Executive Functions Chat
Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith discuss news about the presidency. www.execfunctions.org
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 7
- Latest publication
- Sep 22, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 9, 2026
Latest episodes
Is Trump Media’s Early-Access Feed Lawful? (opens the original)
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Jack Goldsmith interviews John Coates, the John F. Cogan, Jr. Professor of Law and Economics at Harvard Law School and former general counsel of the Securities and Exchange Commission, about Trump Media’s sale of early access to the president’s Truth Social posts—up to $100,000 a month for a roughly 50-millisecond head start on market-moving announcements. They discuss how the arrangement differs from the low-latency data feeds Bloomberg and Dow Jones lawfully sell, how the STOCK Act applies the
SCOTUS Leaves the Ballot-Mail Rule Blocked (opens the original)
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Bob Bauer discusses the Supreme Court’s order declining to stay the injunction against the Postal Service’s ballot-mail rule, issued the previous evening over a brief concurrence from Justice Kavanaugh and a longer dissent from Justices Alito and Thomas. He reads the Court’s order as a possible signal that eleventh-hour executive interventions in the electoral process would meet skepticism; notes the measure of bipartisanship in the record, including red-state election officials who told the Cou
Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall on Bioweapons in the Age of AI (opens the original)
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Jack interviews Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, the Ashton B. Carter Visiting Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and formerly Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Deputy National Security Advisor, about her new Kennedy School report, Deterrence by Resilience: Securing the United States and Promoting Innovation in the Age of Bioconvergence . They discuss how artificial intelligence has changed the biological threat landscape since ChatGPT, the scenarios that worry her most, and t
The Postal Service and the 2026 Elections (opens the original)
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Jack and Bob discuss litigation over the Trump administration’s executive order on the Postal Service and election integrity, and the recent final rule that the Postal Service issued to implement the order. They explain what the Trump administration is seeking to accomplish with these maneuvers and examine the fate of two cases challenging the final rule that are pending in the District of Columbia and Massachusetts. They also analyze the practical difficulties in implementing the rule before th
States’ Protection of Their Elections (opens the original)
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Bob speaks with Danielle Friedman, Legal Director of the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School, about the Initiatives’ recently published analysis of state criminal laws that could apply to potential federal government interference in the 2026 and future elections. They discuss laws, varying from state to state, that address deployment of military or other armed forces at the polls; actions to delay or disrupt the delivery of election mail, such as registr
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