Sam and Emma host Stephen Wertheim, Director of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, to discuss his recent New York Times Opinion Essay, “Sorry, Liberals. But You Really Shouldn’t Love NATO,” on NATO’s lost sense of purpose and the US’s role in the European region under Biden and moving forward. They start with a discussion of the original purpose of NATO, to deter the growing Soviet Union, and how that changed and expanded following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. Wertheim discusses how, although now in the absence of credible threats, the US took initiative to bolster NATO and their global hegemony, and he and Sam walk through the original domestic opposition to NATO as serving to further alienate Russia, and how that has all but disappeared in the most recent rounds of expansion despite that fear being all but confirmed. Moving into the recent decade, Sam and Stephen look into how recent NATO rhetoric has continued to expand out of the EU, now focusing on China as a growing threat, and they look into the possibility of the EU taking on the brunt of defense responsibility and the benefits for both Europe and the US of such a course of action. Emma and Sam round it out with a tale of two pitties, as, even if he didn’t cheat, Republicans still see Mike Pence as a traitor and Ron Johnson finds out how brutal it is out there, getting raucously booed at a local Juneteenth rally.

And in the Fun Half: Sam and Emma get giddy as they hype up Sam’s crashing of the Crowder debate, hosted by the H3 podcast, edging the audience for a solid thirty minutes as they walk through the hypothetical scenarios that could’ve occurred on today’s filming. Then, Dan from the Upper West Side calls in to tackle large scale discussions of culture and the left, how some groups are replicating elements of capitalism within their communities, and offers up his critique on Leftist shows such as MR focusing too much on reformism and electoral politics instead of centering leaders working to build community self-determination and systems of mutual aid in preparation for future crisis and inevitable collapse. The crew also touches on the massive anti-Bolsonaro protests in Brazil, how Charlie Kirk’s aging body is finally catching up with his mind, and LJ from MI calls in to chat about Dimmy Jore and the dumb-dumb left before Nick from Japan explores his experiences in countering conspiracy indoctrination in loved ones, plus, your calls and IMs!