At a NATO summit, President Biden reassured world leaders about the strength of their alliance. How does he reassure his party about the strength of his presidential campaign? The president is under pressure abroad and at home. I'm Sasha Fifer with Stevens Keep and this is Up First from NPR News. Ukraine's president turned up for the NATO summit and he spoke of a missile strike on a children's hospital back home, coming up we have an assessment of the damage.
The president illuminates part of the process for death row in Texas. The state executes people through lethal injection using a sedative and a state-loss shields information about the executions. Our colleagues visit the pharmacy that provides the drugs. Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.
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The U.S. allies have a reminder this week of how much their fate is tied to the U.S. presidential election. They're in Washington for a NATO summit and President Biden spoke there about how the North Atlantic Alliance came to the defense of the U.S. after the 9-11 attacks and is now working to support Ukraine.
And we stood behind our shared vision of a peaceful and prosperous trans-Lunny community. Here at this summit we gathered to proclaim NATO is ready and able to secure that vision today and well into the future. But Biden himself is under pressure. He's trying to reassure Democratic lawmakers, donors and the allies in the room that he can win this fall's election and serve four more years.
When Trump was president, he had difficult relations with European leaders. Trump has also sometimes praised Russia's leader and said he will end the Ukraine war, although he hasn't specified how. And PRC, your National Political Correspondent, Mara Liansen joins us now, Mara, good morning. Good morning. In an interview last week, to reassure voters that he's up to the job. Biden told George Stephanopoulos, watch me at this NATO summit so we were watching what did he do?
Well, you heard him give a ringing endorsement of the principles of the alliance from the very same room, the Melanautitorium where the treaty was signed 75 years ago. In terms of style, you're right. Biden has been under a microscope since his disastrous debate with former President Donald Trump. This speech last night was from a teleprompter. He did deliver it clearly and firmly. In terms of substance, it was music to the ears of NATO leaders.
Biden said there's a bipartisan commitment to the alliance. He quoted former Republican President Ronald Reagan saying if fellow democracies are threatened, we are threatened too. Of course, that's the idea behind Article 5, which is the beating heart of NATO. That's an attack on one. Isn't attack on all. How are Europeans viewing this moment?
Well, many European leaders are very nervous. This election represents an existential moment for NATO. The US President wields tremendous, pretty much unchecked, executive power when it comes to foreign policy. In the contrast, as you said, between Biden and Trump on NATO couldn't be clearer. Trump has had a consistent antipathy towards NATO. He had to be talked by his aides into staying in the alliance during his first term.
He famously said he would let Russia do quote whatever the hell they want to NATO members who he thought didn't spend enough on their defense. And Biden last night noted that under his leadership, NATO members have boosted their defense spending. Here's what he said. The year 2020, the year I was elected president, only nine NATO allies are spending two percent of their defense, GDP on defense. This year, 23 will spend at least 2 percent.
Biden is very, very proud of his legacy that under his watch, NATO has expanded Sweden and Finland joined. Yeah, and not a small point that he mentions, their Trump's attack on NATO was built around the idea that they're not spending enough, which is a bipartisan idea. Obama said this, then Trump said it. President Biden is saying that most of them are now spending up to the levels that they committed to. But what does he say about the challenges the alliance faces now?
Biden said Russian president Vladimir Putin wants to wipe Ukraine off the map and that Putin won't stop there. Biden said the U.S. and some other allies are going to be giving Ukraine more air defense systems. The contrast to Trump was implicit. Trump has been extremely positive towards Putin and negative towards Ukraine.
Many Republicans in Congress were reluctant to provide more funding for Ukraine this year and held it up for months. Now, Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky is at this summit. Today, he'll be meeting with Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and tomorrow he meets with Biden. Very briefly, where does he stand with the Democrats who are worried about his candidacy?
Well, he's dug in. He says he won't step aside despite polls showing significant movement to Trump in the battleground states and Democrats are beside themselves. They're worried they're going to lose the White House and that Republicans will keep the House and take the Senate. And, Piers Marlaisen, thanks so much. You're welcome. Ukraine's president is also here in Washington meeting leaders of the alliance that his country would like to join.
And he's saying that Russia will stop it nothing and it's campaign to take over Ukraine. Zelensky spoke at the Reagan Institute here reminding his audience of a missile strike on a children's hospital this weekend in Capitol Kiev. Russia always knows where its missiles hit always a direct hit and the hospital building. NPR's Ashley Westerman has been monitoring reaction to that attack. She joins us from Lviv. Hi, Ashley. Hi. How significant is it that this particular hospital was hit?
So the open-aid hospital is Ukraine's largest pediatric hospital. It's known for treating child cancer and organ transplants. And the hospital CEO says the toxicology and trauma departments as well as Ukraine's only blood cancer treatment lab were destroyed in Monday strike. Yano Hobbick is the World Health Organization country director for Ukraine based in Kiev. It was devastating. We walked in the hospitals in several awards where equipment was damaged.
We saw healthcare workers, patients, children with their parents in the shelter, but then also the ambulance is coming to take away the children to the new hospital. Now Sasha, no children died, but two adults did. And two days later, rescuers are still trying to dig people out of the rubble. Now Ukrainians are of course shocked and angry at what happened, but Hobbick says Russian missiles hitting civilian infrastructure is not new.
WHO has monitored, verified and reported 1,882 attacks on health. So we have seen numerous attacks through all this war over last two years. And now when these things happen, Russia typically says they were actually aiming at something else and hospital or clinic happens to get hit. And that's the same thing they said about what happened on Monday. Ashley, you mentioned shock and anger of course. What else are you hearing about reaction to the strike?
So Ukrainians are taking to the internet and saying see Russia even kills children to achieve their goals here. Outside of Ukraine, the condemnations have rolled in from Kiev's allies. President Biden called the attack quote a horrific reminder of Russia's brutality. The UK's new prime minister, Sir Kierstarmer, said attacking a children's hospital was in his words the most depraved of actions. And NATO Secretary General Jens Daltonberg said it was a horrendous and heinous attack.
Speaking of NATO, the NATO summit is happening in DC right now and long-term aid to Ukraine is on the agenda. Do Ukrainians have any sense of whether this hospital attack could move the needle at this summit in terms of getting more aid to Ukraine? So Ukrainians would certainly like to think the attack has created some momentum in their favor. And President Volodymyr Zelensky is not going to let attendees of the summit forget it.
But Michael Kaufman at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is skeptical. My view of events of this type is that most of the substance tends to be a great prior to the summit itself. And that the summit is more of a convening event than not. So really Sasha will just have to wait and see how the NATO summit goes. That's NPR's Ashley Westerman and Livy. Thank you. Thank you.
Some other news now. Texas executes more people than any other state. And it carries out those executions using one drug, a sedative called Penta Barbital. This morning we have news of how Texas does that. Most major pharmaceutical companies refuse to provide their medicines for executions. States have passed laws allowing them to hide the names of companies involved.
But NPR investigated reporter Kiarah Eisner found and talked with a pharmacist who recently made the drug for Texas out of a pharmacy in San Antonio. And she's here in studio 31 to talk about it. Kiarah good morning. Good morning Steve. So how did you find out which pharmacy made these drugs? Well, I looked at documents from the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
There were clues in there that indicated it was a company in San Antonio called right away pharmacy and medical supply. Okay. They had been working with the states since at least 2019. Right away is what's known as a compounding pharmacy. That's a pharmacy that mixes its own drugs from raw ingredients and those drugs that they make are not approved by the FDA. Okay.
I talked with former workers at the company and eventually called one of the owners, Rohe Chaudhary. He confirmed his company provided lethal drugs to the state, but said another pharmacist was mostly responsible. So then I called that pharmacist and he was honest about being the one who mixed the ingredients together and prepared the pentabarbital injections. He did say the work bothered him at times, but that he had made peace with it.
I guess I satiated my guilt with the knowledge that whatever they did was deserving of capital punishment. And I'm not the one who decided that they would get that punishment. I was just the one that provided the means for it. Really interesting glimpse into the life of someone who participates in this process and also into this pharmacy which has an interesting track record in Texas.
That's right. So during the time that it was making this drug and as Texas executed more than 20 people, inspection documents from the Texas State Board of Pharmacy indicated that right away violated state rules, some of them around cleanliness and sterile drug preparation more than a dozen times. And then in 2022, the US Department of Justice sued another right away branch because it quote, fueled and profited from the opioid epidemic.
Attorneys there alleged at least one person died from an overdose shortly after the pharmacy prescribed her a high amount of fentanyl. The company denied liability but paid a $275,000 fine. Critics of the death penalty say pharmacies with histories like that shouldn't be trusted by states to make drugs used in executions. But they're doing the work. Why did they agree to do this work? It could have been for the money, but here's the pharmacist again who we've agreed to keep anonymous.
It was probably in the very low five digits. It was not a big money maker at all. And even had the guys from the O.C. saying, you know, you can charge more for this. The Department of Criminal Justice declined to talk about any of this with me. Texas plans to execute a prisoner named Rubin Gutierrez with Pentebarbitol on July 16th. I asked whether the state intends to use drugs from right away to stop his heart next week, but the Department of Criminal Justice declined to comment on that too.
Okay, your eyes, nerve-in-pierz investigations team. Thanks so much. Thanks. And that's it for this Wednesday, July 10th. I'm Steve Inskeep. And I'm Sasha Fyfer. Your next lesson is Consider this from NPR. We here at Up First give you the three big stories of the day. Our Consider this colleagues take a different approach. They dive into a single new story and what it means to you in just 15 minutes. Listen now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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