Rational Security: The “Not So Super Tuesday” Edition

About this episode

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Executive Editor Natalie Orpett and Senior Editors Michael Feinberg and Molly Roberts to talk through the week’s big international news stories, including: • “Full Metal Ballot.” For more than 160 years, federal law has made it a crime to bring “troops or armed men” to any place where an election is being held. But with President Trump refusing to rule out invoking the Insurrection Act, National Guard troops still on the streets of Washington, and the Justice Department preparing to send roughly 1,000 election monitors to polling sites across the country, many are worried about what voters will encounter on Tuesday. Military leaders say they have no plans to send troops to the polls, and a federal judge just reined in armed Homeland Security agents who had been going door to door questioning suspected noncitizen voters. What does the law actually allow federal personnel to do on Election Day? And what happens if the administration decides to test those limits anyway? • “Certifiable.” With Election Day less than a week away, the Justice Department has moved from warning about election fraud to actively trying to shape how vot