Abigail Spanberger, who represents Virginia's 7th congressional district in the House of Representatives, is one of the few members of Congress to have served as an operations officer at the Central Intelligence Agency. She also worked in law enforcement as an officer of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Not typical experiences for a thrice-elected politician--but useful for the role she finds herself in now.
David Priess chatted with Rep. Spanberger about her recent re-election to the House, the nature of "swing districts," working across the aisle, her road to working at CIA, her experiences as a postal inspector and intelligence operations officer, what she sees as important national security issues right now, her advice for former colleagues considering a run for elective office, and how listening skills she learned at CIA have helped her as a representative.
Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

CIA, Congress, and the Art of Listening with Abigail Spanberger

Weekly long-form conversations with fascinating people at the creative edges of national security. Unscripted. Informal. Always fresh.
Chatter guests roll with the punches to describe artistic endeavors related to national security and jump into cutting-edge thinking at the frontiers where defense and foreign policy overlap with technology, intelligence, climate change, history, sports, culture, and beyond. Each week, listeners get a no-holds-barred dialogue at an intersection between Lawfare's core issue areas and something from Hollywood to history, science to spy fiction. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Migration has always been a part of humanity's story. It will continue to be so long after any of us now living are gone. Population shifts in the coming century, spurred by climate change, are on track to become more extreme than at any point in our history--with hundreds of millions, probably billions, of people on the move. 
For this episode, David Priess spoke with Gaia Vince, self-described former scientists and author of the book Nomad Century (among other works), about various aspects of climate change-driven mass migration, including perceptions of borders across history, attitudes toward climate change mitigation vs. adaptation, why the "Dubai model" isn't a global solution, demographic shifts in the global north, migration as a cause of evolutionary and cultural development, myths about migrants and jobs and wages, nurses from the Philippines as a case study, how enlightened leadership can guide the most productive migration outcomes, and much more.
Works mentioned in this episode:
The book Transcendence by Gaia Vince
The book Nomad Century by Gaia Vince
Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Climate Migration with Gaia Vince

David Ignatius has worked at the Washington Post for more than 35 years in various roles and won many awards. He has written a column on foreign affairs for 25 years and reported some of the most significant national security stories over the last couple of decades. And he has done it while pumping out best-selling spy thrillers.
Lawfare Research fellow Matt Gluck spoke with Ignatius about his newest spy thriller, Phantom Orbit, which is a story of intelligence and the advance of space technology in the age of intensified geopolitical competition between the U.S., China, and Russia. They spoke about Ignatius’s character development in the book, what the book reveals about the new strategic space race, gender in the Central Intelligence Agency, and scientific discovery, among other things.
For more about David:His book “Phantom Orbit”David’s Twitter Page
 Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad. 
 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Phantom Orbit with Journalist David Ignatius

For a period of time in the 1960s, the Central Intelligence Agency was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, employer in the city of Miami. The CIA had set up a base of operations there, aimed primarily at undermining the regime of Cuban leader Fidel Castro. From those early days, writes historian Vince Houghton, the Cold War battle against communism shaped the city, which he says should rank among the world’s great capitals of espionage. 
Houghton and co-author Eric Driggs, both Miami natives, chronicle the city’s spooky history in their rolicking new book Covert City: The Cold War and the Making of Miami. Houghton spoke to Shane Harris about some of the colorful characters that span this decades-long story, why Miami has played such a pivotal role in the history of U.S. spying, and how the the Cuban intelligence service became one of the best in the world. 
The books, people, events, films, TV shows, video games, and actors discussed in this book include: Covert City https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/vince-houghton/covert-city/9781541774575/?lens=publicaffairs The Mariel Boatlift https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/cuba/mariel_port.htm Operation Mongoose https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba/2019-10-03/kennedy-cuba-operation-mongoose “Griselda” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15837600/ “Contra,” the video game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_(video_game) Queen of Cuba: An FBI Agent's Insider Account of the Spy Who Evaded Detection for 17 Years https://44thand3rdbookseller.com/book/9781637589595 Chatter episode about Montes with author Jim Popkin https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/chatter-podcast-ana-montes-american-who-spied-cuba-jim-popkin 537 Votes https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13128292/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 
 More about Vince Houghton https://www.nsa.gov/Press-Room/News-Highlights/Article/Article/2423003/from-soldier-to-scholar-vince-houghton-named-director-of-national-cryptologic-m/ https://twitter.com/intelhistorian?lang=en 
 Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How the Cold War Made Miami with Vince Houghton

David Sanger has been writing for the New York Times since he graduated from college more than four decades ago. Over that period, Sanger has served as a business correspondent in Silicon Valley, the Times bureau chief in Japan, and has covered the last five presidents—which has given Sanger a front-row seat to U.S. foreign policy for much of the post-Cold War period. It is that experience that informs Sanger’s newest book, “New Cold Wars,” in which Sanger argues—relying on a voluminous and colorful set of interviews with administration officials—that the U.S. has entered two new military, technological, and economic conflicts with Russia and China.
Lawfare Research Fellow Matt Gluck spoke about the book with Sanger. They discussed how the United States slipped into these conflicts through misreading Chinese and Russian geopolitical intentions and how the U.S. is seeking to navigate this new era. They also discussed how close Biden administration officials believed Vladimir Putin was to using a nuclear weapon in the fall of 2022.
For more about David:His book “New Cold Wars”David's Twitter Page
 Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Noam Osband and Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

New Cold Wars with Journalist David Sanger

Author and speaker Virginia Postrel has spent many years researching and writing about, among other things, various aspects of the economics and societal context of fashion, glamour, and consumer choice. A few years ago her book The Fabric of Civilization tackled the history and global effects of fabric-making, dyeing, the clothing trade, and other textile-related activities. So when host David Priess had his curiosity piqued by some displays at the International Spy Museum related to silk, dyes, and espionage, he knew who to call.
David talked to Virginia about the origins of string and of fabric, togas in fiction and reality, the value of purple in the Roman Empire, the importance of fabrics for outfitting armies and making warships' sails, the development of weaving, how textile merchants led to the modern political economy, Jakob Fugger, Chinese silk and espionage, Spain's 200 year monopoly on vibrant reds, efforts to steal Spain' cochineal secret, the long history of indigo, French efforts to steal Indian indigo, the invention of synthetic dyes, modern sneaker culture and conceptions of value, Jackie Kennedy, fashion and glamour on the world stage today, and more.
Among the works mentioned in this episode:The book The Fabric of Civilization by Virginia PostrelThe TV show The VikingsThe Chatter podcast episode Private Sector Intelligence with Lewis Sage-Passant, June 9, 2022Virginia Postrel's YouTube channelThe book The Power of Glamour by Virginia PostrelThe Star Wars prequel moviesThe TV show Game of ThronesThe TV show The RegimeThe article "Trump isn't just campaigning; He's selling his supporters a glamorous life" by Virginia Postrel, Washington Post, March 18, 20The movie The Hunger GamesThe book The Rosie Project by Graeme SimsionThe book Fifth Sun by Camilla Townsend
 Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

CIA, Congress, and the Art of Listening with Abigail Spanberger

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