This is Brian Lairor's Daily Politics Podcasts from WNYC Studios.

It's Friday, July 12th.

I'm David First, WNYC's weekend edition host, filling in for Brian today.

Yesterday was the last day of the NATO summit

in Washington celebrating the 75th anniversary of the North Atlantic Alliance. NATO was created

in 1949 by the United States, Canada, several Western European nations to provide collective

security against the former Soviet Union, now Russia,

of course. But the anniversary took place at a moment of a lot of uncertainty in the West. This

year will have the most elections ever conducted globally, and already many countries have seen a rise

in populist, far-right leadership. In the European parliamentary elections, as one example, Europeans voted in,

more right-wing politicians in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Italy, among others.

Here in the U.S., the candidates in the presidential election in November have very different views

on what the future

of U.S. involvement in NATO should look like. And after President Joe Biden's performance in his

debate against Donald Trump a little over two weeks ago, which has led some in his party to call

for him to drop out of the presidential race, there was a lot of attention given to a press conference that the

president gave last night at the end of the summit. Joining us now to recap the three-day summit,

including a breakdown of the press conference last night and what the 2024 U.S. election

might mean for the future of the alliance is Fred Kaplan, Slate's War Stories columnists and the author of many

books, including the bomb, presidents, generals, and the secret history of nuclear war.

Fred, welcome back to WNYC.

Sure, always good to be here.

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