The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Trump urged to yank nominee for drug czar
Probe: Marino sought to protect drug firms against enforcement.
If Tom Marino’s work was detrimental to Trump’s goal of combating opioid addiction, “I will make a change,” Trump said.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said “we’re going to be looking into” a report about Rep. Tom Marino, R-Pa., his drug czar nominee, in the wake of a Washington Post/”60 Minutes” investigation that found the lawmaker helped steer legislation that made it harder for the government to take some enforcement actions against giant drug companies.
“He was a very early supporter of mine from the great state of Pennsylvania. He’s a great guy. I did see the report. We’re going to look into the report,” Trump told reporters when asked about whether he still supports Marino to lead the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Trump also said that he will have a “major announcement, probably next week” about how his administration plans to tackle opioid addiction in the United States, a “massive problem” that he wants to get “absolutely right.”
“This country and, frankly, the world has a drug problem,” he said. “We’re going to do something about it.”
Trump’s comments came as congressional Democrats reacted sharply to the report that Marino helped guide the legislation that sailed through Congress last year with virtually no opposition.
“We’re going to look into that very closely,” Trump said in a White House Rose Garden appearance.
Marino, Trump said, is “a good man, I have not spoken to him, but I will speak to him and I will make that determination.” If Marino’s work was detrimental to Trump’s goal of combating opioid addiction, “I will make a change,” Trump said.
Trump first said he was going to declare a national opioid emergency in August, but has not done so.
Asked by a reporter whether he would be declaring the epidemic a national emergency, Trump said, “We’re going to be doing that next week.”
“That is a very, very big statement. It’s a very important step and to get to that step a lot of work has to be done and it’s time-consuming work. We’re going to be doing that next week,” he said.
Earlier Monday, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said he was “horrified” to read details of an investigation by The Washington Post and “60 Minutes” that detailed how a targeted lobbying effort helped weaken the Drug Enforcement Administration’s ability to go after drug distributors, even as opioid-related deaths continue to rise. He called on Trump to withdraw Marino’s nomination.
Manchin added in an interview that he’s not attacking Marino’s motives or character, but that “there’s no way that in having the title of the drug czar that you’ll be taken seriously or effectively by anyone in West Virginia and the communities that have been affected by this knowing that you were involved in something that had this type of effect.”
Marino was first floated as a potential drug czar last spring, but withdrew from consideration, citing a family illness. But the White House formally nominated him for the post in September. The Senate Judiciary Committee has yet to set a date for his confirmation hearing. Committee aides did not immediately return requests for comment on plans for a hearing. Ultimately, Marino could be confirmed by the Senate with a simple majority vote.
In a separate letter to Trump, Manchin said that more than 700 West Virginians died of opioid overdoses last year. “No state in the nation has been harder hit than mine,” he wrote.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., also said Monday that she would introduce legislation that would repeal the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act of 2016. The law, she said, “has significantly affected the government’s ability to crack down on opioid distributors that are failing to meet their obligations and endangering our communities.”
McCaskill, as the top Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has used her perch to probe opioid manufacturers, and is pushing them for sales and marketing materials, studies of potential addictions and whether the firms are donating to third-party advocacy groups that champion their work. It was unclear Monday afternoon how much support McCaskill’s bill would receive and whether it would ever be taken up for a vote in the GOP-controlled House and Senate.
As of Monday afternoon, no Republican lawmaker had announced their opposition to Marino’s legislation or plans to either sponsor McCaskill’s bill or introduce something similar.
Manchin and McCaskill face reelection next year in rural states that Trump won last year. Despite their concerns, neither opposed the legislation when it passed in the Senate last year by unanimous consent. McCaskill was away from Congress for three months last year being treated for breast cancer when the bill was approved.
Manchin said in the interview that his aides responsible for tracking drug policy had raised concerns about Marino’s legislation as it worked its way through Congress last year.
“They had questions and they had concerns from the beginning but they were laid to rest by the DEA. We’re going to find out how that could happen and why,” Manchin said.
As an alternative to Marino, Manchin suggested that Trump consider nominating Joseph T. Rannazzisi to serve as drug czar. Rannazzisi ran the DEA’s division responsible for regulating the drug industry and led a decade-long campaign of aggressive enforcement until he was forced out of the agency in 2015.