This week, Scott sat down with cohost emeritus and Lawfare Research Director Alan Rozenshtein, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien, Lawfare Public Service Fellow Julia Curlee, and Lawfare Contributing Editor and Vice President of Research, Security and Defense at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Ariane Tabatabai, to talk through the week’s big national security news stories, including:
“Fission Accomplished.” After nearly four months of war, the United States and Iran have reached a deal to end the conflict—with Trump declaring it “complete” and authorizing the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz ahead of a formal signing ceremony set for June 19 in Switzerland. But the agreement leaves enormous questions unresolved, from the fate of Iran’s enriched uranium to sanctions relief to whether the ceasefire extends to Israel’s campaign in Lebanon. Is this the durable peace Trump claims, or a fragile pause papering over the hardest issues?
“Model Misbehavior.” Days after Anthropic publicly released its powerful new Claude Fable 5 model, the Commerce Department imposed export controls barring any foreign national—inside or outside the U.S.—from accessing it, forcing the company to disable the model worldwide. The administration says Anthropic recklessly refused to fix a dangerous jailbreak; Anthropic says it was a narrow, non-serious vulnerability and the order is a misunderstanding. What does this episode tell us about the government’s expanding use of export controls on AI—and its increasingly adversarial relationship with one of the country’s leading labs?
“Bad Vibrations.” In one of her final acts as Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard rescinded two Biden-era intelligence assessments that had cast doubt on whether a foreign adversary was behind “Havana Syndrome,” the mysterious ailments afflicting U.S. spies and diplomats. Gabbard’s office says the prior assessments cherry-picked intelligence to support a predetermined conclusion; critics worry about a politically motivated rewrite of analytic findings on the way out the door. What should we make of this last-minute reversal, and what does it mean for the future of the Havana syndrome debate—and Gabbard’s legacy as DNI?
In object lessons, Tyler remains steadfast in his mission to ensure that no one ever runs out of podcasts, this week plugging A Whole Other Country, a discovery from Tribeca Festival Audio. Alan embraces peak dad-tech with his bbq upgrade—a new, after-market temperature controller. Scott savors a delightfully spicy Supreme Court dust-up in FS Credit Opportunities Corp. v. Saba Capital Master Fund, Ltd. And Julia celebrates her mug, an appropriate mainstay during her post-White-House-PDB “deep state therapy hour.”
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