Rational Security is a weekly roundtable podcast featuring Shane Harris of the Washington Post and Susan Hennessey, Tamara Cofman Wittes and Benjamin Wittes of the Brookings Institution. It’s a lively and irreverent discussion of news, ideas, foreign policy, and law. There’s always a laugh. Sometimes there’s even scotch. You can subscribe here or on iTunes.
Latest in Rational Security
Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort is heading to prison, and facing new charges. If you thought the Arab Spring was over, think again. And a massage parlor owner with suspected links to the Chinese government was reportedly selling access to Trump’s private Florida resort.
Why does senior White House adviser Jared Kushner have a security clearance? President Trump comes back from a summit meeting with Kim Jong Un empty-handed. And the NSA has apparently stopped a controversial surveillance program that collected Americans’ phone records.
President Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen testifies to Congress. Adam Schiff signals he’s coming after all the Russia probe documents. And U.S. Cyber Command hits back at a Russian troll farm.
President Trump says his intelligence director is “not loyal” and may want to fire him. Trump administration officials pushed a plan to sell nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia. And hackers hit Australian political parties.
Is Robert Mueller nearing the end of his Russia probe? The administration moves to block Chinese telecom giant Huawei. And you too can have your own private Mossad!
Shane says goodbye to Opportunity.
President Trump delivers his second State of the Union address. Meanwhile, prosecutors send a subpoena to Trump’s inaugural committee. And the president is feuding with his intelligence chiefs—again.
Roger Stone is indicted in the Mueller probe. Venezuela teeters on the brink of economic and political collapse. And American hackers help the UAE build a cyber army.
BuzzFeed drops a bomb that turns out to be more of a dud. Or is it? The president’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, could be doing more harm than good for his client. And Congress takes aim at the administration’s Russia-friendly policies.
Senators question attorney general-nominee Bill Barr over the Mueller probe. Two new stories shed more light on President Trump’s troubling relationship with Russia. And the president contemplated pulling out of NATO.
President Trump takes his pitch for border security to the American people in an Oval Office address. John Bolton and Mike Pompeo are on the road doing high stakes diplomacy, but do they actually speak for the president? And the latest in L’Affaire Russe—a Russian lawyer gets indicted and Paul Manafort was sharing polling data with his “Russian brain.”