Wednesday Briefing

President Biden is hosting the three-day NATO summit in Washington.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

At the NATO summit, the attention is on Biden

A NATO summit celebrating the alliance’s 75th anniversary hoped to send a message to potential adversaries that a larger, more powerful group of Western allies had emerged after more than two years of war in Ukraine.

That confidence now seems overshadowed by uncertainty: Will President Biden continue to vie for a second term, and what could happen if Donald Trump returns to the presidency?

Biden is hosting the three-day event, which began yesterday in Washington, while under intense scrutiny for signs that he cannot manage another four years. The president said he welcomed the attention. “I guess a good way to judge me,” he said, is to watch him at the summit — and to see how the allies react. “Come listen. See what they say.”

Trump: When he was in office, Trump threatened to pull the U.S. out of NATO, and once declared the alliance “obsolete.” This year, he said he would let the Russians do “whatever the hell they want” to any member country he saw as an insufficient contributor.

Prospects: Top congressional Democrats indicated that they were unwilling, at least for now, to try to push Biden aside, despite grave concerns.

Kamala Harris: With Biden’s future in question, perhaps no one is in a more delicate position than his vice president — and heir apparent.