and what the law might mean for how the conflict evolves moving forward.
- [03:11]
Jack Goldsmith
I'm Scott R. Andersen. This is the Lawfare Podcast for January 30, 2024. U.S. military operations against Houthi rebels in Yemen have escalated rapidly in recent weeks, culminating in a number of major strikes aimed at degrading their ability to threaten Red Sea shipping traffic. But the war powers reports the Biden administration has provided to Congress are raising questions about how it is legally justifying this latest military campaign. To discuss the burgeoning conflict in Yemen and what it might mean for war powers, I sat down with Brian Finucan, senior advisor at the crisis group Lawfare, co founder and Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith, and Lawfare's own research fellow, MA Luck. We talked about their recent pieces on the topic, what we know and don't know about the administration's legal theory and what the law might mean for how the conflict evolves moving forward. It's the Lawfare podcast for January 30th, war powers and the latest US intervention in Yemen. So we have seen over the past several weeks, several months, really at this point a pretty rapid and significant escalation of hostilities. And we'll get in a second to what extent this constitutes hostilities, but what some might call hostilities in the Red Sea, specifically involving the Houthis, a kind of Iran backed movement of some note in the past few years that controls a substantial portion of Yemen and is backed by the state of Iran and has a pretty substantial military capability, more so than conventional pirate risks that we may be familiar with from conversations 10, 10 to 20 years ago in the Red Sea around other parts of the region. Matt, let me turn it over to you first, just to give us a little bit of a level set on the facts. Tell us a little bit about what we've seen happen these past few months with a particular focus on what we're focusing on in our conversation today, which is the US and ally, but particularly US Military action that's been in response to that.
- [04:57]
Matt Gluck
So in the middle of October, the Houthis began lobbing missiles toward Israel. I believe it was October 19th and those missiles fell short or were shot down by the US And Israel. And so that that state continued for a little while throughout the rest of October and hadn't escalated too much. And I should add that when the Houthis were sending these missiles, they claimed that it was in the name of, in the name of Gaza, in its fight against, in Hamas's fight against Israel in the name of Gaza, not necessarily in the name of Hamas. I may be fudging the details a little bit on that. And then in the middle of November, the Houthis escalated their attacks significantly and began to send missiles into the Red Sea targeting commercial shipping and eventually US and partnerships. And that resulted in significant disruptions in global supply chains. And it led the US in the middle of December to form an operation called Operation Prosperity Guardian with several allies and partners. And the purpose of that was to bolster security in the Red Sea and prevent these disruptions to international shipping. Unfortunately, and perhaps predictably, that did not deter the Houthis, and they continued to attack ships in the Red sea. So since November 19th, the Houthis have launched about 35 attacks on merchant ships and US and partner forces. That situation continued for about a month and a half. And then on January 9, the Houthis conducted their biggest attack yet, including on American and British ships. Then two days later, on January 11, the US and Britain, with the support of Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands, launched a large scale attack on the Houthis in Yemen, which targeted 28 locations with more than 150 munitions. And following that operation was the first war powers resolution 48 hour report that we saw. Since that January 11th attack, the US has conducted nine additional attacks, including another joint attack with the British on January 24, which triggered another War Powers Resolution report. And during that time, between the January 11th attack and the January 24th attack, the Houthis have continued to attack us and partnerships and also commercial shipping. And they have vowed to continue to retaliate in the name of Gaza. And throughout that time, the Biden administration has been remarkably consistent in its message that it will continue fighting until the Houthis stop their attacks.
- [08:04]
Jack Goldsmith
Matt, you've introduced this concept of the 48 hour report, which is really the focus of what we're talking about today. It's worth noting, you and I and Greg Johnson did a podcast, I think, about two weeks ago that gets into a lot of the political dynamics, particularly around in Yemen, around the Houthis, some of the strategic logic. But here in this podcast, we're really focusing on this question of the War Powers Resolution, which in a lot of ways comes down to what the Biden administration is and isn't saying through these 48 hour reports, of which we now have two the books. Brian, I want to come to you on this next question because I know from firsthand experience, in fact, from our time together in government, that you used to be one of the people responsible for shepherding these reports and drafting them and shepherding through the interagency process. Tell us a little bit about the War Powers Resolution, how it applies and what is relevant here and the role these 48 hour reports play, both in terms of how perhaps what they're intended to play in the War Powers Resolution and how the Executive branch, at least in your experience, actually approaches them and crafts them and what can tell us about their legal positions.
- [09:10]
Brian Finucan
Sure. Thanks, Scott. I'll tackle this at fairly high level of generality and then we can dig further into the details as necessary. As your audience may be aware, the War Powers Resolution was enacted in 1973 over President Nixon's veto. And one of the things that prompted Congress to enact the resolution was the perception that various actions taken during the course of the wars in Indochina were taken without Congress's awareness or authorization. And so the War Powers Resolution was an attempt to ensure that future military actions undertaken by US Presidents were both notified to Congress and also to impose certain substantive restrictions on the ability of US Presidents to take the country to war unilaterally. And so to that end, the resolution establishes certain reporting requirements. And the most relevant one here is that within 48 hours of US Armed Forces being introduced into hostilities or situation where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly ended by the circumstances, you know, Congress needs a report, a notification from the White House regarding that incident, and then connected with those 48 hour reports, which are the sort of subject of our discussion today. There is section 5B of the resolution also introduces this 60 day clock. We refer to a requirement that if Congress has not enacted legislation, enacted authorization for the use of force, you know, a declaration of war or an aumf, an authorization for the use of military force, US Armed forces have to be removed from hostilities or the situation of imminent hostilities after 60 days, and that can be extended out a further 30 days for the purposes of US force protection in order to extricate US forces from the situation. And so that's sort of the legal background here. In practice, one of the biggest issues with war powers reporting, and hence the implementation of the 68 clock, is the interpretation of the term hostilities and introduction of US Armed forces into. Into hostilities. That term is not defined in the statute. There is a committee report that provides the House Foreign Affairs Committee's interpretation of it that provides background in legislative history. There is a sort of touchstone in terms of executive branch interpretation from a 1975 letter the state Department sent to Congress. And that letter defined hostilities as a situation which units of US Armed forces are actively engaged and exchanges of fire with opposing units of hostile forces. But all that's sort of the touchstone executive branch interpretation. It's by far the only one. And over the years, there have been disputes between the White House and Congress over how the White House is parsing hostilities and assessing whether or not specific actions amount to hostilities. This, for example, is cropped up during the deployment of U.S. marines to Lebanon in the 1980s by the Reagan administration, where the Reagan administration tried to maintain that certain actions didn't constitute hostilities because they might be defensive in nature. Similar arguments were advanced by the Reagan administration in connection with the tanker war in 1987, 1988, and then more recently. Your listeners may be familiar with the arguments put forward by the Obama administration in 2011 with respect to the, you know, US air campaign, along with coalition partners against the government of Gaddafi in Libya, in which it ran up against the 60 day clock. And then, you know, came forth a novel interpretation of the term hostilities to argue that actually U.S. armed forces were no longer in hostilities. And so the clock wasn't operative. And so this is a, I think, a real issue in how we make sense of what's going on right now in the Red Sea in Yemen and whether and to what extent the administration is facing a serious problem with the 60 day clock and when that 60 day clock started ticking in the first place.
- [13:18]
Jack Goldsmith
And Brian, I want to drill down a little bit here on a process question about how these letters are generated and who has the pen on them or who has the multiple pens on them, as it's definitely not one voice on this, because I know, at least personally when I look at these, I think a lot of people who follow this issue closely, possibly the majority of whom are on this podcast right now because it's a small community who really looks at these things really closely. People really tend to parse the language. And there's often a strong element of inference about saying what is and isn't said or framed certain ways. And that's in part because of the assumption of the process behind the letters. Tell us a little bit about that. In your experience, although recognizing things change across administrations that may not be entirely current.
- [14:01]
Brian Finucan
Well, it's a good question and it's one that Congress posed to then Secretary of State kissinger back in 1974. So, okay, we've established these reporting requirements over the president's veto. Now how are you going to operationalize them? And so Kissinger responded with a letter sort of explaining the process that State and the Department of Defense had worked out at the time, which is that the chairman's legal would coordinate with the Department of Defense, Office of General Counsel, OGC on troop deployments and actions, and then they would in turn notify the Office of Legal Advisor, where you and I both, both used to work at the State Department to provide this information and then consult about whether notifications to Congress were required. And so there was this scheme worked out where there would be internal coordination at the Pentagon and then interagency coordination involving the State Department and then notifications to Congress. In my experience, when reports are filed or there's a situation raising questions about whether a report needs to be filed, you know, DoD will typically notify the State Department because they are much closer to the action. You know, they're in direct contact with the combatant commands. They're aware if there's going to be an imminent deployment of US Forces or introduction of forces into certain situations or if it's actually occurred, you know, it's already happened. And so they're the ones who are position of the facts. And they will reach out often to the, you know, State Department, to the legal advisory, National Security Council, and to office legal counsel at the Department of Justice to flag these issues, to raise, you know, the concern that, okay, we might need to do a notification and then discuss, like, whether or not it falls within the reporting requirements of the War Powers Resolution. And then typically, you know, the Department of Defense will take the first cut on the draft of any notification because again, they are ones that are closest to the facts. They know what US Armed forces are actually up to. And so that's sort of the general process, in my experience, by how these things work.
- [16:04]
Jack Goldsmith
And one of the offices you mentioned in there is the Office of Legal Counsel, which I think plays a particularly prominent, although not necessarily dominant role in how a lot of people who look at these things think about the executive branch's views. Because some of the best data points we have that spell out in some detail, although Never crisp and 100% clear detail, what the executive branch is thinking legally are office legal counsel. Opin, Jack, of course, you headed up that office during a stint in the George W. Bush administration. At least one public OLC opinion that relates to war powers has your name on it. This is the 2004 Haiti opinion, if I recall correctly. Although if I recall correctly, I don't think you actually get into it because you hadn't hit the 60 to 90 day mark quite yet. But I'd be curious about your experience from that office and from your other experience in government and watching it since then. How, in your sense does the executive branch think about this War Powers resolution constraint? We know the Nixon administration early on said that particularly this particular requirement was unconstitutional, but we've seen subsequent administrations frankly waffle back and forth in that a little bit. I think the most recent footnote of the last Clinton administration said this is a complicated issue of which administrations have expressed kind of conflicting views. And since then, at least, the Obama and Biden administrations have significant seem to suggest that there's a, you know, they more or less buy into it to some extent. But have you seen pushback around interpretive modes? How does the Executive Branch approach this fundamental question about what the War Powers Resolution means for the president's authority?
- [17:35]
Scott R. Anderson
Thank you, Scott. As a general matter, I think it's fair to say that basically what you just said is accurate in terms of the constitutional issues. President Nixon declared in his veto statement that it was the the termination provisions, and I think maybe I can't remember the reporting provisions of the statute were unconstitutional. I believe that the Office of Legal Counsel opinion in the Carter administration raised some constitutional concerns. Various administrations, especially the Reagan and first Bush administration, took pretty aggressive views on the unconstitutionality of the statute. Later administrations, especially Democratic ones, took a softer view and a more ambiguous view about the constitutionality of the statute. But stepping back from the constitutional issues, I would say, and subsuming those, the Executive branch basically sees the War Powers Resolution as a problem to be circumvented, and it's developed plenty of tools to do so. Some of them are constitutional arguments. Some of them, I suppose we'll get into later today, are statutory arguments. Brian went through the statute and all the various elements of the statute. What is a hostility? What counts as the introduction of forces? In what situation is the statute even triggered? Beyond the hostilities question, there are a whole bunch of the statute is poorly drafted, or at least it's drafted in a very difficult context, and it doesn't it gives the President plenty of statutory loopholes to avoid the clock problem and the running of the clock problem. And presidents and their advisors have found, independent of the constitutional issue, various statutory ways around it. So and but in terms of the general attitude, the executive, different administrations take different public attitudes towards the War Powers Resolution. But in my experience, when push comes to shove, they tend to find ways, whether Democrat or Republican administration, to make the statute's clock go away. And in response, Congress, frankly, hasn't done very much about that. So the president as the the first mover and the last mover usually wins those debates.
- [19:46]
Jack Goldsmith
So I want to get into those debates because you both or you three collectively through two pieces. Brian, Juries and just security a few days before the first War powers report on January 11th. Matt and Jack, your piece most recent, lawfare, that kind of came out just after the second war powers report that just came out this week, you lay out a number of arguments that have a lot of overlap. I think you hit on a lot of the same issues I want to run through, but you actually have a fundamentally slightly different tack about the clock, and that's particularly when might the clock have started? You, Matt and Jack, in your piece in Law Fair, you make the point that the Biden administration will have a War Powers Resolution problem at least as of April 11, which is 90 days after the first War Powers Resolution notification. Brian, let me turn to you first. Tell us why, in your view, there's at least a credible argument, even if it's maybe one the executive branch contests, that the 60 to 90 day clock, that window in which the president's supposed to get congressional authorization, has already run.
- [20:49]
Brian Finucan
So as Matt so ably ran through at the outset, there has been a longer course of fires, clashes, military activity in the Red Sea prior to the first US airstrikes on the Houthis in Yemen on 11 January and the start of this military action. We can frame it different ways. It was on the 19th of October when the USS Carney started shooting projectiles down missiles and drones that are apparently been launched at Israel. This is followed by the Houthis shooting down a US Reaper drone over the Red Sea. And then the Houthis, after they pivoted from trying to target Israel directly to targeting what they alleged were Israel linked commercial vessels, the Red Sea. The US Navy was repeatedly engaged in shooting down drones and missiles intervening to stop, you know, hijackings that were underway. There were several occasions when the US Vessels themselves were targeted and they shot down incoming projectiles. And then on the, you know, the 31st of December, there was an incident in which there's a stress call. U.S. navy helicopters went to check out the stress call from a commercial vessel. They came under fire from Houthi. Small boats returned fire, sinking several of the vessels and killing 10 Houthi sailors. And so there's this longer course of, you know, back and forth between the Houthis and the US Navy, raising questions about, you know, do any of these incidents rise to the level of hostilities that should have been reported by the White House and should have started the 60 day, 90 day clock ticking. I think one of the problems here is that we don't have a lot of comparative practice to judge from. The closest would be, you know, during the tanker war of 1987-88. But the, the situation in which US forces are shooting down missiles and drones without, you know, underlying statutory authorization is fairly rare. And so the executive branch hasn't really fleshed out what its arguments are for shooting down a cruise missile or a drone. Does that constitute hostilities? I will say that somewhat different context, different legal context. At least the Trump administration took the position that the Downey of a drone constituted not just a use of force, but an armed attack for the purposes of the UN Charter. So something of safe and gravity. But again, it's a different term of art, different legal context. I think the clash on 31 December is pretty closely paralleled by some incidents the US government has reported in the past. Particularly there are a few incidents during the tanker war that the Reagan administration reported, citing the hostilities prong pretty clearly because they were hostilities. And so it raises the question why that incident at a minimum wasn't reported and why the clock didn't start then. I will just say that I, I have heard based on my conversations in D.C. that the Biden administration may be leaning into an argument, at least in its explanations to Congress, that incidents involving what might be termed unit self defense or you know, on the spot actions authorized by, you know, CENTCOM or, you know, subordinate commanders don't constitute hostilities for war powers purposes. We can get into that further. But such a theory might also explain their reporting practices with respect, even respect to the airstrikes in Yemen itself.
- [24:29]
Jack Goldsmith
So I do want to come back to that, but before we get there, let me turn to Matt and Jack. Jack, I'll start with you on this, okay, if that's okay. You all peg your timeline, saying April 11 is the hard problem for the Biden administration. Why do you have that slightly different perspective? I think it's maybe perhaps an issue of how you FR the problem. But what leads you to say, like that's really the date that, that you're focused on in your analysis.
- [24:56]
Scott R. Anderson
So I think the simple answer is, you know, Brian might be right, that the, the earlier, much lower level skirmishes were, were they were the events that really should have triggered, but they weren't reported. The Congress didn't complain, and if, if that was when the clock started, then, then the Biden administration is in violation of the statute and we don't have much to talk about. Brian might be right. There is this question and we can probably come back to this, but I'll just mention it here about whether U. S. Forces were introduced into hostilities there. And as Brian knows, he's written about it, there's an OLC opinion and some practice that says when you're acting in Pure self defense, kind of in a passive posture, not clear that's what it was, that that doesn't count for hostilities. In any event, it seems to us that whatever the date was, whatever happened before that, certainly no later than the strikes, the joint operations with the United Kingdom using 150 munitions to target 28 locations in Yemen on January 12th. At that point there seems to us little doubt that hostilities had definitely begun. And one piece of evidence for this, and it's not clenching evidence, is that that's when the Biden administration filed its War Powers Report the next day, I think it was. And so we just start there on the theory that certainly no later than that date the clock started ticking in our view, or at least arguably or very seriously started ticking. And that's why we use that date instead of the earlier date. And it's just, I think Brian would acknowledge that it's a more contested case about the earlier lesser skirmishes. It's very hard to say because there's so many different views on this, whether that counted. But certainly the Biden administration didn't feel the need to file a letter then. And I don't know if there's been any activity. And was there activity in Congress in the fall complaining or pushing back on that? I wasn't following it. But there certainly have been concerns since this month about the use of force without congressional authorization.
- [26:58]
Jack Goldsmith
I think that's right. That's really useful. Thank you, Jack. And I'll flag just one more thing of note here while we're getting into this contested territory of the beginning of any 60 to 90 day clock, it's worth noting, and correct me if I'm wrong, I don't believe either of the War powers reports we have actually concede that certainly describe situations as hostilities. I don't think nor do they concede they're being filed under section 4A1 of the War Powers Resolution is what actually kicks.
- [27:22]
Scott R. Anderson
Yeah, Brian, you correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that they ever do.
- [27:25]
Brian Finucan
No, they studiously avoid either of those references to hostilities explicitly or the section of the War Powers Resolution under which they're being filed.
- [27:33]
Jack Goldsmith
Exactly. And I think that's worth flagging here. There's still arguments that tend to be retained. I mean, if you're doing that deliberately, presumably it's to keep an argument potentially open that even these War Powers notices may not kick off the start of that clock.
- [27:46]
Scott R. Anderson
Yeah, they always do that. But it is. And again, and as everybody on this call knows and many of our audience knows whenever the president sends one of these letters, the president claims that he's not even necessarily under a duty to file the reports. It's always consistent with the War Powers Resolution. So every one of these letters has built in, you know, defenses and leaves a whole bunch of arguments open for later. So you're right. There's. They certainly weren't committed in the January 12th letter, and I didn't mean to suggest otherwise that they were. They didn't acknowledge or concede that they were engaged in hostilities at that point.
- [28:24]
Matt Gluck
And just to jump in here quickly, I do think it's worth noting that I believe the only report that has ever stated that it was notifying Congress under section 4A1 was the first War Powers Report ever filed. So while it's true that the Biden administration did not concede that they were entering into hostilities, now, I do think it's important to give context. That's pretty standard practice in the War Powers Resolution letter. So that in itself is not necessarily a significant or a notable departure. And so I guess, I guess what I'm saying is I'm not sure we can read so much into that itself.
- [29:06]
Jack Goldsmith
Totally fair. So I think we've established that there's already a fair amount of ambiguity in the parameters of this debate. Some intentional by virtue of how the Executive Branch approaches these letters, some unintentional or perhaps incidental because of just the nature of these attacks and how they fit with Executive Branch precedent in various ways. But let's now run through the different arguments we have out there about how if the Executive Branch is passed or will at some point pass the 60 to 90 day clock, past practice suggests they may argue that they do not have to cease these military operations without assuming they don't get congressional authorization in that window, because each of you in your pieces do, I think, a pretty exceptionally interesting job breaking down these different arguments. And I kind of want to start with like the smallest bore argument to the larger bore arguments. Brian, I'll come back to you on the first smaller bore one because I think you already introduced the concept and that's this unit self defense concept, which is a bit of a term of art. Tell us what unit self defense means, I guess, in the first place and how exactly that fits in. Elaborate for us a little bit on what you said before about how that might justify the Executive Branch's position on some or all of these attacks not triggering the 60 to 90 day clock or not requiring a 48 hours report.
- [30:25]
Brian Finucan
Right. So unit self defense is a DOD concept. And what it's referring to is provision typical in the rules of engagement under which if US Forces are deployed somewhere and they come under attack, that they can defend themselves. That's sort of distinct from national self defense, the defense of the United States itself. And so as Jack referred to, there's language in a 1980 OLC opinion that states U.S. armed forces are in a country lawfully and they're fired upon defend themselves. You know, the OLC doubts that would constitute the introduction of armed forces in hostilities because they read introduction as requiring an active decision to place U.S. forces in a hostile situation rather than sort of passively be there passively and then having to respond. And so that could be a distinction that the administration is relying upon and it's reporting practice recently I will note that it's not a distinction that has been consistently relied upon across time by all administrations. So there are reports, including by the Reagan administration for the Gulf of Sidra for Lebanon and then for actions during the attacker war in the portion Gulf that were pretty clearly responses in unit self defense where US Forces came under attack, they mounted an immediate response. In some cases, reports actually refer to the rules of engagement to defend themselves. But they weren't actions that were, you know, directed by the President himself. And I will say that, you know, in response to one of the incidents in Lebanon in The, in the 80s, the Reagan administration reported it, but then, you know, made certain arguments that, well, it's not really hostilities because you know, the Marines were defending themselves. And I think, you know, Jack has written about the Lebanon resolution, you know, and Congress's response here that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee issued a report pushing back against limited interpretations of hostilities and indicated that they regarded hostilities to include actions in self defense or returning fire if fired upon. And then the resolution itself, time limited use of force authorization Congress passed, the resolution itself includes a provision saying that, look, Congress determined that Section 4A1 of the War Powers Resolution was triggered on this date and that date corresponds to a defensive action by US forces in Lebanon. So even if the executive branch in the past may have at times espoused this view, that the term introduction sort of precludes on the spot defensive actions, that's not necessarily a view that Congress has endorsed in the past and it's not completely consistent, at least with past reporting practices. But I do think that this sort of interpretive move could explain not only some of the things we're seeing in terms of reporting for the human and the Red Sea, but also reporting with respect to fighting in Iraq and Syria over the last several months as well.
- [33:31]
Scott R. Anderson
But is it right? So I know about the past practice, but isn't it true that the more recent executive branch practice, especially as unit self defense itself has come to be relied on more in various contexts that I mean, am I right to think that the Trump administration and perhaps the Biden administration, at least as a general matter, did not report on unit self defense, is that right?
- [33:53]
Brian Finucan
It's hard to always say in part because you have these various AUMFs at play.
- [33:58]
Scott R. Anderson
Yeah.
- [33:58]
Brian Finucan
And to what extent the administration's relying on those. So in Iraq and Syria when, during the Trump administration when US Forces were, you know, skirmishing with Iran backed groups there, the Trump administration relied on the 01 AUMF and then you know, for the Soleimani strike, also the 2002AMF in other cases. It's really, it's hard to know what the legal theory is that in terms of the non reporting and that's one of the challenges in general is, you know, what lessons do you draw from silence that's not explained and if Congress doesn't push back on it.
- [34:32]
Jack Goldsmith
Brian, I want to dig slightly deeper just on one aspect of this because you flagged interesting aspects of these strikes. I think it was on Twitter, which is some of the actions that were not correlated with War Powers Resolution reports. So these are the between January 11th and January 22nd and perhaps some strikes before January 11th. Were you noted authorized by CENTCOM and that a lot of these were described, some were shooting down drones and missiles in midair, although it's worth noting, not all of those were going towards US ships or at least aren't described that way in some of the accounts we've gotten from dod. And a number of them were targeting most more recently and particularly in the last few weeks, facilities that are described as kind of being primed to launch, launch rock sites or drone rockets, drone launch or rocket launch sites, presumably in Yemen. I think they have to be for the Houthis be operating these things that were about to launch some sort of attack. Do one or both or all of these characteristics fit better with this particular excuse than others? Is the CENTCOM delegation part of it? Is it does it have to be headed towards a US ship? So if you're shooting down a drone headed towards a non US ship, this argument's harder to make. Which one of those fit best within this argument?
- [35:43]
Brian Finucan
So as Matt and Jack point out in their great piece in Lawfare just came out today, you know, the Biden administration's only reported two of the nine rounds of airstrikes on Yemen itself. And these were both the sort of large scale strikes undertaken jointly with the UK on the 11th and the 22nd. But they did not report the intervening strikes on Houthi radar sites or missiles that CENTCOM is characterized as sort of like, you know, being prepared for launch. And so there's a couple of noteworthy features that those other the two strikes that were reported on were clearly directed by the President because the letters say that I directed this action. But we also know that CENTCOM has been delegated authority to take strikes in self defense and that seems to have been the basis for these other strikes that weren't reported. That CENTCOM reported these strikes on the basis of self defense. And there's a question about how broadly is it scoping self defense. I think this is one of the questions that Senator Kaine and others posed to the administration in their recent letter. Because you know, if you have a missile on a launcher, you don't necessarily know if this is headed towards, directed towards a US vessel directed towards a commercial vessel directed out into the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden or even towards Israel. DoD really hasn't gotten down, drilled down into those details and its explanation. So I think there's both a question for war powers reporting purposes of like, you know, is the delegation to CENTCOM a relevant distinction in terms of hostilities? And then there's a factual question, you know, are these actions actually, you know, by CENTCOM defending against, you know, attacks directed towards, you know, U.S. vessels?
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- [38:31]
Jack Goldsmith
Are you still quoting 30 year old movies? Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you still think Discover isn't widely accepted? If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past. Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide and every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the now it pays to Discover. Learn more@discover.com credit card based on the February 2024 Nielsen report Brian, there's one other aspect of this I wanted drill down on before we get out that you captured in your piece, and that's we've seen some unique practice around cases in the recent past targeting what is kind of a new sort of military phenomenon, which is unmanned vehicles like drones, that might also extend to other sorts of military equipment that don't have people on board, don't have involve killing individuals. And you know, the reporting around that has been a little different than some might expect, or at least a little more restrained. And that's maybe relevant here because some of these smaller incidents that aren't subject to war powers report on the 11th or the 22nd, some of them were targeting drones or missiles as opposed to individuals. Tell us what the practices around these incidents and how it might apply here.
- [39:48]
Brian Finucan
Well, this is an area, sort of an emerging area as you allude to in the past. You know, when the US has been shooting down missiles or aircraft, it's usually been in conjunction with a use of force authorization. You know, I think the classic example would be the first Gulf War when the Patriot missile batteries were shooting at Scud missiles. And so the emerging reality where you have non state actors that have sophisticated missile capabilities or drone capabilities and the US Is confronting them without a use of fourth authorization is fairly unusual. And we don't have a good understanding of how the executive branch approaches the application of the hostilities prong or the War Powers Resolution to these situations. That said, we've got a few incidents from the last few years to look at. The Trump administration had a couple of shoot downs of drones in 2019, one by the Houthis in Yemen, one by Iran over the Persian Gulf in 2019 as well, which almost sparked retaliatory US strikes, which the Trump administration also later cited in its ARC 51 letter regarding the Suleimani strike as constituting an armed attack that provided one of the predicates for the strike on Suleimani. So at Least as far as that goes. You know, a fairly serious incident. And you know, more recently, the Biden administration shot down a Houthi missile over the UAE with a Patriot battery in 2022, which was the first usage of US usage of a Patriot battery since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. And that incident was not reported either. So, you know, we, so we, based on these three incidents, you know, shooting down drones or missiles, the administration is not treated in practice as hostilities. We don't have any sort of reasoned analysis from them. And maybe this will be forced out by some of the congressional inquiries that have been made about, you know, how the administration's parsing hostilities in this context.
- [41:52]
Jack Goldsmith
Now, Matt and Jack, you get into another aspect of this definition of hostilities that has been with us that's particularly relevant to air campaigns like this and that dates Back to the 2011 Libya Office of Legal Counsel opinion and kind of broader case study that came out of the Obama administration. Jack, you've written about this at some length in other pieces as well as in this piece. Tell us a little bit about the understanding of hostilities that came out of that incident and how that may play in to explain some of the conduct we're seeing here as well.
- [42:22]
Scott R. Anderson
Sure. As Brian said earlier, the term hostilities and whether U.S. armed forces are in hostilities or in a situation where they're imminent, the term hostilities is crucial to the applicability of the War Powers Resolution and the clock. And yet it's not defined. And so it's been an area where the executive branch has from the beginning staked out a definition that tried to narrow the circumstances in which a military engagement of sorts is a hostility. I'll talk about the Libya episode in just one second. But it really goes back to 1975. I think Brian may have mentioned a letter in which the State Department in 75 and this has been, I think this is the origins or at least one origin of this idea, said hostilities means a situation in which units of US Armed forces are actively engaged in exchanges of fire with opposing units. So that very idea suggests that there's been a bilateral engagement of and hostilities. And you'll recall in the Libya example, the United States with air sorties was engaged in significant strikes on Libya, but it was a rather one sided affair. And when the ostensible 90 day clock approached the Obama administration, there was lots of internal dissension. And I think the president ended up deciding this issue, determined that that massive air campaign against Libya did not constitute hostilities within the meaning of the War Powers Resolution. And Thus that there was, you know, there was, the clock wasn't even running because basically because as State Department legal advisor Harold Coase testified, he said that the mission was unusually limited. And I think by that he meant it was an air campaign, no troops on the ground. And then also he said that it involved limited exposure for U S Troops and limited risk of escalation. And, and that that definition is kind of consonant with the 1975 definition I gave. It suggests that unless U. S. Troops are on the firing line and unless there's a serious risk of escalation or something like that idea that there we're not even in hostilities, even if we're bombing the hell out of a country, that doesn't count as hostilities. So that is, that's the background to the question now. But as Matt and I argue, this situation seems different. I mean, these, there's an exchange of hostilities. Clearly the Houthis have been firing and we've been firing back and they've been aiming at US Forces and we've been aiming at them and private US Commercial ships as well. And it seems like here, as opposed to Libya, that there's a very serious chance of escalation. I mean, the matter has in fact been escalating. Both sides have been threatening escalation. So there's a very serious question whether this, this gambit, I'm not saying it's an airtight argument, the one I'm making, but this situation, if they're going to argue that this is not hostilities, it's a significant step beyond what happened in Libya in my judgment.
- [45:25]
Jack Goldsmith
So that's really interesting. I want to push on that a little bit or just, just drill down on a little bit because it's an interesting assumption about what the variables are. You know, Libya in the Libya case I think was a more extended, in terms of sheer material like substantially larger campaign than this has been so far, although we might yet get there. And part of the US Mission there was, as I recall, establishing air superiority, meaning taking out anti aircraft capabilities here. I don't know. My sense is that there isn't a huge anti aircraft capability concern like the troops involved. To the extent there are any launching these rockets to extend, they're not being launched from drones or from missiles far away because we know, you know, a variety of platforms have been launching these things. It's not clear to me they're, they're closer in reach. So I guess what are, what are the big variables that's different here? Is it escalation and then what is it escalation to, you know, is it is the assumption that, that this will escalate into something with Iran or with another major military power, because the Houthis, I think even on a regional basis, I'm not sure we would say is the equivalent of a military power of like the Libyan State in 2010 prior to the revolution. So I'm curious what the, what you see as the relevant variables to make, to differentiate in that way.
- [46:38]
Scott R. Anderson
Well, again, none of this is clear, but, and all of this is subject to judgment and it's usually the unilateral judgment of the executive branch. But I just think this situation, first of all, the back and forth with the Houthis has escalated. It's gone through several rounds now. The rounds have on some dimensions been getting, been growing and both parties have suggested, both sides have suggested they're willing to continue to up the stakes until they prevail. So that, that, that by itself suggests a threat of escalation. So that's the first point. The second point is I don't believe someone, correct me if I'm wrong, that there was any fire from Libya that was directed at U.S. forces that plausibly could have hit U.S. forces. And I don't believe that that's the case in the skirmishes in the Red Sea. So this just seems, this situation seems closer, much closer to the idea of exchanges of fire with opposing units of hostile forces, to go Back to the 1975 letter. And on that, on those two dimensions, the threat to US Troops and the risk of escalation does seem different to me than Libya. But you're right, Libya was a much larger and more, at least over time, it was a more persistent and intense engagement, but it was unilateral, so to speak. And that's, I think, what the key point was. And I'm pretty sure that's what CO emphasized, although really the testimony had four or five different factors. And this is a typical executive branch move. They say this situation is not like that situation for five reasons and therefore we don't have to abide. We can distinguish this case from that case. In any event, those are my two answers. Does that make sense?
- [48:23]
Jack Goldsmith
They do. Brian, I'll let you hop in here. What do you take on this?
- [48:28]
Brian Finucan
So even setting aside the relevance for the law, I definitely think it's the situation where the likelihood or possibility of escalation is very different from Libya for a few reasons. One, the proximity of large numbers of US Military personnel, and I'm not talking just on naval vessels, I'm talking about places like Djibouti, UAE. I mentioned a moment ago that back in 2022, US shot down a Houthi missile aimed at incoming at a US Military base in the uae. So the US has military forces in the region and it's notable that the strikes conducted thus far, the way they've been conducted, the US Strikes conducted thus far, based on public reporting, it appears all of them have been launched by the US Navy. So either F18s or Tomahawks, F18s, it seems to be the case they're using standoff munitions. So cruise missiles, JASSMs, they're not actually dropping bombs on them from overhead. And so there's a few things that are notable about this. One, the use of exclusively naval assets means that they don't have to launch from bases in the region. And I think that may be a function of the sensitivity of the host countries for those strikes. They don't want to become targets for potential Houthi retaliation. And two, the nature of the munitions being used may signal a certain level of concern on the part of the US Military about the Houthis ability to shoot down US Warplanes. As I mentioned earlier, you know, there was a downing of a Reaper, very different obviously than F18, but dying of a Reaper back in November. And the Houthis had previously shot down drones over Yemen. So they have some anti aircraft capability which may, you know, maybe a cause for caution on the part of the US Military. And I think that, you know, again, the more important part is that the Houthis, based on their missile arsenal and the proximity of US Personnel in the region, they have an ability to escalate this conflict, even if that's not the intention or desire of the White House in terms of like the strained interpretation of Hostilities adopted in 2011 with respect to Libya, I'll just note that that seems to have been dropped even, you know, later on by the Obama administration. You know, there was reporting, you, you and I remember this well during the counter ISIS campaign regularly on the airstrikes there. There was, you know, a report filed in 2016 with respect to Tomahawk missile strikes on the Houthi radar facility. And then, you know, the Trump administration also seems to have not utilized the, the Libya theory because they reported strikes, for example, in 2017, 2018 in response to the chemical weapons usage in Syria. So the sort of even one off airstrikes without any sort of bilateral exchange of fire seem to be reported by both the last two administrations. And so even looking at the 1975 letter to Congress and they exchanges of fire language. In practice, it seems to be that administrations often report airstrikes with standoff munitions where there's no real likelihood that US forces are actually going to be fired upon.
- [51:33]
Jack Goldsmith
So there's another aspect of this concept or definition of hostilities. You both get into your pieces. Matt, I'll turn to you on this for what you call, somewhat politely the renewed clock. Brian calls it somewhat more evocatively salami slicing. But because I'm a vegetarian, I'm going to go with renewed clock argument here. Tell us about this, Matt. How does this fit into this argument? Might it help explain this somewhat strange pattern we see of these two war powers reports amidst all these incidents?
- [52:01]
Matt Gluck
Yeah, sure. So I'll actually go back to 1987 and 1988 and the tanker War and Brian has a, has a very instructive article on this in Just Security. So check that out. So the Reagan administration during that war appeared to take this approach where it reported several different strikes that appeared to be part of the same individual set of hostilities separately in its War Powers Resolution reports. And one thing that's very interesting about the way it did that is it said explicitly in I believe three or four of those reports that the incident it was reporting was closed. So it didn't just report them separately, but it said that, that the military action it was taking was finished and so then that would stop the clock. So that was pretty interesting that it said that expressly. We may have seen this approach in the 90s in Bosnia during the Clinton administration, but then we see it most centrally, and Jack has a piece on this in lawfare from 2014 that the Obama administration was reporting its operations, its airstrikes against ISIS in the summer of 2014. It sent many different letters, although again it seemed to be reporting on the same set of hostilities, but it seemed to be sending these different letters. And the purpose of this is to, as Brian mentioned earlier, is to restart the 60 or 90 day clock that's kicked in by the introduction of US forces into hostilities and the reporting on those hostilities under Section 4. And then the termination provision is under Section 5B. So we have that, we have those three precedents. And then it seems that the Biden administration is taking that approach again here. So we have the first report that's sent after the first large scale attack with, with the UK on January 12th. And then we have the Biden administration sending Another report on January 24 after the second large scale attack with the British and with the support of allies and so even though the Biden administration did not report on the smaller strikes that it conducted between January 12 and January 24, it appears to be taking this approach that each of these larger scale attacks, each of them is a separate operation which restarts the clock so that the termination provision, Congress's power under section 5B, doesn't kick in. Just, just one more thing on that. So one, one problem about, about this approach in the current context specifically is that if you read. So I, I've gone through the, the press briefings that the White House and the Pentagon has given since the initial January 12th attacks and they consistently describe the, really remarkably consistently. If you have time, take a look at some of the statements, the description of the, of the strikes. They have the singular goal of deterring Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and that goal remains completely constant. And the Biden administration expresses a commitment to continuing this operation as long as the Houthis continue to attack. In fact, multiple times the deputy press secretary of the Pentagon, Sabrina Singh, has said it's up to the Houthis how long this will go on. So even though the Biden administration is taking this splicing approach, it doesn't seem to actually reflect what's happening in Yemen.
- [55:39]
Jack Goldsmith
But it's safe to say that the fact they filed the second report on January 22 is probably good evidence that they are doing the salami slicing approach. Because if it were seen as one continuing stint of hostilities, they would only have had to file the first report. Report. Is that fair?
- [55:55]
Matt Gluck
Yes, absolutely. What I'm saying is that seems to be what they are doing. I don't think that it's a legitimate representation of the hostilities themselves, although it appears that they're taking that approach. As Jack said at the top, the war priors resolution has largely become a problem for the executive branch to deal with. Although it does have some important effects as you've written about, it doesn't seem to be a constraining mechanism and I think we're seeing that play out here.
- [56:26]
Jack Goldsmith
So let's put ourselves in the universe that Brian already thinks we're in and that you all think happens on April 12, where we have exhausted the 60 to 90 day clock and we are now at the point where, unless it's possible that they are reserving the right to say our war powers letters had nothing to do with hostilities, we were just happening to submit them under other sections of parts of section four, not a one. Let's say the Biden administration concedes, oh no, those were about hostilities. And now we are in a situation where we're past the 69, 90 day clock. We're supposed to get congressional authorization, and they haven't or they haven't tried. There's two arguments left that you all flag in your respective pieces, and particularly Matt and Jack, you emphasize in yours that, say, here are other ways that the administration could go with this. I think the first one is the statutory argument, because I think we can do away with this relatively succinctly. Brian, actually, I'll turn to you on this. I think you're maybe a little more skeptical of this, and we can see if Matt or Jack, who are also quite skeptical, but maybe give it a little more credence, want to weigh in on this. Do you see a statutory argument here that might be deployed in any sort of reasonable or even colorable way to pull this in, as we saw happen in the cases you mentioned before, like in Iraq in 2014?
- [57:37]
Brian Finucan
I don't see a semi plausible argument, but I can imagine one might be advanced if the administration were sufficiently desperate. You know, you and I both lived through the 2014 experience. You know, I think, you know, there were arguments being teed up the end of the Trump administration that the 2001AMF might apply to Iran on the basis that, you know, al Qaeda leadership is like under, essentially under house arrest in Iran and therefore Iran is harboring Al Qaeda. That was critiqued by commentaries on the outside at the time. But people might try to bootstrap one, move further from that and say, well, based on connections between Iran and Al Qaeda and then based on Iran's backing for the Houthis, ergo, somehow the Magic with the 2001AMF now applies to the Houthis. I don't think, as I said, that's a semi plausible argument. But, you know, as we saw with 2014 and ISIS, it didn't seem to be a great argument that the 2001AMF applied to ISIS at the time either. But now people have sort of, you know, lived to deal with it.
- [58:35]
Scott R. Anderson
We suggest that the least bad argument is that the 2001 AUMF authorizes force against the Houthis. But as we explain, it's. It barely passes the laugh test.
- [58:47]
Jack Goldsmith
I will say from my perspective, I'm not sure it does. But, but I take your, I take your point there, that you think it.
- [58:54]
Scott R. Anderson
Does pass the laugh test.
- [58:55]
Jack Goldsmith
I think it does not. I think that's, that's a far harder to make argument than that. That I think would be a last resort.
- [59:01]
Scott R. Anderson
No I agree with that. I, I completely agree with that. I don't. They have many less weak arguments before they get to that one one.
- [59:08]
Jack Goldsmith
And so the last issue here that you all flag, particularly in your piece Matt and Jack, is what you describe as an article to self defense override argument, an argument that the Constitution empowers the President in certain relevant circumstances to ignore statuary constraints. Jack, let me come to you on that. Tell us a little bit about what this theory is, which I think is, it's fair to say is something that is the. To my knowledge the Executive branch has never quite expressly articulated, although we've gotten close recently, including in the Soleimani LLC opinion of kind of hinting at it. But it's long been talked about and people kind of see as a, as a likely or strongly suggested executive branch argument. Tell us how that fits in here and might apply to these facts as we have them.
- [59:52]
Scott R. Anderson
Sure. So I don't think that this will be the standalone argument that they rely on. It could conceivably be used as a background argument to support other statutory arguments. The argument begins from the premise that the President's Article 2 Self defense powers are his most robust military powers. And this goes back to the founding in a quite different context where, but where it was. But it's been recognized from the beginning that the President has a core of self defense powers directly under Article 2. And presidents have through persistent practice expanded that notion of self defense. And the unit self defense idea that we were relying on earlier ultimately in my view derives from this Article 2 idea. So the argument here would be that maybe the War Powers Resolution can limit the President's offensive uses of force and maybe the clock can apply there, but that it would violate Article 2 if Congress basically if the War Powers Resolution was based and the clock limitations were were applied to prevent the President from defending the troops out in the field, so to speak, that that would be the height of Article 2 where Congress's powers to trump Article 2 were at its weakest and that the President could argue that his self defense powers to protect the troops to the extent that all of these actions can be derived from self defense, we'd have to make that argument. But certainly many of them can. And how we'd have to talk about how broadly the self defense conception would be, but that the President could disregard this restriction because it would violate his ability to protect the troops. Now at some level that seems right in the sense that it doesn't seem if the President is in the field leading the troops in an authorized fashion, either under Article 2 or a statute and the troops are under attack, the President could plausibly assert a self defense power. It has super broad implications, as we discussed, because we have so many troops in so many places that are under attack in so many different ways. But in any event, that's the basic argument. And I don't, I just think it's extremely unlikely that OLC will rely on that argument. I think it'll be the hostilities argument or the salami slicing argument or some combination that they rely on. But they could emphasize the self defense posture and the President's special and robust powers in the self defense context as a basis, either through constitutional avoidance or through contextual argument for supporting the statutory argument. I wouldn't be shocked to see it used in that context.
- [62:25]
Jack Goldsmith
So we're almost at the end of our time together, but I want to take a moment to step back and both make a prediction and then an assessment about what this all means. How is it that each of you think the Biden administration is likely to proceed here? Let's assume that the current status quo that we're seeing, which is series of these smaller incidents with occasional needs to take larger comprehensive, coordinated airstrikes against the Houthis, basically what we've seen over the last few months continues for the next six months. How do you think the Biden administration will approach that? And then what are the stakes of that? What are the pros and downsides that we're dealing with that people should take into account when they're thinking about this war powers question? Matt, let me start with you.
- [63:08]
Matt Gluck
Yeah. I think, I think the administration, I mean, obviously it depends on what happens tactically, but I think the administration is most likely to, to take this renewed clock or salami slicing argument and that that's what, that's what's suggested by their reporting so far. It could be that I could see this happening, that they start to, as Jack said, use some of these background statutory or constitutional arguments. But I see them, I think there will be more joint attacks with the UK and backed by these partner forces. And I think the administration will continue to report on those and argue that they each represent discrete uses of force. What does it say about the War Powers Resolution? I think it affirms what we thought, that the constraining power of the War Powers Resolution is pretty weak. There have been some members of Congress who have already made arguments that the Biden administration has been acting beyond the scope of its authority. But I think there will be some noise. But I think, I think ultimately it represents the weakness of the War Powers Resolution in this context. I don't think necessarily. I mean, I think the War Powers Resolution does some really important things for larger conflicts, but for these types of conflicts, I think it's pretty weak.
- [64:31]
Jack Goldsmith
Brian, how about you?
- [64:32]
Brian Finucan
Legal prediction? I agree that the administration is likely to continue relying on creative Stafford interpretations and creative readings of hostilities when the clock starts and stops. I don't think they're going to go to Congress and seek an AUMF for a number of reasons, including because I don't think the President wants that in an election year, doesn't want to formally own a new war in the Middle east in quite that way. In terms of policy, I think the administration recognizes that these steps are taken so far. Use of military force, this terrorism designation for the Houthis are not going to have much of effect. You heard the President's admission last week that the strikes were not working to stop Houthi attacks. And so there may come a time where they eventually have to grapple with the underlying reason for the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, which is the Houthi response to the war in Gaza. Gaza, and try to address the conflict there and de escalate things regionally. I think that their outreach to the Chinese to get the Chinese to lean on the Iranians to lean on the Houthis is not going to be super successful. So I think, you know, after they exhaust other options, I think they will come back to try to, hopefully they'll come back to addressing the underlying cause again, which is the conflict in Gaza.
- [65:44]
Jack Goldsmith
And Jack, I'll give you the last word.
- [65:46]
Scott R. Anderson
I agree that the administration is likely to justify not violating the clock through some combination of interpreting hostilities and the so called salami slicing argument. I also agree that President Biden is extremely unlikely to seek authorization, not just in addition to the reason Brian stated, the domestic reason. I don't think he wants to elevate the stakes in the Middle east which would happen if there was an official authorization of force against the Houthis. And the last thing I'll say is this whole discussion and this whole dance that we go through every time there's a war like this about where the lawyers sit around and look at the precedents and see which way the, the administration lawyers are going to come up with to get out from underneath the clock and we all know that it's going to get out from underneath the clock if it wants to. It really is just revealing of, of as I said, a second ago. What a game the War Powers Resolution has become. It's a game that the executive branch always wins, and it's a game that it's going to continue to win until Congress, you know, imposes pain for the President, you know, using force as as the President sees fit. And I don't think that's ever going to happen. I don't think that except in extreme circumstances that we've seen intermittently over many decades, that Congress has the wherewithal to impose any pain on the President. It so this is all an internal game with the lawyers, as far as I can tell.
- [67:17]
Jack Goldsmith
We'll have to leave the conversation there for now, but Brian, Matt, Jack, thank you for joining us here today on the Lawfare Podcast.
- [67:24]
Matt Gluck
Thanks for having me.
- [67:25]
Brian Finucan
Thank you.
- [67:29]
Jack Goldsmith
The Lawfare Podcast is produced in cooperation with the Brookings Institution. Please be sure to rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. And be sure to check out LawFair's other podcasts and including Rational Security, a casual, light hearted chat about national security news that I co host each week with my colleagues Quinta Jurecik and Alan Rosenstein. In addition, be sure to visit lawfairmedia.org for extensive written coverage of national security law and policy issues and consider becoming a material supporter of Lawfare to gain access to an ad free version of this and other Lawfare podcasts, among other perks. For more information, visit lawfairmedia.org support this podcast was edited by Jen Patchahal and produced by Noam Osband of God Rodeo. Our music is performed by Sophia Yan. As always, thank you for listening. In my early days as an advertiser, running commercials on TV was guesswork. I knew TV was powerful, but it was impossible to see which ads truly worked. So I teamed up up with the best data scientists to create a better way to buy and measure TV ads. Tatari was born. Today, hundreds of brands and agencies use Tatari and we help them optimize with metrics that actually grow the business. Learn more at Tatari TV.