In February of last year, while interviewing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for this magazine, I asked him about what happened the previous summer during the NATO summit in Brussels. It was widely reported that President Trump threw a fit at the July 12 session, berating German chancellor Angela Merkel about the United States paying more than its fair share. Two sources told me that senior members of the delegation, Pompeo included, feared Trump might pull America out of the alliance entirely. But when I asked Pompeo about the incident, citing the July 12 date in particular, he gave me absolutely nothing. It wasn’t that he demurred, or tried to spin the events of that day. Instead, he made a show of rejecting the question’s premise.