{"id":68,"date":"2026-05-25T11:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T11:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalconsumerreportss.com\/?p=68"},"modified":"2026-05-25T11:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T11:40:10","slug":"lawfare-daily-rep-sara-jacobs-d-ca-on-congresss-role-in-foreign-affairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalconsumerreportss.com\/?p=68","title":{"rendered":"Lawfare Daily: Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) on Congress\u2019s Role in Foreign Affairs"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>On today\u2019s episode, <em>Lawfare <\/em>Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sits down with Rep. Sara Jacobs, who represents California\u2019s 51st congressional district. As a member of the House armed services and foreign affairs committees, Rep. Jacobs has taken a lead role on an array of foreign affairs-related legislation. Before being elected to Congress, she worked for the U.S. Department of State and the United Nations.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nationalconsumerreportss.com\/?p=67\">Lawfare Live: The Trials of the Trump Administration, April 17<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Together, Scott and Rep. Jacobs discuss her and her colleagues\u2019 efforts to oppose the Iran war and how she hopes the House will approach the issue in defense-related authorizations and appropriations later this year. From there, they discuss Rep. Jacobs\u2019 work on bipartisan legislation relating to foreign assistance and expeditionary diplomacy. Finally, they step back to consider the role that Congress currently plays in foreign affairs and national security, how that role may change if the House or Senate changes control, and what could help Congress be more effective in the future.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"110px\" src=\"https:\/\/embed.acast.com\/60518a52f69aa815d2dba41c\/6a04e9af8ef9368973a66113\" width=\"100%\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>To receive ad-free podcasts, become a <em>Lawfare <\/em>Material Supporter at www.patreon.com\/lawfare. You can also support <em>Lawfare <\/em>by making a one-time donation at .<\/p>\n<p>Click the button below to view a transcript of this podcast. Please note that the transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors.<\/p>\n<details>\n<summary><strong>Transcript<\/strong><\/summary>\n<p><strong> <em> [Intro]<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Renee DiResta:<\/strong> Hi,<br \/>\nI&#8217;m Renee DiResta, a contributing editor at <em>Lawfare<\/em>. You may have heard<br \/>\nme on our podcasts talking about online influence operations or platform<br \/>\ngovernance, or read my writing on the messy intersection of tech, democracy,<br \/>\nand free expression. What makes <em>Lawfare<\/em> different, and what makes me so<br \/>\nproud to be here, is that the whole team produces bold, fearless commentary<br \/>\nthat synthesizes across disciplines: law, technology, national security,<br \/>\npolicy.<\/p>\n<p>As emerging technologies move faster than the policies meant to<br \/>\ngovern them, that kind of analysis is essential. Lawfare is a 501(3) nonprofit.<br \/>\nEverything that we produce is free with no paywall, but that only works because<br \/>\nlisteners like you step up. Head to lawfaremedia.org\/support and become a<br \/>\nmaterial supporter.<\/p>\n<p>Just $10 a month, or more if you&#8217;re able, makes a real<br \/>\ndifference in helping us tell the stories that hold power to account. Plus,<br \/>\nsupporting our work gets you access to member-only perks like the ad-free<br \/>\npodcast feed, monthly ask us anything opportunities, invites to special events,<br \/>\nand more. It&#8217;s a win-win. Thanks for listening and for supporting <em>Lawfare<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rep. Sara Jacobs:<\/strong> And<br \/>\nI think that&#8217;s really what we have right now, is oversight, is asking the<br \/>\nquestions, demanding investigations, trying to make sure that even if sort of<br \/>\nthe political atmosphere at the Pentagon has changed, that the CENTCOM<br \/>\ncommanders are still retaining that capacity and expertise and including the<br \/>\ncivilian harm mitigation measures in their targeting.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott R. Anderson:<\/strong><br \/>\nIt&#8217;s the <em>Lawfare Podcast<\/em>. I&#8217;m Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson with<br \/>\nRepresentative Sara Jacobs of the fifty-first congressional district of<br \/>\nCalifornia. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Rep. Sara Jacobs:<\/strong> We<br \/>\nare going to have to do a lot of oversight, and in the foreign policy space<br \/>\nspecifically on Venezuela, on Iran, on the use of our military in domestic<br \/>\ninstances.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott R. Anderson:<\/strong><br \/>\nToday, we&#8217;re talking about the role Congress plays in foreign affairs and<br \/>\nnational security and where it may go from here.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>[Main Podcast]<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>So Representative Jacobs, I want to start with an observation.<br \/>\nYou are a bit of an outlier for the simple reason that I think the conventional<br \/>\nwisdom in American politics is that foreign affairs, national security are a<br \/>\nbit of a back burner issue. They&#8217;re not what motivates voters. They&#8217;re not the<br \/>\ntop of a lot of people&#8217;s political calculus. But when you go to your website,<br \/>\nwhen you look at your press releases, I did a little exercise and looked back,<br \/>\nand they&#8217;re almost all about foreign affairs and national security, at least<br \/>\nover the last several months. You have to go pretty far back in 2025 to find<br \/>\ntwo in a row that aren&#8217;t. <\/p>\n<p>Talk to us about where you see foreign affairs and national<br \/>\nsecurity fitting into your role as a member of Congress, why you seem to be<br \/>\ngiving it such a priority, and how it fits both with your, your duties as a<br \/>\nrepresentative and your, your mandate from your constituents.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rep. Sara Jacobs:<\/strong><br \/>\nYeah. Well, look, when I ran for Congress, you know, I&#8217;d worked at the State<br \/>\nDepartment and the UN, and everyone told me, like, &#8220;Don&#8217;t talk about<br \/>\nforeign policy. Don&#8217;t talk about foreign policy.&#8221; But the fact of the<br \/>\nmatter is, actually, people are interested in, in knowing what your ideas are<br \/>\nand what your plans are.<\/p>\n<p>And, you know, foreign policy is a back-burner issue until it<br \/>\nisn&#8217;t, right? We know that the war in Iran, for instance, is very front and<br \/>\ncenter in voters&#8217; minds right now because prices are up, and it&#8217;s really<br \/>\nimpacting their day-to-day lives. And I am very fortunate to represent an<br \/>\namazing community in San Diego that is, you know, a border community, a port<br \/>\ncommunity, the largest military community in the country, and has a huge<br \/>\nrefugee and asylum-seeker population and a lot of immigrants.<\/p>\n<p>And so, you know, for my district, for my community foreign<br \/>\npolicy is very present, and these aren&#8217;t sort of far-off theoretical ideas. You<br \/>\nknow, we talk about the war in Iran, I think for a lot of people it&#8217;s showing<br \/>\nup in their daily lives in prices which it is for my constituents for sure, but<br \/>\nit&#8217;s also showing up in the fact that we&#8217;ve got 2,500 San Diego Marines off the<br \/>\ncoast of Iran right now.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve got a number of our service members in San Diego who are<br \/>\non 48-hour deployment notice. Like, this is actually the real lives that are,<br \/>\nyou know, being impacted by this conflict. This is the, the real life of my<br \/>\nconstituents, and it is, you know, pretty shameful to me actually that so many<br \/>\nof my colleagues are really willing to, to put them in harm&#8217;s way, to let them<br \/>\npotentially sacrifice their lives without any real plan or strategy.<\/p>\n<p>And so that&#8217;s why I spend so much time working on and talking<br \/>\nabout foreign policy because it really is an incredibly important part of, you<br \/>\nknow, our country and our national security and also my constituents&#8217; lives,<br \/>\nand it affects everything. It affects our security. It affects our economy,<br \/>\nright? These are&#8230;it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s all related <\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott R. Anderson:<\/strong> So<br \/>\nlet&#8217;s start with the Iran war because obviously that is a topic that&#8217;s hard to<br \/>\nmiss these days, hard to avoid, and affecting so many things here in America<br \/>\nand around the world. You have been a leader in the House of the effort to<br \/>\noppose the Iran war, specifically through the use of resolutions that are given<br \/>\nexpedited procedure through the War Powers Resolution.<\/p>\n<p>So there have been two concurrent resolutions in the House, I<br \/>\nbelieve six joint resolutions in the Senate. Those have so far lost across the<br \/>\nboard. None have been adopted, fairly slim margins, and I should say narrowing<br \/>\nmargins, mostly partisan, a little bit of bipartisan trade over. Talk to us<br \/>\nabout where you think the strategy is likely to go now that we&#8217;ve passed both<br \/>\nthe important for the War Powers Resolution 60-day mark two Fridays ago.<\/p>\n<p>Now we&#8217;re past that period where at least under the War Powers<br \/>\nResolution it says the president should have terminated hostilities, all the<br \/>\nexecutive branch&#8217;s arguments why that isn&#8217;t here. And also we&#8217;re in a point<br \/>\nwhere we, we may be seeing, as we&#8217;re recording this, the ceasefire breaking<br \/>\ndown. It seems like we may be reaching the end of this period of relative<br \/>\nstability and relative low violence that we&#8217;ve had over the last few weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Where do you think this effort to oppose the war in Iran is<br \/>\nlikely to go from here in the House and the broader Congress? <\/p>\n<p><strong>Rep. Sara Jacobs:<\/strong><br \/>\nYeah, look, I oppose the war in Iran because I think that it is a strategic<br \/>\nmistake, and it is literally putting my constituents&#8217; lives at risk, and we<br \/>\nhave already lost 13 service members, and there&#8217;s only bad options at this<br \/>\npoint, which is why every president before Trump has declined to actually use<br \/>\nmilitary force to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon because actually<br \/>\nthe most sustainable way to do that is through a diplomatic negotiation, which<br \/>\nnow the Trump administration is trying to do, but with a worse hand than we had<br \/>\nbefore.<\/p>\n<p>The Congressional Progressive Caucus, of which I&#8217;m a member,<br \/>\nwill be introducing War Powers Resolutions every single week so that we always<br \/>\nhave one that&#8217;s ripe so that we can force a vote and put Republicans on the<br \/>\nrecord on, you know, whether they stand with the Constitution, stand with our<br \/>\ntroops, or whether they&#8217;re willing to rubber stamp whatever Donald Trump wants,<br \/>\neven if it makes no sense and actually doesn&#8217;t make our country any safer.<\/p>\n<p>And that&#8217;s what we&#8217;ll continue doing. But the War Powers<br \/>\nResolution is only one option that we have in terms of how we can oppose this<br \/>\nwar. We know that there will at some point be a supplemental funding request<br \/>\ncoming to us. The number has ranged from, you know, $20 billion to $200<br \/>\nbillion. We&#8217;re still waiting to see what number they actually send to us.<\/p>\n<p>But I think it&#8217;s incredibly important that all of my colleagues<br \/>\nreject that supplemental funding request because we know that the courts have<br \/>\nseen that if Congress funds something, even if we haven&#8217;t authorized it, that<br \/>\nis seen as a de facto authorization. And so I think looking both at our annual<br \/>\nappropriations bills, which we are working on right now, and whatever<br \/>\nsupplemental funding request comes down, making sure that we are actually using<br \/>\nCongress&#8217;s power, the power of the purse, to prevent Donald Trump from doing<br \/>\nanything more in this reckless, illegal war will be incredibly important, both<br \/>\nfor the practicalities of it and for the legal underpinnings of it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott R. Anderson:<\/strong> So<br \/>\nwe are getting to that critical point, as you know, where we&#8217;re gonna have<br \/>\npotentially this supplemental appropriations request, defense authorization,<br \/>\ndefense appropriations bills later this year, an opportunity where the tables<br \/>\nturn a little bit on the leverage with Congress and the president. The<br \/>\npresident can&#8217;t veto those easily, so it&#8217;s a narrower margin to get something<br \/>\nenacted into law.<\/p>\n<p>What do you think the focus should be in terms of what Congress<br \/>\nshould be seeking in those laws? We can assume, I think, opponents of the war<br \/>\naren&#8217;t gonna get everything they would want. What do you think is most<br \/>\nimportant? Well, how would you triage the different legislative asks Congress<br \/>\ncould insert into that legislation?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rep. Sara Jacobs:<\/strong><br \/>\nYeah. I think the most important thing that we need to do is fence off funding<br \/>\nand say that no funding can be used for this illegal, reckless war in Iran, and<br \/>\nthat&#8217;s one of the best tools Congress has had. It&#8217;s actually the way Congress<br \/>\nwas able to work to force, for instance, you know, the Vietnam War to end,<br \/>\nother conflicts, making sure that, you know, we are saying that funding can&#8217;t<br \/>\nbe used for this purpose, that is specifically prohibited, is the best tool<br \/>\nCongress has.<\/p>\n<p>We have a number of bills that would do that in terms of<br \/>\nVenezuela, in terms of Iran, and I think it&#8217;s important that we try and get<br \/>\nthat into whatever broad package ends up going through in terms of<br \/>\nappropriations and the National Defense Authorization Act. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott R. Anderson:<\/strong><br \/>\nAnother issue that has come up in the context of Iran, but also Venezuela, and<br \/>\nparticularly the maritime strikes happening throughout the Caribbean and the<br \/>\nPacific over the last seven or eight months or so, is this question of civilian<br \/>\ncasualties, the blending between the categories of combatant and civilians, and<br \/>\nthen disproportionate impact on civilians as a result of military operations.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a big issue that got a lot of attention from Congress and<br \/>\nthe last administration, and then that, a lot of those efforts have been<br \/>\ncriticized by the current administration, the current Secretary of Defense Pete<br \/>\nHegseth. Talk to us about the status of those issues. Where do you think this<br \/>\nissue is?<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;re co-chair of the Protection of Civilians in Conflicts<br \/>\nCaucus. You&#8217;ve been following this. What are the big deficits that we&#8217;re seeing<br \/>\nunder current action, and what should Congress do to try and address those? <\/p>\n<p><strong>Rep. Sara Jacobs:<\/strong><br \/>\nYeah, so a couple of years ago, in a bipartisan way, we were able to get a<br \/>\nnumber of provisions around civilian casualties into the National Defense<br \/>\nAuthorization Act that, for instance, mandated a center of excellence on<br \/>\ncivilian harm mitigation that institutionalized the Civilian Harm Mitigation<br \/>\nAction Plan that Secretary Austin had put in place that mandated certain<br \/>\ncivilian harm positions and activities be done at the different CENTCOMs.<\/p>\n<p>And this administration has largely gutted all of those efforts<br \/>\nand, you know, are trying to do sort of checking the box so that they&#8217;re not<br \/>\ntechnically breaking the law, but not actually following the law in terms of,<br \/>\nof what we had intended. And again, this was passed in a bipartisan way in the<br \/>\nNational Defense Authorization Act.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of what we&#8217;re doing is trying to do oversight to make<br \/>\nsure that, for instance, even if the, the titles have changed of people&#8217;s jobs,<br \/>\nthat there are still people who are doing the specific civilian harm mitigation<br \/>\ntasks and jobs that we know are incredibly important, for instance, in<br \/>\ntargeting, and that these investigations are happening when an incident<br \/>\nhappens.<\/p>\n<p>So for instance, I led over half of the Democratic caucus on an<br \/>\noversight letter asking about the U.S. strike on the girls&#8217; school in Minab,<br \/>\nand we are still waiting answers on that. DOD says the investigations are<br \/>\nongoing. But we know that that is maybe the most public and, and biggest of the<br \/>\ncivilian harm allegations in Iran, but not by any means the only one.<\/p>\n<p>And so we&#8217;re continuing to do that oversight. And I think<br \/>\nthat&#8217;s really what we have right now, is oversight, is asking the questions,<br \/>\ndemanding investigations, trying to make sure that even if sort of the<br \/>\npolitical atmosphere at the Pentagon has changed, that the CENTCOM commanders<br \/>\nare still retaining that capacity and expertise and including the civilian harm<br \/>\nmitigation measures in their targeting, and that we are then working so that<br \/>\nwhen we are back in power, those, those folks are, you know, still there in the<br \/>\ninstitution and we can quickly rebuild.<\/p>\n<p>I think a lot of times when I talk about civilian harm<br \/>\nmitigation, people think I&#8217;m just like, I don&#8217;t know, a lefty who doesn&#8217;t want<br \/>\npeople to die, and it&#8217;s true, I don&#8217;t want people to die unnecessarily. But<br \/>\nit&#8217;s also incredibly important because we know that civilian harm And when we<br \/>\nor our partners or allies are hurting and killing civilians in conflict<br \/>\nactually really impacts our national security.<\/p>\n<p>We know that that is one of the main drivers to violent<br \/>\nextremism, for instance. If you look at sort of all the empirical studies on<br \/>\nwhat leads communities or people into violent extremism, acts of violence by<br \/>\nthe state against themselves or someone they know is one of those main drivers.<br \/>\nAnd so I actually think it&#8217;s incredibly important because in a lot of these<br \/>\ncases, we say we&#8217;re trying to fight violent extremism, but then we are doing<br \/>\none of the very things that is one of the biggest drivers and is just building<br \/>\nmore anti-American sentiment instead of solving the problem we are saying we&#8217;re<br \/>\nthere to solve.<\/p>\n<p>So I think it&#8217;s incredibly important, and actually I was able<br \/>\nto ask Admiral Paparo the INDOPACOM commander about this, and he said the same<br \/>\nthing, that civilian harm mitigation is an incredibly important part of<br \/>\nAmerican national security, and that&#8217;s why he continues to prioritize it even<br \/>\nas this administration is sort of gutting the statutorily required civilian<br \/>\nharm mitigation efforts within the Pentagon.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott R. Anderson:<\/strong> So<br \/>\nwe&#8217;ve talked a lot about the defense space, and you are, of course, on the<br \/>\nArmed Services Committee, but you&#8217;re also on the Foreign Affairs Committee<br \/>\nwhich oversees the other big parts of our foreign policy apparatus, State<br \/>\nDepartment development. So let&#8217;s talk about that a little bit. You have been<br \/>\nvery active in the foreign assistance space over the last, your last term in<br \/>\nCongress or in the course of this Congress.<\/p>\n<p>You, if I recall correctly, I think sponsored or certainly<br \/>\nsupported legislation to try and stop the shutting down of USAID. I don&#8217;t<br \/>\nbelieve it moved forward. Obviously, USAID has been shut down at this point in<br \/>\nall but name effectively. You&#8217;ve also introduced more recently some legislation<br \/>\naimed at reforming foreign assistance, shifting towards a more locally based<br \/>\nmodel that actually has some synergies with at least some rhetoric, some<br \/>\ntargets, some objectives.<\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration, people supportive of what the Trump<br \/>\nadministration have done, has done aligns with that a little bit. There&#8217;s a<br \/>\nlittle bit of synergy there. And notably, that&#8217;s a bipartisan piece of<br \/>\nlegislation. You&#8217;re co-sponsoring it I believe with one of your fellow<br \/>\nrepresentatives, Republican Young Kim out in California.<\/p>\n<p>Talk to us about where you think foreign assistance should be<br \/>\ngoing in this moment where it has seen such a sea change in the institutions<br \/>\nand the mechanisms we&#8217;ve usually approached it through. Where do you think it<br \/>\nshould go? Do you think there&#8217;s bipartisan support for that? A- and what is<br \/>\nCongress&#8217;s role in shaping that and driving that forward?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rep. Sara Jacobs:<\/strong><br \/>\nYeah, I mean, if you had told me in December of 2024 that introducing a bill<br \/>\nsaying that no funds can be used to change USAID like, that were done in a<br \/>\nnon-statutory way would be controversial, I would&#8217;ve thought you were crazy.<br \/>\nThat would&#8217;ve been, like, a broad bipartisan bill. But of course, by February<br \/>\n2025, that was not the case, and we&#8217;ve seen this illegal gutting of USAID, and<br \/>\nI think it&#8217;s clearly illegal and really problematic in terms of Congress&#8217;s role<br \/>\nand how we make sure that, you know, laws that Congress passes, statute that<br \/>\nCongress creates, actually get enforced.<\/p>\n<p>And I think, you know, while I don&#8217;t know exactly what that<br \/>\nlooks like, I think that brings up a whole other conversation about what kind<br \/>\nof structural reforms we need to make sure that Congress can actually enforce<br \/>\nand implement the laws that we are passing. But I think you can both<br \/>\nacknowledge that what the Trump administration did on USAID was wrong and<br \/>\nillegal and has killed many people, and also acknowledge that this is now an<br \/>\nopportunity for reform and to improve how aid is delivered because while I wouldn&#8217;t<br \/>\nhave done it the way Donald Trump did it, I think we, we were working on USAID<br \/>\nreform and foreign assistance reform well before this, and we shouldn&#8217;t just<br \/>\nrebuild what we had before.<\/p>\n<p>Actually, there were a lot of reforms that were needed. And so<br \/>\none of the big reforms I think we need is how we bring other countries into<br \/>\nthis conversation and really make it more of a partnership. And, you know, I&#8217;m<br \/>\nthe ranking member on the subcommittee on Africa, and so I talk to a lot of our<br \/>\npartners in the Global South all the time, and what I heard from them after,<br \/>\nyou know, USAID funding was pulled is that, you know, these, these countries<br \/>\nwere not like, &#8220;Oh, no, we need the funding back.&#8221; They&#8217;re like,<br \/>\n&#8220;Oh, we should use this as an opportunity to be more<br \/>\nself-sufficient,&#8221; because countries don&#8217;t want to be dependent on aid, and<br \/>\nwe shouldn&#8217;t want them to be dependent on aid.<\/p>\n<p>And so that&#8217;s why we&#8217;re focused on locally led development,<br \/>\nmaking sure that we&#8217;re investing in local actors, local partners, building<br \/>\ncapacity on the ground instead of just sort of the way we&#8217;ve traditionally done<br \/>\nforeign assistance that is, you know, very U.S.-centric.<\/p>\n<p>I think we need to be focused more on government-to-government<br \/>\nsupport, which will also include a lot more monitoring and, you know,<br \/>\nprotections because we know that that kind of support can be ripe for<br \/>\ncorruption and, and we&#8217;ll need that sort of protection. But having clear<br \/>\nbenchmarks and timelines on, you know, what an off-ramp looks like, having<br \/>\nclear buy-in from other countries in terms of what they&#8217;re putting forward,<br \/>\nreally thinking strategically about what it is that it makes sense for the U.S.<br \/>\nto do versus what it makes sense for our partner countries to do.<\/p>\n<p>In full transparency, I think Congress is partially to blame<br \/>\nhere, right? Because through the appropriations process over the years, we&#8217;ve<br \/>\nhad so many earmarks on what foreign assistance can go to that it has left the<br \/>\nfolks on the ground very little room to operate. So I think in, in Mozambique<br \/>\nprior to the Trump administration, something like ninety-five percent of all<br \/>\nforeign assistance to Mozambique was already earmarked by Congress as to what<br \/>\nit had to do, and a lot of what Congress earmarks is this very sort of<br \/>\ndisease-specific work, right?<\/p>\n<p>Because you have advocacy groups that focus on this that then<br \/>\nask for these specific appropriations requests that end up in the<br \/>\nappropriations bill. And, and it all makes sense why we got to this place<br \/>\nbecause people care a lot about a specific issue and wanna make sure it gets<br \/>\nfunded, and the way to do that is to have protected funding for it.<\/p>\n<p>But if you actually take a step back, what actually makes more<br \/>\nsense would be for the U.S. to really focus on health system strengthening and<br \/>\nlet the countries then do the more specific disease-specific work within that<br \/>\nhealth system strengthening that we&#8217;re doing. And we&#8217;ve been able to do that.<br \/>\nLike, I think PEPFAR was a really great example of how you can work on<br \/>\ndisease-specific work and also be doing that health system strengthening.<\/p>\n<p>But really thinking more holistically about what, what does it<br \/>\nmake sense for the U.S. to do? How do we make sure we&#8217;re building these<br \/>\noff-ramps and clearly working with our partner countries in partnership and not<br \/>\njust as this kind of like thing we give you that you are then dependent on, I<br \/>\nthink is incredibly important as we move forward. And, and I do think there is<br \/>\nbipartisan appetite to really rethink what our foreign assistance can be and,<br \/>\nand how we do it. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott R. Anderson:<\/strong><br \/>\nAnd another area that you&#8217;ve targeted for reform recently is the State<br \/>\nDepartment, and critically the conduct of diplomacy. In the past, you&#8217;ve been<br \/>\nactive about efforts to try and get the State Department to look a little more<br \/>\ntowards predicting trends in conflict.<\/p>\n<p>You supported establishing a center for conflict analysis in<br \/>\nthe State Department. Now more, more recently, you&#8217;ve got another piece of<br \/>\nbipartisan legislation co-sponsored with Michael Baumgartner, I believe,<br \/>\nRepublican from Washington State, talking about expeditionary diplomacy, a, a<br \/>\ntopic that&#8217;s very close to my heart as I was briefly an expeditionary diplomat<br \/>\nof sorts back early in my career, but a topic that is a little in the weeds for<br \/>\na lot of people.<\/p>\n<p>Talk to us about why this stands out to you as an issue worth<br \/>\naddressing on the part of Congress and what Congress&#8217;s role is in shaping the<br \/>\nway the United States goes about diplomacy. I mean, why is it or why does it<br \/>\nneed to be Congress&#8217;s role to open up that space or to encourage the executive<br \/>\nbranch to pursue expeditionary diplomacy?<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nationalconsumerreportss.com\/?p=65\">Lawfare Live: The Trials of the Trump Administration, April 24<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Rep. Sara Jacobs:<\/strong><br \/>\nYeah, so I think, like, taking a step back, right? I think part of why our<br \/>\nforeign policy is so distorted starts in Congress because we pass these huge<br \/>\ndefense budgets and then pass paltry funding for the State Department and<br \/>\nUSAID. So then when we go into other countries, it&#8217;s the military who is then<br \/>\nable to go out to these hard-to-reach areas.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the military who has money that can actually, you know,<br \/>\nprovide assistance and, and work with other militaries in other countries. And<br \/>\nso then we shouldn&#8217;t be shocked when in other countries, their militaries<br \/>\nbecome much more powerful because that&#8217;s, you know, that&#8217;s the assistance we<br \/>\ncan give, and then that&#8217;s where we see coups and other things happening.<\/p>\n<p>And so to me, it all starts from that fundamental issue, which<br \/>\nis that we&#8217;ve over-securitized and over-militarized our foreign policy, and<br \/>\neverything sort of flows from there. And that&#8217;s where you know, I think<br \/>\nexpeditionary diplomacy fits into that because in, you know, I worked in the<br \/>\nBureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations at the State Department, and we<br \/>\noften saw that the travel requirements, the travel restrictions were so severe<br \/>\nfor, for our State Department folks that it was only the military that could<br \/>\nshow up to certain meetings in certain places because they were the only ones<br \/>\nthat could travel there.<\/p>\n<p>And then the face of America in other countries is our<br \/>\nmilitary, and that&#8217;s not really what we want, right? We want our military to be<br \/>\ndoing military things. We want our diplomats to be representing the United<br \/>\nStates. And I think it&#8217;s important that it comes from Congress because in many<br \/>\nways, Congress is part of the problem, right?<\/p>\n<p>We, I mean, I wasn&#8217;t here yet, but we as Congress launched so<br \/>\nmany hearings and investigations on Benghazi. And while what happened in<br \/>\nBenghazi was horrible, those investigations, I think, really overcorrected and<br \/>\nmade it so that diplomats couldn&#8217;t really go out of the capital or out of the<br \/>\nperimeter at all, and that makes it really difficult to do their jobs.<\/p>\n<p>And if we have diplomats who are only in the capitals and only<br \/>\ninside the perimeter, that means they&#8217;re really only talking to elites, and<br \/>\nthat means we&#8217;re not getting a real picture of what&#8217;s happening in those<br \/>\ncountries. And I think that can, you know, contributes a lot to when we get<br \/>\nsurprised by things like people in Niger being angry at America for, you know,<br \/>\nthe role we&#8217;re playing in military in their country.<\/p>\n<p>And, you know, if you&#8217;re only talking to elites, you&#8217;re not<br \/>\ngetting that perspective, and then we&#8217;re getting surprised by these coups and<br \/>\nby these conflicts in other places because we&#8217;re not actually really talking to<br \/>\nthe people of those countries. We&#8217;re talking to the politicians and the elites.<br \/>\nYou know, in Somalia, as, as you probably know, the U.S. Embassy is in the<br \/>\nairport complex, and diplomats aren&#8217;t allowed to leave the airport complex to<br \/>\nthe point where when there are meetings that the U.S. government needs to<br \/>\nattend outside of the airport complex, it is our military who&#8217;s going because<br \/>\neven our ambassador cannot go to those places, it, you know, because of<br \/>\nsecurity protocols.<\/p>\n<p>That, that shouldn&#8217;t be how we&#8217;re doing things. And so Michael<br \/>\nBaumgartner and I both worked at the State Department, and we both kind of<br \/>\nworked in this space, and we really came together and looked at what do we need<br \/>\nto do to move the ball forward and to, to make a more permissive environment so<br \/>\nthat our diplomats can really be doing their jobs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott R. Anderson:<\/strong><br \/>\nSo, you know, a theme of a few of these pieces of legislation we&#8217;ve hit on is<br \/>\nthe bipartisan support, the fact that you found these partners across the<br \/>\naisle. And I wanna drill into that in this foreign affairs context. I mean, we<br \/>\nall know partisan divisions make certain things hard in Congress, to say the<br \/>\nleast.<\/p>\n<p>I think that&#8217;s obvious from the outside. I&#8217;m sure it&#8217;s even<br \/>\nmore obvious from the inside. And it&#8217;s a real pressure. I mean, inevitably,<br \/>\nparticularly in the foreign affairs space, a lot of what Congress is doing is<br \/>\nresponding to problems in the world that are being addressed one by, way by the<br \/>\nincumbent administration, and that is, in a two-party system, always gonna line<br \/>\nup awkwardly for one side of the aisle or the other in Congress.<\/p>\n<p>Yet you found ways on a couple of these issues to at least find<br \/>\nbipartisan partners and maybe eventually drive it forward to progress through<br \/>\nenactment. Talk to us about w- your strategy for doing that. Where do you think<br \/>\nthe areas for bipartisan cooperation in foreign affairs are? Are there certain<br \/>\ntechniques for identifying or approaching them? And then how do you turn<br \/>\nbipartisan co-sponsorship into legislation in the end? <\/p>\n<p><strong>Rep. Sara Jacobs:<\/strong><br \/>\nIt&#8217;s a good question, and you know, I&#8217;m, I&#8217;m glad you asked it because I feel<br \/>\nlike in the news, all they show is us fighting, and there is a lot of fighting,<br \/>\nI don&#8217;t wanna minimize that, and a lot of important things to fight about.<\/p>\n<p>But if you kind of go one level down to the super, of the super<br \/>\npolitical things, there&#8217;s actually a lot of bipartisan work happening. And in<br \/>\nsome ways we&#8217;ve actually been able to do more bipartisan work than ever because<br \/>\nSpeaker Johnson basically has lost control of the Republican conference. And<br \/>\nso, like this Congress alone, I think we&#8217;ve had six successful discharge<br \/>\npetitions, which is the way you get around the speaker.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s more than the entire rest of Congress combined, the<br \/>\nhistory of Congress combined. And so, you know, the way I think about working<br \/>\nin a bipartisan way is that I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s about how you get the most<br \/>\nwatered down, lowest common denominator version of something that you can get<br \/>\neveryone to agree with, because then in many ways you&#8217;re like saying you&#8217;re<br \/>\ndoing something and then you&#8217;re not doing it, and that actually is worse and<br \/>\ncreates that sort of cycle of mistrust.<\/p>\n<p>The way I think about bipartisanship is what are the big things<br \/>\nwe each wanna do? Where do those overlap? And then how can we find ways to, to<br \/>\nwork on that? And actually in the foreign policy space, it doesn&#8217;t always<br \/>\ncross-cut in the same sort of partisan lines you would think. Sometimes you&#8217;ll<br \/>\nactually see like on war powers and Congress&#8217;s role, it&#8217;s often progressives in<br \/>\nthe Democratic Party and the Freedom Caucus in the Republican Party who are<br \/>\nworking together on those issues.<\/p>\n<p>And I do a lot of work with the Freedom Caucus of all people,<br \/>\non those kind of war powers and, and, and other issues. And the key to me is<br \/>\nfiguring out, like, you know, Michael Baumgartner and I, he&#8217;s a new member we<br \/>\ntraveled together to Iraq, and he was talking about his experience there, and<br \/>\nthat&#8217;s where through those conversations and, you know, developing a re- a real<br \/>\nrelationship with each other, we found that we had common interest in trying to<br \/>\nfigure out how we can get diplomats to be able to leave the perimeter more.<\/p>\n<p>Young Kim worked on the House Foreign Affairs Committee with a<br \/>\nstaffer on it before she got to Congress, and so she&#8217;d been thinking about<br \/>\nthese issues a lot. And while that&#8217;s not really the experience of most of my<br \/>\ncolleagues here, right? Most people start in state and local government and<br \/>\nmove up and are really much more focused therefore on those state and local<br \/>\nissues that they&#8217;re more comfortable with.<\/p>\n<p>For those of us who have worked in the executive branch, who<br \/>\nhave thought about foreign policy a lot, there is actually a lot more<br \/>\ncommonality than not in terms of, like, figuring out what we can do from<br \/>\nCongress to make the institutions and the sort of structures of our foreign<br \/>\npolicy work better. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott R. Anderson:<\/strong> So<br \/>\nwe&#8217;re approaching a moment, obviously, with the midterm elections, where we may<br \/>\ngo from a Congress that has, by slim margins, but nonetheless been controlled<br \/>\nby the same party as the president, to one where one or both chambers very well<br \/>\nmight switch control.<\/p>\n<p>The question then shifts to what the toolkits are that are<br \/>\navailable, and particularly what new toolkits one or both chambers might<br \/>\ndevelop. We saw during the second half of the first Trump administration, for<br \/>\nexample, the House lean into litigation much more than it&#8217;s done previously,<br \/>\npursue more oversight techniques a little more aggressively through the courts,<br \/>\nusing the courts to back up their oversight authority.<\/p>\n<p>Particularly in the foreign affairs national security space,<br \/>\nwhat sort of tools do you expect a Democratically controlled House or Senate to<br \/>\nlean on? Do you think they should lean on? And are there things that they can<br \/>\ndo to empower themselves to be more effective in their role of oversight, or<br \/>\nare there other functions in the foreign affairs national security space come<br \/>\ntwenty twenty-seven when we may have a Democratic House or a Democratic Senate?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rep. Sara Jacobs:<\/strong><br \/>\nYeah. Look, I think that we are going to have to do a lot of oversight, and in<br \/>\nthe foreign policy space specifically on Venezuela, on Iran, on the use of our<br \/>\nmilitary in domestic instances, and it will be incredibly important that we do<br \/>\nthat oversight. And I also do think we need to think about what are some<br \/>\nstructural changes we can make to make sure that Congress is actually able to<br \/>\ndo that oversight.<\/p>\n<p>And, you know, I, I don&#8217;t have a fully fleshed out vision of<br \/>\nwhat that looks like, but I think it could be, you know, making sure we have<br \/>\nmore staff at CRS who can do some of it and have that expertise thinking about<br \/>\nwhat kind of sort of legal advisory work we need to have Congress so we&#8217;re not<br \/>\nonly dependent on the executive branch&#8217;s legal opinions on things.<\/p>\n<p>And I think oversight will be an incredibly important piece. I<br \/>\nmean, we haven&#8217;t even had a single open hearing on the Iran war yet, and we&#8217;ve<br \/>\nlost 13 service members billions of dollars, and there&#8217;s still not been a full<br \/>\nactual congressional hearing on this. We&#8217;ve had classified briefings, but no<br \/>\nreal hearing, and that&#8217;s a problem, and that&#8217;s something we need to fix when<br \/>\nwe&#8217;re in the majority.<\/p>\n<p>But even amidst all of that oversight that we need to be doing,<br \/>\nI also think there are still areas of opportunity where we can actually move<br \/>\nthe ball forward even under this president. I think reforming foreign<br \/>\nassistance and, you know, building that back up is one of those areas. I think<br \/>\npotentially working on some war powers things with our Republican colleagues<br \/>\nand sort of the role of Congress is another area.<\/p>\n<p>And I do think that we need to be able to hold both of those<br \/>\nthings at the same time. We need to be doing rigorous, rigorous oversight and<br \/>\naccountability work, and we need to still be looking for ways that we can come<br \/>\ntogether and move the ball forward even under whatever construct we&#8217;re working<br \/>\nin in the next Congress.<\/p>\n<p>I think both of those are possible. And, you know, in<br \/>\nparticular, the National Defense Authorization Act tends to be a place where<br \/>\nyou do get some of those grand bargains, where you can make some of those<br \/>\ndeals, where you really can move the ball forward, and I&#8217;m hopeful that, that<br \/>\nwe will do it. You know, I&#8217;ve been working on a lot of military quality of life<br \/>\nissues that I think we can still get done, in particular, you know, getting IVF<br \/>\nand fertility treatment for service members covered by, by TRICARE, the<br \/>\nmilitary insurance program, but I, I, I think there are others.<\/p>\n<p>And really making sure that we&#8217;re being strategic about sort of<br \/>\ndoing both of those things well I think will be really important. And, you<br \/>\nknow, I know your listeners often are the people who have the best ideas on how<br \/>\nwe can be doing our oversight work and, and rebuilding Congress&#8217;s power, so<br \/>\nplease send them in because we are looking for all of the creative ideas that<br \/>\nwe can find <\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott R. Anderson:<\/strong> So<br \/>\nI wanna take the kind of the blue sky one level higher now because we could, in<br \/>\ntheory, be at a point in the next few years of major reform.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s something we talked about a lot. A lot of people thought<br \/>\nit might have come after 2020, little areas did, but nothing quite at the scale<br \/>\npeople anticipated. There&#8217;s still a lot of talk about it, particularly because<br \/>\nso many people do feel that Congress has either conceded to greater role, you<br \/>\nknow, in war, in foreign affairs, in a variety of other set of issues, or is<br \/>\nnot been able to effectively push back on its institutional inter- interests<br \/>\nagainst this administration.<\/p>\n<p>There are people on both sides of the aisle that have<br \/>\nmaintained this around different sets of issues. What, particularly in this<br \/>\nissue space, foreign affairs and national security, would you like to see<br \/>\nCongress move towards at a, as a body, as a legislative body? If it gets a<br \/>\nmajority that wants to reassert itself as an institution, what will that take<br \/>\nin the set of issue spaces?<\/p>\n<p>Is it you know, a state authorization bill? Is it a change to<br \/>\nthe War Powers Resolution? What would be your top-tier item to have Congress<br \/>\nfocus on if we get to one of these reform moments like we had, you know, after<br \/>\nthe Vietnam War? <\/p>\n<p><strong>Rep. Sara Jacobs:<\/strong><br \/>\nYeah. No, I, I, I think we will be there, and I&#8217;m hopeful we will be there. And<br \/>\nI think it&#8217;s incredibly important. I mean, Congress is a co-equal branch. We<br \/>\nshould not be a passive observer. And I&#8217;ll be honest, when I worked at the<br \/>\nState Department, I didn&#8217;t really think much about Congress. Congress has, you<br \/>\nknow, long abdicated its responsibility here, and frankly, the executive<br \/>\nbranch, under presidents from both parties, has long taken a very long leash.<\/p>\n<p>And I think we need to be clear-eyed and honest about the fact<br \/>\nthat a lot of what the Trump administration is doing is based on precedent<br \/>\nfrom, you know, Obama, Biden, Clinton, others, and that this hasn&#8217;t, you know,<br \/>\nhe&#8217;s taken it to the extreme and to its limit. I heard one scholar say that<br \/>\nit&#8217;s like we left a bunch of loaded guns around the White House and, well, you<br \/>\nknow, he&#8217;s the one who actually used them.<\/p>\n<p>Like, we&#8217;re also responsible for leaving all those loaded guns,<br \/>\nand I think that&#8217;s a really good way to think about it. And so I think we need<br \/>\nto be looking at it from a couple of different angles. So one is, what are the<br \/>\ninstitutional reforms Congress needs to be able to actually be a co-equal<br \/>\nbranch?<\/p>\n<p>And, you know, that looks like more capacity, potentially our<br \/>\nown legal analysis, so we&#8217;re not relying on the Office of Legal Counsel, things<br \/>\nlike that. The second is, what are the legislative fixes we need? Clearly, the<br \/>\nWar Powers Resolution of nineteen seventy-three isn&#8217;t working as we want it to.<br \/>\nI think we need to reform that.<\/p>\n<p>I think we need a reform of the Insurrection Act. I actually<br \/>\nintroduced that with Chris Deluzio because I think it&#8217;s clear that that has the<br \/>\npotential to be misused, and I think we should do a deep dive on all of the<br \/>\ndifferent things that the Trump administration has been misusing or has the<br \/>\npotential to misuse and really clean them up and tighten them up and make sure<br \/>\nthat Congress&#8217;s intent is clear there.<\/p>\n<p>So that&#8217;s the, the legislative piece, right? So You know, we<br \/>\nneed to, we need to build our own capacity. We need to look at closing<br \/>\nloopholes and reasserting our power in terms of war powers. That also means<br \/>\nrepealing and replacing the 2001 AUMF that has been stretched beyond any sort<br \/>\nof rational interpretation of it, in my opinion.<\/p>\n<p>But then we also need to look at, you know, what are the<br \/>\nproactive things Congress needs to do to reassert our power, and that&#8217;s where I<br \/>\ndo think we need to get to a state authorization every year, just like we do<br \/>\nfor the defense authorization. And I can tell you, I&#8217;m on both the Armed<br \/>\nServices and the Foreign Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n<p>Like, because we do a defense authorization every year, the<br \/>\nmilitary does feel more like they need to respond to us than the State<br \/>\nDepartment feels like they need to respond to the Foreign Affairs Committee.<br \/>\nLike, that is just a fact. And so by doing that every year, by reasserting our,<br \/>\nour actual role, I think we will be able to change that dynamic in a helpful<br \/>\nway.<\/p>\n<p>I also think we need to, you know, look at rebuilding foreign<br \/>\nassistance, what that looks like, really make sure that it is coming from<br \/>\nCongress, what those reforms look like and what the future looks like, and not<br \/>\nceding all of that to the executive branch, whether it&#8217;s the Trump<br \/>\nadministration or an incoming Democratic administration.<\/p>\n<p>I think, you know, Congress needs to begin working on that now,<br \/>\nand, and those ideas need to be coming from Congress. And we need them to be in<br \/>\nstatute. And then I also think we need to look at, like, you know, in a lot of<br \/>\nways, we&#8217;ve eroded our own authority by, you know, letting authorizations<br \/>\nexpire but still appropriating funding, appropriating for things, you know,<br \/>\nCongress actually doesn&#8217;t necessarily support.<\/p>\n<p>And so I think we need to look at all of those different things<br \/>\nand, and tighten them up. So I wish I could give you, like, this is the one<br \/>\npriority we need to do, but the fact of the matter is we kind of need to take a<br \/>\nholistic institution-wide approach and look at all of the ways we need to<br \/>\naddress this.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott R. Anderson:<\/strong><br \/>\nYou know, part of your job as a representative isn&#8217;t just representing your<br \/>\nconstituents and voters, it&#8217;s also speaking to constituents and voters helping<br \/>\nthem understand their role in the governmental process, in the democratic<br \/>\nprocess. When you speak to your constituents, how do you encourage them to<br \/>\nthink about these foreign affairs issues and how they affect their lives?<\/p>\n<p>How do you move foreign affairs issues from the back burner to<br \/>\nthe front burner for voters? And are there lessons there that other legislators<br \/>\nand frankly other citizens might be able to take on board about how they think<br \/>\nabout this issue set when they go to the ballot box? <\/p>\n<p><strong>Rep. Sara Jacobs:<\/strong><br \/>\nYeah, I mean, I talk a lot about it in terms of costs, right?<\/p>\n<p>We all notice and pay attention when there&#8217;s a war in the news<br \/>\nevery day, when we&#8217;re seeing bombs dropping, and we know that that costs a lot<br \/>\nof money. And if we actually, as a government, did the more preventative work,<br \/>\nif we did our foreign assistance well, if we did that kind of conflict<br \/>\nprevention well, that actually would save us a lot of money, but it doesn&#8217;t end<br \/>\nup in the news.<\/p>\n<p>And so to me, talking about, you know, how we can do that<br \/>\nprevention work tends to really resonate. And again, my district is not<br \/>\nnecessarily representative here. We are a very international place, so it just,<br \/>\nby its nature, people feel the foreign policy more. But I also think we don&#8217;t<br \/>\ntap enough into diaspora communities.<\/p>\n<p>I think diaspora communities are a really great bridge because<br \/>\nthey see how f- U.S. foreign policy directly impacts their loved ones in other<br \/>\ncountries, and they can help translate that to the communities that they live<br \/>\nin now. And I feel like we, as a foreign policy establishment, haven&#8217;t done<br \/>\nenough to, to really tap into that, that diaspora community.<\/p>\n<p>But the last thing is I feel like part of why we haven&#8217;t been<br \/>\nable to really resonate with people on foreign policy is because for a lot of<br \/>\npeople, they felt like there&#8217;s this bipartisan elite consensus in Washington, D.C.<br \/>\nthat doesn&#8217;t really take into their lives or their needs, and we haven&#8217;t really<br \/>\ngiven them a vision of what a foreign policy can look like that will actually<br \/>\nmake their life better and will produce a sort of common good that they can be<br \/>\na part of.<\/p>\n<p>And so I do think a big part of this is also having a<br \/>\nproactive, forward-looking vision of the role the United States can play in the<br \/>\nworld as it looks now, not harking back to some nostalgia about U.S. hegemony<br \/>\nand unipolarity, but how the U.S. can be a leader in the U- in the world as it<br \/>\nlooks now in increasing multipolarity, and then why having that leadership role<br \/>\nmatters for Americans and for Americans&#8217; national security, whether it&#8217;s<br \/>\nbecause we need those coalitions to actually be able to have more power in this<br \/>\nincreasingly multipolar world, or because we need partners to actually be able<br \/>\nto address things like pandemics and climate change and AI and things that are<br \/>\nsupranational by their very nature, and that we won&#8217;t be able to solve on our<br \/>\nown.<\/p>\n<p>And I think the more we can have that sort of forward-looking<br \/>\napproach, the more people will feel bought in to what the U.S. role in the<br \/>\nworld can be and why they want to be a part of it. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott R. Anderson:<\/strong><br \/>\nWell, we are out of time but that&#8217;s an interesting and a good note, I think, to<br \/>\nend our conversation on Representative Sarah Jacobs. Thank you for joining us<br \/>\nhere today on the <em>Lawfare Podcast<\/em>. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Rep. Sara Jacobs:<\/strong><br \/>\nThanks for having me.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>[Outro]<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott R. Anderson:<\/strong><br \/>\nThe <em>Lawfare Podcast <\/em>is produced by the <em>Lawfare<\/em> Institute. If you<br \/>\nwant to support the show and listen ad-free, you can become a <em>Lawfare<\/em><br \/>\nmaterial supporter at lawfaremedia.org\/support. Supporters also get access to<br \/>\nspecial events and other bonus content we don&#8217;t share anywhere else.<\/p>\n<p>If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review us wherever<br \/>\nyou listen. It really does help. And be sure to check out our other shows,<br \/>\nincluding <em>Rational Security<\/em>, <em>Allies<\/em>, <em>The Aftermath<\/em>, and <em>Escalation<\/em>,<br \/>\nour latest <em>Lawfare Presents<\/em> podcast series about the war in Ukraine. You<br \/>\ncan also find all of our written work at lawfaremedia.org.<\/p>\n<p>The podcast is edited by Jen Patja with audio engineering by<br \/>\nHazel Hoffman of Goat Rodeo. Our theme song is from Alibi Music. And as always,<br \/>\nthank you for listening.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nationalconsumerreportss.com\/?p=64\">Lawfare Live: The Trials of the Trump Administration, May 15<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong>\n<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Representative Sara Jacobs joins Lawfare Daily to discuss the Iran War, U.S. foreign assistance, and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress","category-executive-branch"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Lawfare Daily: Rep. 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