Up First from NPR - Trump Meets CEOs At Mar-A-Lago, School Shooting In Wisconsin, Pig Kidney Transplant

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump has been holding court at Mar-a-Lago since his election victory. CEOs, foreign leaders and lawmakers have all made the trip to South Florida. He talked about his visitors and other issues in a post election news conference yesterday. Two people were killed when a student opened fire at a Wisconsin school. The alleged shooter is also dead. A gene-edited pig kidney has for the first time been transplanted into a human. Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today's episode of Up First was edited by Roberta Rampton, Cheryl Corley, Scott Hensley, HJ Mai and Mohamad ElBardicy. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Kaity Kline. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott, and our technical director is Carleigh Strange.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

CEOs and foreign leaders have been visiting Mar-a-Lago. Some kept their distance from President Trump in his first term, but are now trying to get close enough to persuade him. What did he say about his visitors and other things in a post-election news conference? I'm Steve Inskeep with Michelle Martin, and this is Up First from NPR News. Here is how the day unfolded at a Wisconsin school. A second grade student called 911 to report a shooting at school. What do police know about the student who opened fire killing two people and then herself?

And a gene edited pig kidney has for the first time been transplanted into a human. I feel like a whole new person, like I got a second chance in life. What does this mean for people desperately waiting for an organ? Stay with us, we'll give you the news you need to start your day. This message comes from BetterHelp. Working to make therapy more convenient, flexible, and affordable. BetterHelp is committed to helping people manage their well-being and mental health through therapy. Visit betterhelp.com slash NPR for 10% off your first month.

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to break international laws Your life stories really good ones this American life President-elect Donald Trump has been holding court from his home in Palm Beach, Florida Business leaders have been making their way there, tech CEOs, pharma CEOs, and yesterday, the CEO of a Japanese investment bank, promising to spend $100 billion in the United States. The president-elect talked about this at his first news conference since the election.

This is one of the big differences, I think, between, we were talking about it before, one of the big differences between the first term, the first term everybody was fighting me. In this term everybody wants to be my friend. In truth, some people wanted to be his friend last time, but there is a difference. People who don't like this say wealthy people are bending the knee, but how do the executives see it? NPR senior national political correspondent Mara Lyson was watching and she's with us now. Good morning Mara. Good morning. So the president, Alex says everybody's trying to be his friend. Sounds about right. Yeah it does. Some of this is the normal anticipation and enthusiasm that the business community

billionaires, Wall Street, would have to any new Republican president who's going to cut their taxes and limit regulation. Some of it's because Trump takeover of the Republican party is now complete. There are no more Romney's and flakes and Cheney's around. And some of it is that he's seen as a more legitimate president this time, cause he won the popular vote. But a lot of it is just a change in the approach of foreign leaders and business leaders and Democrats. They are using a different way to resist Trump compared to his first term.

They're choosing their battles instead of across the board resistance. They believe his mind can be changed on things like TikTok, which now he sees as useful to him, or cryptocurrency because his family is now in the crypto business. So I think it's a different kind of resistance. Talk about various dinners he's having with the CEOs. What stood out to you there? Well, you know, he described a dinner he had with two big pharma CEOs and that industry's lobbying group.

They're concerned about his pick for health and human services, Department Robert F. Kennedy, who is an anti-vaccine activist. Here's how Trump described R.F.K. Jr. No, I think he's going to be much less radical than you would think. I think he's got a very open mind, or I wouldn't have put him there. He's going to be very much less radical. So he was asked about his own views on vaccines, and he gave full support to the polio vaccine. He said, it's not going anywhere.

But Trump did leave the door open to those who believe that vaccines are linked to autism, something that has been widely debunked. He said, quote, we're going to find out. He also wasn't clear about his position on vaccine mandates. He was asked if schools should mandate vaccines. And he said, I'm not a big mandate person. But he also gave the pharma executives something they wanted. He was very hard on pharmacy benefit managers who pharmaceutical companies blame for price hikes. He scornfully referred to them as middlemen. Well, he also invited reporters into his home for a press conference. I think this is the

first one since the election. Just say more about that. How did it go? Well, it was a bit like all of his rallies in the campaign condensed into an hour and ten minutes. He covered a lot of the same ground. He said that everything was pretty much perfect when he was president. There were no wars, no inflation. Now that he's going to be president again, he said things will be great again. There were a lot of exaggeration and that he won the youth vote by 34% or that he brought down the price of insulin to $35, which although he did something on that, it was Biden who brought it down to $35. And there were still a lot of grievances. He talked about how he was going to sue the board of the Pulitzer Prizes and the Des Moines Register for publishing

a poll that showed him losing. So very similar to the old Trump. That is NPR's Mara Lyson. Mara, thank you. You're welcome. An all too familiar ritual took place at a church outside of Madison, Wisconsin last night, a vigil for the victims and the survivors of a school shooting yesterday at Abundant Life Christian School. Pastor Marcus Allen worked to comfort the crowd with prayer. We just ask that you come to the hearts of parents on tonight to take a chance by sending their kids to school, a place that should be safe for them, God.

Police say a teenager opened fire at that school yesterday, killing two people and then herself. Six others are wounded. Sarah Lear of Wisconsin Public Radio has been following the story and she's with us now. Good morning, Sarah. Hello. of Wisconsin Public Radio has been following the story and she's with us now. Good morning, Sarah. Hello. So what do we know now about what happened inside the school? Madison Police Chief Sean Barnes says the first law enforcement officers arrived at the school on the east side of the city of Madison within four minutes of a second grader calling 911. Don't let that soak in for a minute.

A second grade student called 911 at 10 57 a.m. to report a shooting at school. Police believe the shooting happened inside a study hall where there were students gathered from multiple grades. The two people killed by the shooter are a teacher and a teenage student. So as we as we just heard we know that the shooting occurred at the school late yesterday morning. I know that the police spoke to the public several times throughout the day and finally last night the police chief

Sean Barnes, as you just told us, he told us some details about the shooter. Could you just remind us of what he said? Yes. So the shooter has been ID'd as 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow. Her first name was Natalie, but she went by Samantha. Police say she died of what's believed to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. And what do we know about the survivors? How are they doing? As of late Monday, police said at least two students were in critical condition with life-threatening injuries. Other

victims, including a teacher, suffered injuries that weren't life-threatening. One mother, Mare Jean Charles, has three boys who all go to school at Abundant Christian, and she was relieved that none of her sons were injured, but she also says she expects them to have emotional trauma for a long time. This is not okay. If your kids are at school, they are not okay. If they are at church, they are not okay. If they are outside, elsewhere, they are not okay. Where are they going to be safe? When Jean Charles was reunited with her boys on Monday, she says she cried and prayed,

but she also says thoughts and prayers aren't enough. Sarah, obviously there are some things we still want to know and chief among them is why, like why? But what else are the authorities saying that they're still investigating? Right. So the biggest question, why, that's still unclear. Police say they're still trying to piece together a motive. Officers have recovered a handgun from the scene.

Madison police say they're working with federal officials to trace the origins of the gun. The police chief said late Monday, it's not clear how exactly a 15-year-old got this gun. Officers have searched the shooter's home in Madison. They searched it on Monday. And police say the family of the shooter's home in Madison. They searched it on Monday and police say the family of the shooter has been cooperative. So are the authorities saying they're going to share more as they know more? Yes, there's another news conference set for this afternoon and Madison's police chief has warned people to be wary of rumors and misinformation on social media.

That is Sarah Lear of Wisconsin Public Radio. Sarah, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. We can reveal this morning what doctors have done for the first time to save people who need organ transplants. Surgeons have implanted a new kind of engineered pig kidney into a living person. Pig kidney, human being. NPR Health correspondent Rob Stein was in the operating room during the procedure, the

only journalist in there. Hi there, Rob. Hey, Steve. Wow, what an experience. What was it like? You know, it was quite dramatic. I met the patient at NYU Langone Health in New York City just minutes before she was wheeled to the OR. Her name is Tawana Looney. She's 53 from Gadsden, Alabama.

How are you feeling this morning? I feel blessed. I'm excited. Why are you excited? To get a kidney. You know, it's going to change my life. We're going to make history today. Looney's immune system would reject a human kidney so the FDA let her get a pig kidney that's been genetically engineered so her body could accept it even though this is all very experimental. This is blowing my mind because you're telling me Rob not just that people are using a pig kidney because human organs are in short supply which they are they're using a pig

kidney because they think in this case it is the best choice, better than a human organ for this person. So how did this operation come together? As one team of surgeons started preparing Looney for the kidney, another team flew to rural Virginia to retrieve two kidneys from a modified pig cloned at a biotech company's research farm. After the chopper returned with the kidneys, the surgeon stitched one of them to Looney's blood supply, then started blood flowing from Looney's body into the pig kidney for the first time. Let's give a listen. I'm taking the clamp off of the vein. You'll see it'll be kind of a little bit dark colored initially. And now I'm taking the clamp off the artery. You'll see it'll be kind of a little bit dark colored initially. And

now I'm taking the clamp off the artery. It should be nice and pink. Yeah. Beautiful. Then Steve, the next test came. That's when surgeons made sure the kidney was doing its job, which is making urine. Wow. Beautiful. Gorgeous. It's pouring out. Wow, beautiful, gorgeous. It's just pouring out. And here's what Dr. Robert Montgomery, the lead surgeon, said right after the seven hour operation. When you really think about what we just did, it's pretty amazing. Why's that?

Putting a pig organ in a human being and having it work right away. It's like Star Wars stuff, right? I especially like the applause there Rob so what happens now? So far the pig kidney seems to be working great in fact Looney was discharged earlier than expected to an apartment near the hospital where doctors are keeping a close eye on her. I visited her there two weeks after the surgery. So how are you doing? I am doing wonderful it's amazing.

I feel like a whole new person like I got a second chance in life. Now Steve, it's important to point out that two other patients who got pig kidneys with different modifications died within weeks of their operations. So did two men who got genetically modified pig hearts. But the pig organs seemed to work well in those cases and they were much sicker than Looney so doctors are hopeful this time. And the hope is that someday genetically modified pigs could provide an unlimited supply of kidneys, livers, hearts and other organs to help solve the organ shortage. But you know it's important to point out that there are worries about all this, about pig

organs spreading dangerous viruses to people, about breeding and slaughtering thousands of pigs just for their organs and about experimenting on desperately ill patients like this. So there's still a lot to be worked out. Well thanks for your eyewitness account Rob, really appreciate it. You bet Steve. NPR health correspondent Rob Stein. And that's Up First for Tuesday, December 17th. I'm Michelle Martin.

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