HeyJaredRational Security
A weekly discussion of national security and foreign policy matters hosted by Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 11
- Latest publication
- Sep 24, 2026
- Audience
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 9, 2026
Latest episodes
“The Right Kind of American for Rational Security” Edition (opens the original)
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This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Executive Editor Natalie Orpett and Public Service Fellow Julia Curlee to talk through the week’s big news in national security, including: "The Xi-Quel." This week, Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Washington for a three-day state visit—his first to the U.S. capital in more than a decade, and the second Trump-Xi summit of 2026 after the president’s own trip to Beijing in May. The pageantry will be considerable: Trump plans to greet Xi
The “Worlds Colliding” Edition (opens the original)
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This week, Scott sat down with his colleagues Lawfare Senior Editors Kevin Frazier and Roger Parloff, 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: “P(doom) and Gloom.” Last week, a wonky corner of the tech world became national news when Jacob Coxon, a 27-year-old pretraining researcher, resigned from Anthropic and posted a v
The “Fifth Anniversary Hot Take Takedown” Edition (opens the original)
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This week, Scott celebrated the fifth anniversary of Rational Security 2.0 with the return of co-hosts emeriti Shane Harris, Quinta Jurecic, and Benjamin Wittes. In varying degrees of witheringness, the four sat in brutal judgment of this year’s Hot Take Takedown pitches: Public Service Fellow Julia Curlee gives her informed analysis of whether we should get rid of the President’s Daily Brief. Senior Editor Mike Feinberg has strong feelings about who is the bad guy in the Bourne movies. Senior E
The "Whale of a Tale" Edition (opens the original)
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This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Senior Editors Molly Roberts and Eric Columbus, and Contributing Editor Renée DiResta, to talk through the week’s big domestic news stories, including: “Signed, Sealed, Undelivered.” As the first mail ballots of the 2026 midterms go out this week, a fast-moving legal fight over President Trump’s effort to reshape mail-in voting is racing toward the Supreme Court. At issue is a new U.S. Postal Service rule—stemming from a Trump executive order
The “All Takin’ and No Givin’” Edition (opens the original)
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This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes, Public Service Fellow Julia Curlee, and Contributing Editor Alex Zerden to talk through the week’s big news in national security, including: “Skynet’s the Limit.” A Russian drone guided entirely by onboard artificial intelligence—with no human directing the final strike—appears to have killed three civilians at a gas station in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on July 6, in what experts believe may be the first killings
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