I'm John Batchel. I welcome my colleague and friend, that is, MacArthur American Greatness, and my co-host.

We welcome Judy Dempsey, senior scholar for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

She's based in Berlin. All three of us go to the headline in the Financial Times, that is,

not just European, not just American, but global.

U.S. in talks to expand nuclear weapons deployments in Europe is the bold headline,

bigger than the Strait of Hormuz, bigger than Deutsche Bank, bigger even than AI.

The subhead, Washington has signaled openness to additional countries

hosting nuclear-capable bombers, known in

DOD parlance as DCA, dual-d-capable

assets. Judy, a very good day to you. This is the

Financial Times, and you're a veteran,

and so you know this is read in all the important banking rooms across the continent in these

last hours, and questions come immediately to mind. Why do they want us to know this? Because

in the course of the story, we're told that

the talks to expand the DCAs are very confidential. So it's a guessing game as to who or what

provided this to the Financial Times. Your reading of it, does this provide evidence that the U.S. and NATO are negotiating to offset

the announcement of withdrawal of a certain number of American troops, or offset the opinion

of many in Brussels that Mr. Trump is turning away from NATO or provide evidence that

Europe is now taking its self-defense seriously and is going to match the ability of NATO to use

gravity bombs in the potential of a Russian invasion. How do you read this, Judy? How does Brussels want us to

read this? Thanks, John, for having me on your show. You've packed in an awful lot of questions

there. And I think we just have to stand back a little and ask, why now? I mean, this is a serious

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