Trump’s Threat to NATO Is Real

Susan B. Glasser on Trump andNATO, and then:
•Jon Stewart’s return to “The Daily Show”
•The Democrats take back George Santos’s old seat
•The trauma of giving birth in Gaza

“One prediction about the 2024 political seasonhas already come true,”Susan B. Glasser writesin her latest column. “The election year, to the delight of Donald Trump’s superfans and the dread of just about everyone else, is all about the former President: his trials, his feuds, his insufferable family.” This week, his dominance has extended into the realm of the nation’s standing on the global stage. As Glasser notes, “Trump has demonstrated his remarkable continued ability to hijack the national conversation, warping and distorting not only America’s politics but also its foreign policy to suit his toxic personal mixture of dictator worship, blustery nationalism, and deep-seated skepticism about U.S. engagement in the world.”

Jon Stewart showedno rust in his return to the host chair on “The Daily Show,” despite his nine years away, our television critic Inkoo Kang writes. Yet, while nostalgists will be pleased to see a familiar face during a deeply unsettling election year, Stewart himself seems inclined to move beyond just playing the hits. “By hinting at how he’s rethought some of his stances,” Kang writes, “Stewart has made us curious once again about what he has to say.”Read more »

P.S. House Republicansvoted this week to impeach the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, after failing to pass a similar measure the week before. The effort is viewed as an explicitly partisan political effort, and is expected to die in the Senate. Jonathan Blitzer hasdescribed the immigration challenges facing the countryas being “genuinely complex and nearly impossible to settle as long as policymakers in Washington continue to regard decency as a sign of political weakness rather than of moral strength.”