From the New York Times, this is the interview.

I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro.

There is no doubt that President Donald Trump has had an electrifying effect on NATO.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded after World War II,

primarily to act as a kind of bulwark against the then-Soviet Union.

Its 32 member nations, which include most of Europe, Canada, Turkey, and the U.S.,

are bound by this pledge of common defense.

The Alliance's most famous provision, known as Article 5,

states that an attack on one member country would require the response of all. In practice, though,

the United States is NATO's most important member. It provides the troops, intelligence, logistics,

and nuclear arsenal that make the alliance work.

President Trump has excoriated NATO as a financial drain on the U.S.

and has several times even threatened to withdraw from it.

Mark Ruta is the man who's been tasked with keeping Trump happy while setting up NATO for this new, more dangerous

era, where Russia has expansionist ambitions, the U.S. is seen as more unreliable, and Europe

is woefully underprepared to fight its own battles. He became NATO Secretary General

late last year, after 14 years as Prime Minister of the Netherlands, where his longevity

as a right of central leader earned him the nickname Teflon Mark.

I met Ruta earlier this week at NATO headquarters in Brussels, after a pivotal summit where

member states pledged to drastically increase their defense spending.

But the biggest headlines out of the summit were actually about Ruta's relationship

with Trump.

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