Hello and welcome to background briefing, available 24-7 at background briefing.

I'm Ian Masters, and today we'll look into a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with the NATO summit underway at the Hague, with European leaders trying to avoid

a clash between Trump and Zelensky, who clearly the U.S. President hates and can't wait

to sell him out to Putin.

We will discuss what the Europeans can do for Ukraine as Trump likely cuts off arms and NATO runs out of stocks of arms while pledging to increase their defense budget to 5% of GDP, which will mean Ukraine has only enough to hold the line for a year before they can no longer hold off Putin, who recently said,

Ukraine is all of ours.

Joining us is Charles Cupschen, who was director for European Affairs on the National Security

Council during the Clinton administration.

He's now a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service,

and he spent the last

three years of the Obama administration as special assistant to President Obama for national

security.

He is the author of Power in Transition, The Peaceful Change of International Order, and How Eni

Become Friends, The Sources of Stable Peace.

And his latest book is isolationism,

a history of America's efforts to shield itself from the world.

Then we will examine today New York City primary race for mayor, which exposes the division

in the Democratic Party, which unlike the GOP, which nurtures rising talent,

trashes and tries to marginalize young and promising leaders like AOC and Zoran Memdami,

who is running against a disgrace relic, Andrew Cuomo.

Joining us is Susan Kang, a professor of political science at John Jay College of Criminal

...