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Matt Katz: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Matt Katz from the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom filling in for Brian today. Coming up on the show, we're going to talk about a topic I know many of you are very interested in, which is how the streetscape of the city has changed so dramatically just in the past few years as e-bikes, mopeds, scooters, those skateboard things with one wheel, they've just proliferated on streets and bike lanes and sidewalks.

Plus, as we do on all Supreme Court opinion days in June, we've got our eyes on SCOTUS right now, and we'll bring you any news and analysis of any big opinions that come down. Plus, a little more on yesterday's abortion pill decision, and we'll close today's show with a call in for Father's Day. Dads, how do you show up and show love for your kids or adult children, even if, or especially if they are, let's say, challenging? I was inspired to have this conversation after seeing a meaningful photo of President Biden hugging his son Hunter right after Hunter's conviction earlier this week.

First, yesterday, we led the show with national politics. Today, we're taking a global look at the state of affairs around the world, given that the G7 Summit of industrialized nations is convening in Italy right now. That's where President Biden is today. He's already made some news on the war in Ukraine, which we're going to talk about. The Pope is there too, and he's making news about artificial intelligence, and then, oddly enough, there are actually far more nations at the G7 than the seven in the G7.

We're going to try to sort through the diplomatic dancing and happy handshaking at the summit, plus the political goings-on at home with Susan Glasser, staff writer at The New Yorker. Susan writes a column on life in Biden's Washington and co-anchors a weekly discussion on The Political Scene podcast. She's co-author with Peter Baker of The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021. Susan, welcome back to The Brian Lehrer Show.

Susan Glasser: Hey, great to be with you today. Thank you.

Matt Katz: Oh, it's our pleasure. So glad to have this chat with you. There's something unusual I've been reading about this group of seven summit this year. It's like the annual meeting of industrialized nations, so-called West, but today at the G7 Summit, leaders from India, Brazil, Turkey, other non-western countries are going to be on the stage, and they were invited by the host, Italy. What is the meaning of this? I'm curious. Is this an acknowledgment that the influence, the wealth, the population of the West is waning, relatively speaking, and then if all of these other countries are there also made me wonder, "What's even the point of having a G7 anyway?" These are the questions that have been circulating in my mind that I've been wanting to ask you about.

Susan Glasser: Well, that's right. This is G7 plus guests, a lot of guests, and in part, it reflects the idea that this is a club that a lot of people want to belong to. There's a certain magnetic quality to it, and if other world leaders want to be at the table, that this might be a pretty attractive perk. Also, Italy, as the host, you pointed out, it's really their decision. They want to show off Italy as much as possible. They want as many people as possible in sharing the spotlight when Italy has its moment in the spotlight.

I think it reflects also the complicated reality of global politics right now, which is that there is increasingly a competition between the West and its adversaries, Russia and China, and in that competition, countries like India, countries in the global south, are increasingly seen as valuable partners whose cooperation is up for grabs, and so this also becomes part of the incentive structure in what looks to some people like a new cold war era between the West and its adversaries.

Matt Katz: It's a little bit about the West wooing the global South to their side of things, politically and economically.

Susan Glasser: I think that's right, yes, absolutely.

Matt Katz: I imagine you've been to your fair share of summits. I am always curious what actually happens at these things in terms of whether they're really constructive. You see the handshaking. They let the press in the room for a little bit, but are they really getting into the nitty gritty of policymaking and deals, or is that happening at a lower level? What goes on at these things?

Susan Glasser: That is a great question. Well, first of all, I should say that the press is not very glamorous. I was looking at someone who's there covering this event in Italy, and unless you're in the pool for that day, you're sitting in a filing center literally hours away from the actual meeting place. It's a reminder that international cemetery is definitely not fantastic for the media hoards who show up to cover it, but having researched a number of books and histories that deal with international diplomacy, we wrote a biography of former Secretary of State Jim Baker.

We're working on a book about Putin and the five American presidents, and I'm really struck by how much the leaders interacting with each other at events like the G7 Summits, the G20 Summits, these become important in building actual relationships that are more just an occasional phone call through stilted translators between these leaders. I think that there is a lot more back and forth at the leader level than we realize. Now, it's interesting because in the case of Donald Trump, one of the things that came through very clearly, going back and doing reporting around his time as president was these summits were a nightmare and a disaster for many of our Western allies because of Trump's erratic nature, his desire to show things up, his unwillingness to be constrained by whatever the plans were.

It grew so bad that after he threatened to blow up NATO at the NATO Summit in the summer of 2018, a few weeks before that, there was a G7 meeting in Canada at which he refused to sign off on the basically pro forma communique because he was angry with his Canadian hosts and didn't like some of the wording around it, that they actually had to work around Trump and negotiate the communique in advance so that he couldn't disrupt the summit when it actually occurred. These can be tricky diplomatic moments.

Matt Katz: What was that communique on? Was that about-- do you remember, was it meaningful?

Susan Glasser: No, no, no. It's not substantive often, the objections that Trump had, although there were times, for example, when his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, there were documents that he was disagreeing to because they had boilerplate language about the need to combat climate change, for example, and the Trump administration was at odds with its allies over that, essentially standard language in summit communiques. No, if you're fighting about a communique, you are fighting essentially over power and wording more than you are over substance.

Matt Katz: You took the opportunity last week when Biden was in Normandy to look back at Trump's experience on the international stage, as you just did. I just wanted to read an excerpt because it's very relevant to what you were just talking about. You wrote, "Does anyone still remember Trump in Helsinki in 2018, tripping over himself as he took Putin's word over that of American intelligence agencies? Or Trump in France skipping a cemetery visit because he reportedly did not want to get his hair wet? Or Trump in 2019, blackmailing Ukraine's young new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, by holding up hundreds of millions of dollars in US military assistance needed to fight off Russia as he demanded Zelensky dig up dirt on Biden?"

Susan, envision a second Trump term, it's the G7 Summit. How differently does that look with Trump in the White House a second time? Is it more combative, unusual, strange than the first time around when he was objecting to communiques?

Susan Glasser: Yes, all of the above. Look, there's no bigger contrast between Biden and Trump than the contrast in how they would approach Russia's invasion of its neighbor, Ukraine, and ongoing Western support for Ukraine. We have just this week in Italy, President Biden, there with President Zelensky, who is an invited guest, one of the many, as you pointed out, to this G7 Summit, and Zelensky is there to meet with President Biden and the other leaders.

The United States signed a 10-year bilateral security agreement that commits the US, but in an unspecified dollar amount way, to supporting the defense of Ukraine over that long-term period. It's an effort to Trump-proof American support for Ukraine, but the truth of the matter is that that document is not really binding on a future president, and Trump can rip it up. There's an out clause that's a mile wide in the document, and it basically just says either party can abandon this agreement, and in six months, it will no longer be enforced.

While Joe Biden was at the G7 Summit signing that agreement and agreeing to support Ukraine for as long as it takes once again, Trump was in Washington meeting with House Republicans, and according to one of his supporters, Matt Gaetz, what he told House Republicans privately at the same moment that document was being signed was that he didn't support the billions of dollars in aid that the US has given to Ukraine in the war and also that he just didn't believe that Ukraine really was committed to being a long-term partner for the United States. There is no doubt in my mind that a Trump victory would be a big victory for Putin in his war in Ukraine.

Matt Katz: We've psychoanalyzed this man for many years in this country, but is that because he's a-- it's been alleged that he's a Russian asset, and that seems maybe conspiratorial, but is it that he is envious of Putin's dictatorial control over his country, that he respects that? What is the draw, the continued draw he has to this man?

Susan Glasser: [chuckles] Well, look, I would point out that it's fascinating that Trump still, despite all the controversy and investigations, will not shut up about his affinity for Vladimir Putin, will not stop praising him. Even on the campaign trail in 2024, he has been repeatedly saying in his rallies about the great relationship he had with Putin. He recently sent out a social media post in which he claimed that he had such a good relationship with Putin, that Putin would do him the big favor of releasing the imprisoned American journalist Evan Griskowitz from The Wall Street Journal that he wouldn't do for Joe Biden, which, by the way, was a breathtaking assertion. If Trump has such a good relationship with him, why isn't he working now to get Evan out rather than waiting for months and essentially treating him as a political hostage?

The point that you ask about why is this different, we know that Trump has a remarkable affinity for many of the world's worst dictators, thugs, and bad guys. He often talks about his love affair with Kim Jong Un, a killer of a leader if ever there was one. He talks about his good relationship with Xi Jinping in China. With Putin, there does seem to be something different, and I would point out it also is something that predates even Trump's entry into American politics, his admiration for Vladimir Putin.

Matt Katz: Listeners, do you have any questions for New Yorker's writer Susan Glasser, our guest, about how international affairs might be affected by a change in the White House? Give us a call, or text us at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Any questions about how you think Donald Trump would change how the US is approaching major global conflicts like Russia's war in Ukraine or the Israel-Hamas war? Earlier this week, we talked about how many European leaders are nervous about the prospect of a Trump presidency number two. What are your thoughts? 212-433-9692. We're open for your calls and texts.

We also just got a SCOTUS reading ruling on guns. It looks like the question was whether bump stocks convert rifles into machine guns. The court says they do not. Liberals dissent. We are going to talk about that coming up in the next hour. Oh, yes. I got some more on this. One second. The question, in this case, is whether a bump stock, which is an accessory for a semi-automatic rifle that allows the shooter to rapidly reengage the trigger to fire very quickly, whether that constitutes a machine gun. The court says it does not. Susan, if you know anything about that case or want to make a comment on it or we can talk more about it in the next hour. We have a SCOTUS expert coming on. Do you know about that case, Susan?

Susan Glasser: Well, I think it's, once again, it looks like it's the six-three conservative majority that has been put in place because of the Trump presidency that we're talking about. I do think that, once again, it's an example of a Supreme Court that is not just conservative but has really been remade by Trump. This is the Trump court very fully.

Matt Katz: There could be more vacancies, obviously, in the next term. Is there a number that people bandy about in terms of the potential appointments that the next president would have?

Susan Glasser: That is a good question. A six-three majority is a pretty strong one already, and were Republicans to win the Senate and the White House, they would really be running up the score most likely.

Matt Katz: I want to turn back to this G7 Summit. Economic realities, climate change, they've led to the biggest movement of people in global history, and that's happening not just at our southern border, but on the shores of Europe and beyond. Reports out of the G7 say that leaders are discussing issues like this, like migration.

I'm wondering if when they say they're talking about migration, are they really talking about how to best keep migrants out of their countries? Is that really what the question is, or are they even not getting that far? They're just complaining to each other about the issue and not taking necessarily any real holistic solutions. What does it mean when I read they're talking about issues like migration?

Susan Glasser: [chuckles] Excellent question. I detect a skeptical note properly in your voice on this issue.

Matt Katz: You're correct. Yes.

Susan Glasser: The bottom line is that the numbers are extraordinary, and they have proven to be very disruptive in the politics not only of the United States but also many of the US's European allies. There's no consensus within those countries or within the EU on how to proceed, never mind globally. I think they recognize it's now a driver of global politics, but one that has resisted political solutions because the politics would be very difficult for them.

Here in the United States is a classic example of that. When there was a bipartisan deal reached in the Senate earlier this year in which a very conservative Republican from Oklahoma joined with Democrats and came up with a proposal that would have had President Biden swallowing some very tough measures at the border that he had resisted doing, the Democrats are very much against in the name of getting a deal. Donald Trump wanted an issue, not a deal, tanked it, got senators to turn on the very terms that they had demanded from Democrats.

I think, to me, that's a little bit of a parable that applies not just in the US, but to many of these other countries as well that are dealing with this. By the way, this influx of immigration, I was looking at numbers the other day. Just in the last 20 years, the percentage of immigrants in many European countries and the United States has gone up quite dramatically. I think that is a reason that it is escalated as a political issue. Many of these incumbent leaders at the G7, including Joe Biden, are extremely weak and unpopular right now with their electorates. Immigration is one of the reasons.

Matt Katz: Somebody texted in, a listener texted in referring to another time in American history in the wake of mass immigration into the country. The texter was asking about the '30s. They wrote, "I'd like the guests to discuss the similarities between Trump and the isolationist movement in the '30s that this idea of America First and only is really almost a century old. Is there a throwback to Trump's isolationist stance and maybe the right-wing movement across the globe in terms of the ascendancy of right-wing leaders?"

Susan Glasser: Yes. I think that is an excellent question. The historical parallels are marked and, in some points, even uncanny. First of all, the name America First itself comes directly from the America First movement that sought to keep the United States out of the Second World War led by Charles Lindbergh, the famous aviator, and an array of Republican senators, people like Arthur Vandenberg from Michigan. They really fiercely opposed US entry into World War II, and it was only after the attack of Pearl Harbor that the American political consensus changed. It did so very, very rapidly.

This name, America First, after the war, really had very unsavory connotations. Then Donald Trump, Pat Buchanan before him, resurrected it essentially. This strand of the Republican party really goes back even before World War II. A friend of mine, Jacob Heilbrunn, wrote an excellent book that I recommend called America Last that looked at the American rights more than a century-long flirtation with dictators and with this strand of what you might call militant nationalistic isolationism, which are a bit incompatible, but really have existed in American politics for a long time. The difference is they haven't been the dominant strand in American politics for a long time. That history got forgotten, got written out of the picture, and I think it's only with the rise of Trump that we've gone back and looked and thought about America in the late 1930s, and are there echoes to our present day?

Matt Katz: Let's check in with our callers. Gabriel in Queens is on the line. Hi, Gabriel.

Gabriel: Hello.

Matt Katz: Thanks for calling in.

Gabriel: Thank you for having me. I had a question for the guest. I consider myself progressive, but in regards to Trump's approach to diplomacy in Europe, I would say that's probably the main thing that actually makes me consider a Trump vote because I think the isolationism and relationship to Russia is compelling for someone who doesn't really like the idea of infinite NATO expansion and military agitation on the European continent. My question for the guest is, I so often hear people talk about Trump's relationship with Putin in regards to, "Oh, he admires his personality or dictatorial ambitions." My question is just could it not exist an option that maybe he actually just wants a more mutually beneficial relationship with Russia in regards to trade?

Matt Katz: Thank you, Gabriel. Susan, what do you think?

Susan Glasser: That sounds like wishful thinking. I understand the wishful thinking of wanting Vladimir Putin to be somebody who he is not, but when Russia invades its neighbor with no rationale whatsoever, except literally denying its right to exist as an independent country, it's hard to see why you would want to take the side of the aggressor in that conflict. This idea that somehow NATO is to blame for Putin's effort to reconstruct the Russian Empire, it's one that defies history and facts. I understand that it's very appealing. It has been, in fact, a staple of very successful staple of Russian propaganda for the last more than a decade.

The bottom line is that when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and the pro-Soviet countries of Eastern Europe collapsed, it was because of the popular uprising of their own people. It's a different kind of imperialism to sit in Washington or New York and say that the people of Poland, the people of the Baltic countries, the people of Ukraine shouldn't have the right to have the international guarantee of their borders, that they shouldn't have the right to choose their own security arrangements.

I was recently in a meeting in Washington with a senior diplomat from Finland. Finland and Sweden are two countries that just chose to join NATO in the wake of Russia's attack on Ukraine, abandoning, in Sweden's case, centuries of neutrality. The reason that Finland and Sweden chose to do that was not because of the United States pressuring them, it was because of an overwhelming demand by their own societies for security in the wake of what has become a militaristic and aggressive Russia, under more than two decades of Putin's leadership.

The ambassador of Finland told this gathering, he said, "Do you know how many times my country has been in a war with Russia? How many times we've been attacked by Russia? 49 times, 49 wars." If you live near Russia, you are very aware that this is a country that does not have your security in mind and is fundamentally challenging core values of what we would consider to be the West. I think it's really important to call that out and to recognize that as appealing as it is, the idea of peace, you don't get peace by appeasing Putin. In fact, you may have contributed to this horrible conflict that we're seeing unfold in Ukraine.

Matt Katz: This is The Brian Lehrer Show, Matt Katz filling in for Brian today. My guest is New Yorker writer Susan Glasser. We need to take a short break. We will be right back.

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It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Matt Katz, reporter with WNYC and Gothamist, filling in for Brian today. We're joined by New Yorker writer Susan Glasser, taking your calls about international affairs and how it affects our politics here. Let's go to Nick in Brooklyn, who is calling in. Hi, Nick. Thanks for checking in with us.

Nick: Hi. I was wondering what your guest would think of this. For a lot of voters in this next election, the conflict in Gaza is their main issue, particularly young voters. I'm wondering what your guest thinks. A lot of young voters, they're not willing to hold their nose and vote for Biden, because of his perceived ineffectuality when it comes to helping the Palestinians. I'm wondering what your guest thinks Trump would do or what kind of a friend he would be to the Palestinians.

Matt Katz: Thanks very much. I guess, Susan, we don't really know exactly where Trump is when it comes to dealing with this specifics of this conflict. Right?

Susan Glasser: Oh, I think we do know that Donald Trump is no friend of the Palestinians. In fact, that's one of the things that's been fascinating to me and a little bit astonishing is how the many critics of Joe Biden within his party have on the issue of Gaza, have just erased Donald Trump entirely from the conversation. Elections are a choice, and Donald Trump literally cut off all assistance to the Palestinian authority during his presidency. Why? Because he just didn't want to give it anymore. Just literally in a fit of peak, he withheld millions and millions and hundreds of millions of dollars from the Palestinians. He outsourced American policy on Israel almost entirely to the government of Israel.

There was never a time really in the whole history of Israel as a state when the United States was so passive and basically bowing down to the Netanyahu government. It was really a remarkable moment, and it seems to have been erased or forgotten or just ignored completely. If you are concerned about Palestinians, and that's your number one voting issue, then the idea that Trump would be a viable alternative president is really remarkable, even during this conflict that has enfolded since the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel, the conflict in Gaza, Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who was really basically his Middle East czar during the Trump presidency, his former ambassador to Israel, both suggested maybe the solution would be just to have Gazans actually move out of Gaza, which is a remarkable statement. I can't imagine it's one that would be supported by the pro-Palestinian protestors here in the United States.

Trump often treats diplomatic issues like personal issues. We talked about that earlier in this program. There's no question that actually he had a falling out with Netanyahu at the end of his presidency, people didn't really understand this. It wasn't because of what Netanyahu was doing in the West Bank. It was because Trump was mad at Netanyahu for coming to the White House and, in Trump's view, stealing his spotlight. That tells you a lot about his approach to Israel.

It's very similar to his approach to many issues around the world. It's all about me, me, me, me. He has been critical of Netanyahu since the war unfolded, not for brutality against Palestinians, but because he thinks that Netanyahu is losing the PR war, and for Trump, optics are pretty much everything. I just think that it's really a remarkable effort to erase who Trump is, to think that he would be, in any way, supportive Palestinians when his record is so very clear in the opposite direction.

Matt Katz: I think some progressives, those who are pro-Palestinian, or protesting on the Palestinian cause who care about this issue, they might say, "Well, is there anything that Biden has done to support the Palestinians in Gaza that Trump would not have done?" They might argue that Biden has done so little and has been so weak in pressuring Netanyahu that there's no difference. Are there specific policy differences in terms of actually what Biden has done over the course of this war last seven months or so?

Susan Glasser: I think that the problem is that Netanyahu is a very problematic interlocutor for the United States. He is willing to take American assistance and not so willing to see to American demands. Behind the scenes, the Biden administration will say, we negotiated very hard to put some constraints on this to avoid the possibility that they saw as a very real possibility of Netanyahu opening up a second front at the beginning of the conflict and actually launching an attack on Hezbollah in the North as well as Hamas in Gaza. That would've been in the minds of the Biden administration, potentially catastrophic, would've opened up the possibility of a wider regional war in the Middle East.

I think it's hard to really know in the case of a hypothetical. Certainly, there would not be a prioritization of getting humanitarian assistance of any level to the Palestinians. Trump's record is very clear on that one. In the end, America's support for Israel has been quite a bipartisan policy over decades. In a way, it's hard to see either a Democratic president or a Republican president who would be operating in a wildly different fashion, because that has been the consensus view in the country for a very long time.

Matt Katz: Although, things are becoming more partisan. House Speaker Mike Johnson has invited Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to address Congress next month. Some Democrats are apparently boycotting the speech. What are the real domestic politics, the implications playing out here? Are the ramifications of the war something we're going to be talking about after election day as having affected the course of this vote one way or another? I know that's a little bit of a crystal ball, but I really struggle with how much of an effect this is really having on the swing voters in purple states that will really decide the next presidency.

Susan Glasser: Yes. You're right to focus in on that. I think as far as a national issue goes, there are not the numbers to suggest that it would really change the outcome at a national level. Of course, in a super close election, decided in a small number of states, any number of issues could actually prove to be decisive because it only takes a few votes. People have focused on Michigan, for example, where there is a large concentration of Arab Americans where there was a significant number, I think around 100,000 or so Democrats voting uncommitted in the Democratic Party's primary in a way that was to send a message specifically of criticism to Biden for his policy on support for Israel.

Michigan, it was decided by just a few thousand votes in 2016 against Hillary Clinton. Of course, it could be enough if there are single issue voters still. One question is, what is the level of fighting that is still occurring in the fall when voters are actually going to the polls? Is it still top of mind? Are there other issues that may be more important? Young voters are expressing, in some states, their concern about the war in Gaza and the terrible toll that is taken on Palestinian civilians. Young voters have a variety of issues. They have economic issues that they may be voting on or prioritizing. They have the issue of reproductive rights, which may affect many of them more personally and more directly than a war in the Middle East, where no Americans are combatants. It's hard to know exactly.

Matt Katz: With this, the speaker bringing Bibi to Congress, the Republicans clearly see an opening here. They see keeping this issue top of mind, at least the mainstream Republicans attaching themselves to Israel and to Bibi, they think is a winning political strategy.

Susan Glasser: Look, it's also something that speaks to their base. There's been a pretty big transformation. You alluded to this in recent years on the politics of Israel here in the United States. Netanyahu is leading right now, the most far rate government in Israel's history. He has been increasingly identified with Republicans in America even predating Donald Trump. Actually, there was a previous controversy during the Obama presidency when Republicans in Congress invited Netanyahu to come and speak to Congress despite the Obama White House not wanting him to do so. He came to lobby Congress not to approve Obama's Iran nuclear deal.

This issue of the increasing polarization around Israel is one that actually predates the Trump presidency. For many Republicans, the core tenet of support for Israel has become embedded in the party's ideology in part because the party has become so much the party of white Evangelical Christians for whom support for Israel is a cornerstone of their political beliefs. In part, it reflects Republicans addressing their own base with fervent support for Israel. It's not necessarily because they see that as a wedge issue, although they're looking on with great interest to see how much this does divide the Democratic party and whether they can get some advantage there.

Matt Katz: I wanted to ask one more thing about the G7 Summit. This always strikes me when I read about international affairs, how much of coverage is on the Pope, and what the Pope says. I'm fascinated by the Pontiff's role as sort of the chief religious pundit in the world. He's apparently speaking to the G7 about the ramifications of artificial intelligence. There will be coverage in every major news publication here about that, whatever it is he says. Is there any influence there from when the Pope speaks? Is he affecting policies like on artificial intelligence in any of the countries that are broadcasting or publish his remarks? Why do we obsess over the Pope's commentary on the issues of the day, particularly international issues?

Susan Glasser: In the age of the thought leader, everybody is an online influencer. It's just that the Pope has a lot bigger platform and a lot bigger pulpit. He always did. I think that is supercharged in this era when he can also speak directly to constituencies around the world in a much easier way than he was able to do before the transformation of the technology.

Biden, by the way, is an observant Catholic despite his ideological disagreements with the conservative American Catholic religious hierarchy on issues like reproductive rights, we're talking about that and other issues. Biden is a very observant Catholic and has always spoken with great reference actually about his dealings with the Pope and his meetings with him. I think that's an interesting political dynamic as well to look at. Everybody is trying to be an influencer these days.

Matt Katz: I've got one more text I'd love for you to react to. Texter writes, "Young voters now understand that their economic issues and issues of racial justice and environmental justice and free speech are all connected to the war machine and the war in Palestine and Gaza." That is a connection. There's been a racial justice connection made to the war in Gaza. There's been the military-industrial complex argument made about the war in Gaza. Are those discussions happening in small encampments at elite universities, or do you think that is something that is reaching a broader enough swath of young people to actually affect politics and the election?

Susan Glasser: Yes. I think that there's been a pretty disproportionate amount of coverage of the campus protests. They were not even a majority of campuses in the country. Quite a difference, of course, from the Vietnam era is that in Vietnam, all American young men were affected by the draft at that time. They were literally potentially subject to being forced to go fight in a war they did not support for their country. The dynamics are very different this time around.

There is evidence to suggest that not just young people on campuses, but that many Democrats more broadly, have a different view of Israel than the rock-solid core support for Israel that shaped Joe Biden as a politician back in the 1970s and 1980s. This is definitely a different era, as far as the politics of Israel goes here in the United States, but I think that the kind of left critique of American support for Israel in this war and in all wars remains at the margin. It remains at the margin. It could be a politically significant margin, but for now, it's not a mass movement. It's at the margin.

Matt Katz: Well, we have 144 days to go until the election. We'll find out what all of these things mean for the presidential election. My guest has been Susan Glasser, staff writer at The New Yorker. She writes a column on life in Biden's Washington, which everyone should read, and co-anchors a weekly discussion on The Political Scene podcast and is the co-author with Peter Baker of The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021. Susan, it's always fascinating listening to your commentary and thoughts on the global and political scene. Thanks for coming on.

Susan Glasser: Great to be with you. I really appreciate it.

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