Lawfare Daily: Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) on Congress’s Role in Foreign Affairs

Ingrid and Indeed present her.

“Jobs, by which you don't have a lot of love.”

Hey, do you like her? How do you feel about her? It's great that you don't have to respect her. How do I have to describe her? The phenomenon has to be respected.

Engry! That's the job for premium sales. With real profits, it won't happen. For trading, they try Indeed. And find qualified talent with premium sales.

[MUSIC PLAYING] March the Indeed, Inefah, yet off Indeed.de/recruiting. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hi, I'm Renee DeRasta, a contributing editor at Laugh Fair. You may have heard me on our podcasts,

talking about online influence operations or platform governance, or read my writing on the messy intersection of tech, democracy, and free expression. What makes Laugh Fair different and what makes me so proud to be here is that the whole team produces bold,

fearless commentary that synthesizes across disciplines. Laugh, technology, national security, policy. As emerging technologies move faster than the policies

meant to govern them, that kind of analysis is essential.

Laugh Fair is a 501c3 nonprofit. Everything that we produce is free with no paywall. But that only works because listeners like you step up. Head to Laugh Fair Media.org/support

and become a material supporter. Just $10 a month, or more, if you're able, makes a real difference in helping us tell the stories that hold power to account. Plus, supporting our work gets you

access to member-only perks, like the Adfree podcast feed, monthly, ask us anything opportunities, invites to special events, and more. It's a win-win. Thanks for listening and for supporting Laugh Fair.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

“And I think that's really what we have right now”

is oversight, is asking the questions, demanding investigations, trying to make sure that even if the political atmosphere at the Pentagon has changed, that the co-com commanders are still retaining that capacity and expertise and including the civilian harm mitigation measures

in their targeting. It's the Laugh Fair podcast. I'm senior editor Scott R. Anderson, with Representative Sarah Jacobs of the 51st Congressional District of California.

We are going to have to do a lot of oversight. And in the foreign policy space specifically on Venezuela, on Iran, on the use of our military in domestic instances. Today, we're talking about the role Congress

plays in Foreign Affairs and National Security and where it may go from here. So Representative Jacobs, I want to start with an observation. You are a bit of an outlier. For the simple reason that I think

the conventional wisdom and American politics of that Foreign Affairs, National Security, are a bit of a back burner issue. They're not what motivates voters. They're not the top of a lot of people's political calcula says. But when you go to your website, when you look at your press

releases, I did a little exercise and look back, and they're almost all about Foreign Affairs and National Security, at least over the last several months, you have to go pretty far back in 2025, if I had to and a row that aren't.

Talk to us about where you see Foreign Affairs and National Security fitting into your role as a member of Congress. Why you seem to be giving us such a priority and how it fits both with your duties as a representative and your mandate from your constituents?

Yeah, well, look when I ran for Congress, I'd worked at the State Department in the UN and everyone told me, like, don't talk about Foreign Policy. Don't talk about Foreign Policy. But the fact of the matter is, actually,

people are interested in knowing what your ideas are and what your plans are. And Foreign Policy is a back burner issue until it isn't, right? We know that the Warren Iran, for instance,

is very front and center in voters' minds right now because prices are up and it's really impacting their day-to-day lives.

And I am very fortunate to represent an amazing community

in San Diego that is a border community, a part community, the largest military community in the country and has a huge refugee and asylum-seeker population and a lot of immigrants. And so, for my district, for my community,

Foreign Policy is very present. And these aren't sort of far off theoretical ideas. We talk about the Warren Iran.

“I think for a lot of people, it's showing up”

in their daily lives in prices, which is for my constituents for sure. But it's also showing up in the fact that we've got 2,500 San Diego Marines off the coast of Iran right now.

We've got a number of our service members in San Diego who are on 48-hour deployment notice. Like, this is actually the real lives that are being impacted by this conflict. This is the real life of my constituents.

And it is pretty shameful to me, actually, that so many of my colleagues are really willing to put them in harm's way, to let them potentially

And so, that's why I spend so much time working on

and talking about foreign policy because it really is an incredibly important part of our country and our national security and also my constituents' lives. And it affects our economy, right?

These are, it's all related. - So, let's start with the Iran War because obviously that is a topic that's hard to miss these days, hard to avoid and affecting so many things here in America

and around the world. You have been a leader in the House of the effort to oppose the Iran War specifically through the use of resolutions that are given expedited procedures

of the War Pires resolutions. So, there have been two concurrent resolutions in the House.

“I believe six joint resolutions in the Senate.”

Those have so far lost across the board, none have been adopted, fairly slim margins and I wish it's a narrowing margins. Mostly partisan, a little bit of bipartisan trade over. Talk to us about where you think the strategy is likely to go.

Now that we've passed both the important for the War Pires resolution, 60 day mark, two Fridays ago now we're passed that period where at least some of the War Pires resolution that says the President should have terminated hostilities,

well the executive branch is arguing with why that isn't here. And also we're in a point where we may be seeing, as we're recording this, the ceasefire breaking down. It seems like we may be reaching the end of this period of a relative stability and relative low violence

that we've had over the last few weeks. Where do you think this effort to oppose the war in Iran is like a to go from here in the House in the broader Congress? - Yeah, look, I oppose the war in Iran

because I think that it is a strategic mistake and it is literally putting my constituents lives at risk. And we have already lost 13 service members and there's only bad options at this point which is why every President before Trump has declined

to actually use military force to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon because actually the most sustainable way to do that is through a diplomatic negotiation which now the Trump administration is trying to do

but with a worse hand than we had before. The congressional press of caucus of which I'm a member will be introducing war powers resolutions every single week

so that we always have one that's right

so that we can force a vote and put Republicans on the record. On whether they stand with the Constitution, stand with our troops or whether they're willing to rubber stamp whatever Donald Trump wants, even if it makes no sense

and actually doesn't make our country any safer. And that's what we'll continue doing but the war powers resolution is only one option that we have in terms of how we can oppose this war. We know that there will at some point

be a supplemental funding request coming to us. The number has ranged from 20 billion dollars to 200 billion dollars. We're still waiting to see what number they actually send to us. But I think it's incredibly important

that all of my colleagues reject that supplemental funding request because we know that the courts have seen that if Congress funds something, even if we haven't authorized it, that is seen as a de facto authorization.

“And so I think looking both at our annual appropriations bills,”

which we are working on right now and whatever supplemental funding request comes down, making sure that we are actually using Congress's power, the power of the purse to prevent Donald Trump from doing anything more in this reckless illegal war

will be incredibly important at both for the practicalities of it and for the legal underpinnings of it.

So we are getting to that critical point as you know

where we're gonna have potentially this supplemental appropriations request, defense authorization, defense appropriations bills later this year. An opportunity where the table's turned a little bit on the leverage with Congress and the president,

the president can't beat those easily. So it's a narrow margin to get something enacted in the law. What do you think the focus should be in terms of what Congress should be seeking in those laws? We can assume I think opponents of the war

aren't gonna get everything they would want. What do you think is most important? How would you triage a different legislative ask Congress could insert into that legislation?

“- Yeah, I think the most important thing that we need to do”

is fence off funding and say that no funding can be used for this illegal reckless war in Iran. And that's one of the best tools Congress has had. It's actually the way Congress was able to work to force for instance, you know, the Vietnam War

to end other conflicts making sure that, you know, we are saying that funding can't be used for this purpose that is specifically prohibited is the best tool Congress has. We have a number of bills that would do that in terms of Venezuela in terms of Iran.

And I think it's important that we try and get that into whatever broad package ends up going through in terms of appropriations and the National Defense Authorization Act. - Another issue that has come up in the context of Iran, but also Venezuela, and particularly the maritime strikes

happening throughout the Caribbean,

is this question of civilian casualties,

“the blending between categories of combatant and civilians,”

and then disproportionate impact on civilians as results military operations. It's a big issue that got a lot of attention from Congress and the last administration, and then that a lot of those efforts have been criticized

by the current administration, the current Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegsa. Talk to us about the status of those issues. Where do you think this issue is? Your co-chair, the protection of civilians

and conflicts caucus, you've been following this, what are the big deficits that we're seeing under current action and what should Congress do to try and address those? - Yeah, so a couple of years ago,

in bipartisan way, we were able to get a number of provisions around civilian casualties

into the National Defense Authorization Act

that, for instance, mandated a center of excellence on civilian harm mitigation that institutionalized the civilian harm mitigation action plan, that Secretary Austin had put in place that mandated certain civilian harm positions

and activities we don't at the different co-combs, and this administration has largely gutted all of those efforts and are trying to do sort of checking the box so that they're not technically breaking the law but not actually following the law

in terms of what we had intended it. And again, this was passed in a bipartisan way in the National Defense Authorization Act. A lot of what we're doing is trying to do oversight to make sure that, for instance,

even if the titles have changed of people's jobs that there are still people who are doing the specific civilian harm mitigation tasks and jobs that we know are incredibly important

for instance, in targeting,

and that these investigations are happening when an incident happened so for instance, I let over half of the Democratic caucus on an oversight letter asking about the U.S. strike on the Girl's School in Manab and we are still waiting answers on that,

DOD says the investigations are ongoing, but we know that that is maybe the most public and biggest of the civilian harm allegations in Iran but not by any means the only one. And so we're continuing to do that oversight.

“And I think that's really what we have right now”

is oversight is asking the questions demanding investigations trying to make sure that even if sort of the political atmosphere at the Pentagon has changed that the co-com commanders are still retaining that capacity and expertise

and including the civilian harm mitigation measures in their targeting and that we are then working so that when we are back in power, those folks are still there in the institution and we can quickly rebuild.

I think a lot of times when I talk about civilian harm mitigation people think I'm just like, I don't know, a lefty who doesn't want people to die and it's true, I don't want people to die unnecessarily, but it's also incredibly important

because we know that civilian harm and when we or our partners are allies are hurting and killing civilians and conflict actually really impacts our national security. We know that that is one of the main drivers

to violent extremism for instance, if you look at sort of all the empirical studies on what leads communities or people into violent extremism acts of violence by the state against themselves

or someone they know is one of those main drivers and so I actually think it's incredibly important because in a lot of these cases, we say we're trying to fight an extremism but then we are doing one of the very things

that is one of the biggest drivers and is just building more anti-american sentiment instead of solving the problem, we are saying we're there to solve. So I think it's incredibly important

and actually I was able to ask Admiral Paparo that Indo-Paycom commander about this and he said the same thing that civilian harm mitigation is an incredibly important part of American national security

“and that's why he continues to prioritize it.”

Even as this administration is sort of cutting the statureally required civilian harm mitigation efforts within the Pentagon. - So we've talked a lot about the defense space and you are of course on the Armed Services Committee

but you're also on the Foreign Affairs Committee which oversees the other big parts of our foreign policy apparatus, State Department development. So let's talk about that a little bit.

You have been very active in the Foreign Assistance space over the last terming Congress, certainly in the course of this Congress. You, if I recall correctly, I think sponsored or is only supported legislation

to try and stop the shutting down of USAID. I don't believe that move forward, obviously USAID has been shut down at this point in all but name effectively. You've also introduced more recently some legislation aimed at reforming foreign assistance

shifting towards a more locally-based model that actually has some synergies with, at least some rhetoric, some targets and objectives, the Trump administration, people supportive what the Trump administration have done as done,

aligns with that a little bit. There's a little bit of synergy there. And notably that's a bipartisan piece of legislation

I believe with one of your fellow representatives

Republican, Young Kim, of California. Talk was about where you think foreign assistance should be going in this moment where it has seen such a sea change in the institutions and the mechanisms was usually approached it through.

Where do you think it should go? Do you think there's bipartisan support for that and what is Congress's role in shaping that and driving that forward? - Yeah, I mean, if you had told me in December of 2024

that introducing a bill saying that no funds can be used to change USAID like that were done in a non-stattatory way would be controversial. I would have thought you were crazy. That would have been like a broad bipartisan bill.

But of course, by February 2025, that was not the case. And we've seen this illegal gutting of USAID.

And I think it's clearly illegal

and really problematic in terms of Congress's role and how we make sure that laws that Congress passes, statute that Congress creates actually get enforced.

“And I think why I don't know exactly what that looks like.”

I think that brings up a whole other conversation about what kind of structural reforms we need to make sure that Congress can actually enforce and implement the laws that we are passing. But I think you can both acknowledge

that what the Trump administration did on USAID was wrong and illegal and has killed many people and also acknowledge that this is now an opportunity for reform and to improve how it is delivered because while I wouldn't have done it the way

Donald Trump did it, I think we were working on USAID reform and foreign assistance reform well before this. And we shouldn't just rebuild what we had before.

It actually, there were a lot of reforms that were needed.

And so one of the big reforms I think we need is how we bring other countries into this conversation and really make it more of a partnership. And I'm the ranking member on the subcommittee on Africa. And so I talked to a lot of our partners

in the Global South all the time. And what I heard from them after USAID funding was pulled is that these countries were not like, oh no, we need the funding back there like, oh, we should use this as an opportunity

to be more self-sufficient because countries don't want to be dependent on aid and we shouldn't want them to be dependent on aid.

“And so that's why we're focused on locally led development,”

making sure that we are investing in local actors, local partners, building capacity on the ground instead of just sort of the way we've traditionally done for an assistance that is very US centric. I think we need to be focused more on government support

which will also include a lot more monitoring and protections because we know that that kind of support can be right for corruption and will need that sort of protection. But having clear benchmarks and timelines on what an off-ramp

looks like, having clear buy-in from other countries in terms of what they're putting forward, really thinking strategically about what it is that it makes sense for the US to do, versus what it makes sense for our partner countries to do.

In full transparency, I think Congress is partially to blame here, right, because through the appropriations process over the years, we've had so many earmarks on what foreign assistance can go to that it has left the folks on the ground

very little room to operate. So I think in Mozambique prior to the Trump administration, something like 95% of all foreign assistance to Mozambique was already earmarked by Congress as to what it had to do. And a lot of what Congress earmarks

is this very sort of disease-specific work, right, because you have advocacy groups that focus on this, that then ask for the specific appropriations request that end up in the appropriations bill. And in it, it all makes sense why we got to this place

because people care a lot about a specific issue and want to make sure it gets funded and the way to do that is to have protected funding for it. But if you actually take a step back, what actually makes more sense would be for the US

to really focus on health systems strengthening and let the countries then do the more specific disease-specific work within that health system strengthening that we're doing. And we've been able to do that, like I think Pet Far was a really great example

of how you can work on disease-specific work and also be doing that health system strengthening, but really thinking more holistically about what does it make sense for the US to do? How do we make sure we're building these off-ramps

and clearly working with our partner countries in partnership and not just as this kind of like thing we give you that you are then dependent on,

“I think it's incredibly important as we move forward.”

And I do think there is by-person appetite to really rethink what our foreign assistance can be and how we do it. - And another area that you've targeted for reform recently is the State Department.

And the critically, the conduct of diplomacy. In the past, you've been active about efforts to try and get the State Department to look a little more towards predicting trends

in the State Department, now more recently, you've got

another piece of bipartisan legislation, co-sponsor with Michael Baumgartner, believe we're public and from Washington State, talking about expeditionary diplomacy. A topic that's very close to my heart,

as I was briefly at Expeditionary diplomat of sorts, back early in the United States my career. But a topic that is a little in the weeds for a lot of people, talk goes about why this stands out to you as an issue worth addressing on the part of Congress.

And what Congress's role is in shaping the way the United States goes about diplomacy. I mean, why is it, or why does it need to be Congress's role to open up that space where to encourage the Executive Branch

to pursue Expeditionary diplomacy?

“- Yeah, so I think like taking a step back, right?”

I think part of why our foreign policy is so distorted starts in Congress because we pass these huge defense budgets and then pass poultry funding for the State Department and USAID. So then when we go into other countries,

it's the military who was then able to go out to these hard to reach areas. It's the military who has money that can actually provide assistance and work with other militaries in other countries. And so then we shouldn't be shocked when in other countries

their militaries become much more powerful

because that's the assistance we can give and then that's where we see coups and other things happening. And so to me, it all starts from that fundamental issue, which is that we've over-securitized and over-militized our foreign policy and everything

sort of flows from there. And that's where, I think Expeditionary diplomacy fits into that because I worked in the Bureau of Complex and Stabilization Operations at the State Department and we often saw

that the travel requirements, the travel restrictions were so severe for our State Department folks that it was only the military that could show up to certain meetings in certain places because they were the only ones that could travel there.

And then the face of America and other countries is our military and that's not really what we want. We want our military to be doing military things. We want our diplomats to be representing the United States.

“And I think it's important that it comes from Congress”

because in many ways Congress is part of the problem, right? I mean, I wasn't here yet, but we as Congress launched so many hearings and investigations on Benghazi. And while what happened in Benghazi was horrible, those investigations, I think, really overcorrected

and made it so that diplomats couldn't really go out of the capital or out of the perimeter at all. And that makes it really difficult to do their jobs. And if we have diplomats who are only in the capitals and only inside the perimeter, that means they're really

only talking to elites. And that means we're not getting a real picture of what's happening in those countries. And I think that contributes a lot to when we get surprised by things like people

in Niger, being angry at America for the role we're playing in military in their country. And if you're only talking to elites, you're not getting that perspective. And then we're getting surprised by these clues

and by these conflicts in other places because we're not actually really talking to the people of those countries. We're talking to the politicians and the elites. So in Somalia, as you probably know, the U.S. Embassy

is in the airport complex and diplomats aren't allowed to leave the airport complex to the point where when there are meetings that the U.S. government needs to attend outside of the airport complex, it is our military who's going

because even our ambassador cannot go to those places because of security protocols. That shouldn't be how we're doing things. And so Michael Baumgartner and I both worked at the State Department, we both kind of worked

in the space and we really came together and looked at what do we need to do to move the ball forward and to make a more permissive environment so that our diplomats can really be doing their jobs. - So a theme of a few of these piece of legislation

we've hit on is the bipartisan support. The fact that you've found these partners across the aisle that I want to drill into that in this foreign affairs context. When we all know partisan divisions make certain things hard in Congress to say the least.

“I think that's obviously from the outset”

in terms of even more obvious from the inside. And it's a real pressure. I mean, inevitably, particularly in the fortified space, a lot of what Congress is doing is responding to problems in the world that are being addressed

one by way by the incumbent administration.

And that is in a two-party system always

going to line up awkwardly for one side of the aisle or the other in Congress. Yet you found ways on a couple of these issues to at least find bipartisan partners and maybe eventually drive it forward to progress through enactment.

Talk to the thought, well, you're strategy for doing that. Where do you think the areas for bipartisan cooperation and foreign affairs are? Are there certain techniques for identifying or approaching them and then how do you turn bipartisan co-sponsorship

- It's a good question, and I'm glad you asked it

because I feel like in the news, all they show is us fighting. And there is a lot of fighting, I don't want to minimize that. And a lot of important things to fight about. But if you kind of go one level down

to the super political things, there's actually a lot of bipartisan work happening. And in some ways, we've actually been able to do more bipartisan work than ever because Speaker Johnson basically has lost control of the Republican conference.

“And so this Congress alone, I think we've had six successful”

discharge positions, which is the way you get around the speaker. That's more than the entire rest of Congress combined. The history of Congress combined. And so, you know, the way I think about working in bipartisan way is that I don't think it's about how

you get the most watered down lowest common denominator version of something that you can get everyone to agree with, because then in many ways you're like saying you're doing something and then you're not doing it. And that actually is worse than creates

that sort of cycle of mistrust. The way I think about bipartisanship is, what are the big things we each want to do? Where do those overlap? And then how can we find ways to work on that?

And actually in the foreign policy space,

it doesn't always cross-cut in the same sort of partisan lines

you would think. Sometimes you'll actually see like on war powers and Congress's role, it's often progressives in the Democratic Party and the Freedom Caucus and the Republican Party who are working together on those issues.

And I do a lot of work with the Freedom Caucus of all people on those kind of war powers and other issues.

“And the key to me is figuring out like Michael Baumgartner”

and I, he's a new member. We traveled together to Iraq and he was talking about his experience there. And that's where through those conversations and developing a real relationship with each other,

we found that we had common interest in trying to figure out how we can get diplomats to be able to leave the perimeter more. Young Kim worked on the House Foreign Affairs Committee with a staffer on it before she got to Congress. And so she'd been thinking about these issues a lot.

And while that's not really the experience of most of my colleagues here, right? Most people start in state and local government and move up and are really much more focused therefore on those state and local issues

that they're more comfortable with. For those of us who have worked in the executive branch who have thought about foreign policy a lot, there is actually a lot more commonality than not. In terms of like figuring out what we can do from Congress

to make the institutions and the sort of structures of our foreign policy work better. So we're approaching a moment, obviously, with the midterm elections, where we may go from a Congress that has bicellin margins, but nonetheless been controlled

by the same party as the president, to one where one or both chambers are very well might switch control. The question then shifts to what the tool kits are that are available.

And particularly to new tool kits, one or both chambers might develop.

We saw during the second half of the first Trump administration,

for example, the House lean in delitigation much more than it's done previously, pursue more oversight techniques a little more aggressively through the courts, using the courts to back up their oversight authority. Particularly in the Foreign Affairs National Security Space,

what sort of tools do you expect a Democrat or they controlled House recennet to lean on? Do you think they should lean on? And are there things that they can do to empower themselves to be more effective in their role of oversight

or their other functions in the Foreign Affairs National Security Space come 20, 20, 7, when we may have a Democratic House word Democratic Senate? - Yeah, look, I think that we are going to have to do a lot of oversight.

And in the Foreign Policy Space specifically on Venezuela, on Iran, on the use of our military in domestic instances. And it will be incredibly important that we do that oversight. And I also do think we need to think about

what our instructional changes we can make to make sure that Congress is actually able to do that oversight. And I don't have a fully fleshed out vision of what that looks like, but I think it could be making sure we have more staff at CRS who can do some of it

and have that expertise thinking about what kind of sort of legal advisory work we need to have Congress so we're not only dependent on the executive branches, legal opinions on things.

“And I think oversight will be an incredibly important piece.”

I mean, we haven't even had a single open hearing on the Iran War yet. And we've lost 13 service members, billions of dollars, and there's still not been a full actual congressional hearing on this.

We've had classified briefings, but no real hearing. And that's a problem and that's something we need to fix when we're in the majority. But even amidst all of that oversight that we need to be doing, I also think there are still areas of opportunity

where we can actually move the ball forward even under this president. I think reforming foreign assistance and building that back up is one of those areas.

with our Republican colleagues

and sort of the role of Congress is another area. And I do think that we need to be able to hold both of those things at the same time. We need to be doing rigorous, rigorous oversight and accountability work.

And we need to still be looking for ways that we can come together and move the ball forward, even under whatever construct we're working in the next Congress. I think both of those are possible.

And in particular, the National Defense Authorization Act tends to be a place where you do get some of those grand bargains, where you can make some of those deals, where you really can move the ball forward. And I'm hopeful that that we will do it.

I've been working on a lot of military quality of life issues

“that I think we can still get done in particular getting”

IVF and fertility treatment for service members

covered by tricode, the military transfer program.

But I think there are others. And really making sure that we're being strategic about doing both of those things well. I think we'll be really important. And I know your listeners often are the people

who have the best ideas on how we can be doing our oversight work and rebuilding Congress's power. So please send them in because we are looking for all of the creative ideas that we can find. So I want to take the kind of the blue sky one level higher now

because we could in theory be at a point in the next few years of major reform. There's something we talked about a lot of people thought it might have come after 2020. Little areas did, but nothing quite at the scale.

People are anticipated. There's still a talk about it. Particularly because so many people do feel that Congress has either conceded to greater role and war in foreign affairs and a variety of other set of issues,

or is not been able to effectively push back on its institutional interests against this administration. And there are people on both sides of the aisle that have maintained this around different sets of issues. What particularly in this issue space,

foreign affairs and national security, would you like to see Congress move towards as a body, as a legislative body? If it gets a majority that wants to reassert itself as an institution, what will that take in the set of issues

spaces? Is it, you know, a state authorization bill? Is it changes the war powers resolution? What would be your top tier items that have Congress focused on if we get to one of these reform moments

like we had after the Vietnam war? Yeah, no, I think we will be there and I'm hopeful we will be there. And I think it's incredibly important. I mean, Congress is a co-equal branch.

We should not be a passive observer. And I'll be honest, when I worked at the state department, I didn't really think much about Congress. Congress has long abdicated its responsibility here. And frankly, the executive branch under presidents

from both parties has long taken a very long leash.

“And I think we need to be clear-eyed and honest”

about the fact that a lot of what the Trump administration is doing is based on presidents from Obama, Biden, Clinton, others, and that he's taken it to the extreme and to its limit, I heard one scholar say that it's like, we left a bunch of loaded guns around the White House.

And well, he's the one who actually used them. We're also responsible for leading all those loaded guns. And I think that's a really good way to think about it. And so I think we need to be looking at it from a couple of different angles.

So one is, what are the institutional reforms Congress needs to be able to actually be a co-equal branch? And that looks like more capacity, potentially, our own legal analysis, so we're not relying on the obvious of legal counsel, things like that.

The second is, what are the legislative fixes we need?

Clearly, the war power's resolution of 1973 isn't working as we want it to. I think we need to reform that. I think we need a reform of the Interaction Act to actually introduce that with Christalusio,

“because I think it's clear that that has the potential”

to be misused, and I think we should do a deep dive on all of the different things that the Trump administration has been misusing or has the potential misused and really clean them up and tighten them up and make sure that Congress's intent is clear there.

So that's the legislative piece, right? So we need to build our own capacity. We need to look at closing loopholes and reasserting our power in terms of four powers, that also means repealing and replacing the 2001 AOMF

that has been stretched beyond any sort of rational interpretation of it, in my opinion. But then we also need to look at what are the proactive things Congress needs to do to reassure our power. And that's where I do think we need to get to a state authorization

every year, just like we do for the defense authorization. And I can tell you, I'm on both the Armed Services and the Foreign Affairs Committee, like because we do a defense authorization every year, the military does feel more like they need to respond to us

than the state of our own fields, like they need to respond to the Foreign Affairs Committee. Like that is just a fact. And so by doing that every year, by reasserting our actual role,

I also think we need to look at rebuilding

for an assistance what that looks like, really make sure that it is coming from Congress. What those reforms look like and what the future looks like and not see to go all of that to the executive branch, whether it's the Trump administration

or an incoming Democratic administration.

“I think Congress needs to be getting working on that now”

and those ideas need to be coming from Congress. And we need them to be in statute. And then I also think we need to look at, like in a lot of ways, we've eroded our own authority by letting authorization's expire,

but still appropriating funding, appropriating for things, Congress actually doesn't necessarily support. And so I think we need to look at all of those different things and tighten them up.

So I wish I could give you, like, this is the one priority

we need to do, but the fact of the matter is, we kind of need to take a holistic institution wide approach and look at all of the ways we need to address this. - You know, part of your job as a representative isn't just representing your constituents and voters.

It's also speaking to constituents of voters, helping them understand their role in the governmental process and the Democratic process. When you speak to your constituents, how do you encourage them to think about these foreign affairs

issues and how they affect their lives? How do you move foreign affairs issues

“from the back burner to the front burner for voters?”

And are there lessons there that other legislators and frankly, other citizens might be able to take on board

about how they think about this issue set

when they go to the ballot box? - Yeah, I mean, I talk a lot about it in terms of costs, right? We all notice and pay attention when there's a war in the news every day when we're seeing bomb dropping.

And we know that that costs a lot of money. And if we actually, as a government, did the more preventative work, if we did our foreign assistance well, if we did that kind of conflict prevention well,

that actually would save us a lot of money, but it doesn't end up in the news. And so to me talking about how we can do that prevention work tends to really resonate. And again, my district is not necessarily representative here.

We are a very international place. So it just by its nature, people feel the foreign policy more. But I also think we don't tap enough into diaspora communities. I think diaspora communities are a really great bridge because they see how US foreign policy directly impacts

their loved ones in other countries. And they can help translate that to the communities that they live in now. And I feel like we, as a foreign policy establishment, haven't done enough to really tap into that diaspora community.

But the last thing is I feel like part of why we haven't been able to really resonate with people on foreign policy is because for a lot of people, they felt like there's this bipartisan elite consensus in Washington, DC, that doesn't really take into their lives or their needs.

And we haven't really given them a vision of what a foreign policy can look like. That will actually make their life better. And will produce a sort of common good that they can be a part of. And so I do think a big part of this is also having

a proactive forward-looking vision of the role the United States can play in the world as it looks now, not harking back to some nostalgia about US to Germany and unipolarity. But how the US can be a leader in the US,

in the world, as it looks now, in increasing multiplicity. And then why having that leadership role matters for Americans and for Americans' national security, whether it's because we need those coalitions to actually

be able to have more power in this increasingly multi-polar world, or because we need-- [MUSIC PLAYING] Partners to actually be able to address things like pandemics and climate change and AI and things that are

super national by their very nature, and that we won't be able to solve on our own. And I think the more we can have that sort of forward-looking approach, the more people will feel bought in to what the US role in the world can be, and why they want to be a part of it.

Well, we are out of time. But that's an interesting-- and a good note. I think to end our conversation on Representative Jacob's. Thank you for joining us here today on the Loffer podcast. Thanks for having me.

[MUSIC PLAYING] The Loffer podcast is produced by the Loffer Institute.

“If you want to support the show and listen at free,”

you can become a Loffer material supporter at Loffer and needed.org/support. Supporters also get access to special events and other bonus content.

If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review us

where we listen. It really does help.

“And be sure to check out our other shows”

in the Rational Security, Allies, The Aftermath,

and Escalation, our latest Loffer Presents podcast series about the war in Ukraine.

“You can also find all of our written work at LofferMedia.org.”

The podcast is edited by Jen Patcha with audio engineering by Hazel Hoffman of Go Rojo. Our theme song is from Alabama Music.

And as always, thank you for listening.

[MUSIC PLAYING]