GOP Platform Released, NATO Summit Begins, Advancements In Organ Donation

abortion.

How does it appeal to the voters former President Trump needs in the fall?

President Biden is hosting European leaders at the NATO summit in Washington today.

The alliance is focused on supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia, and leaders are

also thinking about the election in the United States.

kidney, or heart.

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on in her mind at a crucial moment during the 2011 World Cup.

The Republican Party has published its platform, the principles it will run on for this fall's campaign.

that both parties have put out in past elections.

It is revealing for what it says and what it leaves out.

Hi, Stephen.

In 2016, Republicans had more than 66 pages of dense text that sketched out numerous policy

goals if they took power.

Now, just 16 pages that sounds a lot like a rally speech and reads more like a post

on Trump's Truth Social website.

There's short bullet points about plans to make America great again, plus 20 promises

typed in all caps vowing to do things like seal the border and stop the migrant invasion.

border, jumps out at me.

It's language that was also thrown around a lot during the Trump administration and

then echoed in the racist screed of the shooter in El Paso back in 2019 who carried out that

deadly attack on Latinos in a Walmart.

So, other than these slogans, do we learn much?

and what he said on the campaign trail this year.

I mean, there's the pledge to enact the largest ever deportation operation in American history

that's central to his stump speeches.

He said that would require help from local police and the National Guard.

There's also the suggestion to bring back a travel ban for Muslim-majority countries

he pushed during his first year in office about a bring back extreme vetting of immigrants

and their backgrounds as they seek to come into the country and an aggressive plan to

use the military to secure the US-Mexico border.

What else?

to, quote, swamp the vote and cast ballots early this year.

Calls to make America the dominant energy producer in the world come as the US is already

the world's leading oil producer, while also including shout outs to artificial intelligence

and cryptocurrency, two things that are heavy energy consumers.

And Trump's economic proposals, Layla, include more tax cuts and new tariffs on foreign goods

that some experts say could lead to more inflation.

Trump has been evasive at times on what he would sign into law.

Anything on that?

After 35 mentions of the word abortion in 2016's platform, the current platform only

has one.

Because of Trump, the official stance now is that states can decide what level of restrictions

to enact.

I mean, Republicans have been consistently on the losing side of this issue at the ballot

box ever since that Dobbs Supreme Court decision.

While Republicans do not commit here to a national abortion ban, this platform's not

binding in any way, and it doesn't change the views of many of his allies and advocacy

groups who still want that type of restriction and will likely still push for it if Trump

wins, especially given language in the platform about the 14th Amendment's guarantee to life

that leaves the door open for more.

there, there's still Republican unity behind Trump heading into the convention next week.

Democrats are tying it to the larger Project 2025 proposed by Trump allies to go even further

with its proposals to reshape the government.

And everyone seems to agree a second term Trump could get more of this done thanks to

more allies in Congress and the courts.

Thank you, Stephen.

alliance's founding in the city where it all began.

in a number of countries, including the United States.

Hi, Terri.

So just yesterday, Russia launched one of its most brutal attacks on Ukraine to date,

destroying the largest children's hospital in the country.

Will this impact decisions being made at the summit?

do something to draw attention to himself ahead of big events like the summit.

But I think in this case, this horrible hospital attack will actually reinforce support for

Ukraine and its longstanding plea for more air defense to block these Russian missiles

and save civilian lives.

So we're likely to see announcements on that at this meeting.

I was there at the beginning of the war talking to kids being treated.

We know Ukraine will not be offered membership at the summit, but what is teed up in terms

of other kinds of support?

No membership.

But there are a few items they'll get in this summit declaration.

Leaders are expected to approve, for example, handing over to NATO the coordination of training

Ukrainian soldiers and the logistics of getting weapons delivered to Ukraine.

Those are things the U.S. has largely headed up till now out of Wiesbaden, Germany.

And the idea is that it would be NATO-ized or institutionalized.

The final declaration will also pledge to keep NATO-wide military contributions to Ukraine

at the level of 40 billion euros collectively for at least the next year.

Now, Leila, these are things Secretary General Stoltenberg proposed in part specifically

because he was worried about what might happen if Donald Trump is elected and follows through

on those promises to cut off U.S. participation in NATO and cut off aid to Ukraine.

have any enforcement mechanisms.

So if Trump wins another term, I don't see how you hold him to these pledges.

He's even indicated, of course, that he doesn't even feel bounded by NATO's most sacred principle

of collective security, the all for one, one for all pledge, which, by the way, as we recall,

has only been ever used to help the U.S. after 9-11.

on defense, believing that the U.S. is carrying everyone else.

this campaign cycle when, as you probably remember, Trump said Russia should just do

whatever the hell it wants to NATO allies under spending on defense.

And that's, of course, according to this NATO goal of 2 percent of GDP.

Now, 23 of the 32 allies are spending that 2 percent, but it's still true that there

are too many military capabilities that NATO without the U.S. wouldn't have.

And so allies urgently need to fill those gaps in any case.

Did they succeed?

They're not going to set a new higher target for defense spending.

They all know that 2 percent of GDP is too low now and more ambition might be seen positively

by Trump, but they're not going to do it.

There's of course a lot of concern about how admiringly Trump seems to view Vladimir Putin,

but I think people are quietly optimistic that he wouldn't actually cut off all U.S.

involvement in NATO.

And I think, Leila, their best Trump-proofing plan is having chosen former Dutch Prime Minister

Mark Rutte to take over as the next secretary general October 1st.

Trump knows him.

He's even described him as a friend.

And Rutte obviously knew a Trump reelection was a possibility, so he must feel up to it.

Thanks, Terry.

The overall process is well-established.

People put right on their driver's licenses that they're willing to be organ donors.

Their organs may save a life through a transplant.

What's new here is the technique for retrieving those organs.

And I'll warn you right now that some people may feel uncomfortable with this story.

Hi there, Rob.

And it involves hooking up a special external pump to the organ donor to restart circulation

and sometimes the heartbeat right after the donor has been declared dead.

The idea is to keep the livers, kidneys, and hearts from getting damaged.

Dr. Marty Sellers is a surgeon with Tennessee Donor Services in Nashville who let me shadow

him on two recent attempts to perform the NRP procedure.

It's hard to overstate the importance of it.

That would have been science fiction just a few years ago.

very conditions upon which the donor has just been declared dead, and that's permanent cessation

of circulation.

And, you know, Steve, the surgeon also cuts off blood flow to the brain to make sure any

brain activity doesn't resume.

And that's controversial, too.

Alexander Capron is a lawyer and bioethicist at the University of Southern California I

talked to about this.

I believe the procedure raises very major ethical and legal issues.

And yes, I find it disturbing.

taking the dead and briefly making them undead?

You know, the first time I hopped on a jet in Nashville with Dr. Sellers and his team

to try to retrieve a liver and two kidneys from a donor in Chattanooga, and after spending

a long day and very tense night in the operating room, the procedure was canceled in the wee

hours of the morning because the donor continued to breathe on her own, even after life support

was withdrawn.

So I flew back to Tennessee about a week later to see another attempt, this time in eastern

Tennessee.

Again, it was quite dramatic.

There were a lot of complications again, but this time I watched for hours as Sellers was

finally able to retrieve two kidneys from that donor using a modified version of NRP.

It was pretty powerful and eye-opening watching all this unfold in the operating room.

Here's Dr. Sellers again.

And while people are discussing the pros and cons of it, people are dying.

he could start doing NRP too.

So you know, Steve, it's clear this debate won't end any time soon.

I really appreciate it.

Any time, Steve.

I'm Layla Falden.

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