DRUGS/NOMINATIONS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday [10-16-17] he would review a report that his nominee for drug czar championed a law that weakened the government’s ability to fight the nation’s opioid epidemic, and said he could consider jettisoning the pick…
Asked if the report had undercut his confidence in his nominee to head the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Representative Tom Marino, Trump said: I have not spoken to him, but I will speak to him, and I’ll make that determination…
Marino’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.
The report by the Washington Post and CBS described how Marino introduced and helped push through industry-backed legislation that undercut the Drug Enforcement Administration’s ability to freeze suspicious shipments of pain pills from drug companies.
A number of Democrats called for Trump to abandon his nominee in the wake of the report…
In his remarks to reporters, Trump suggested he would be open to changing the law that Marino, a fellow Republican, helped push through and said he would make good on an earlier promise to declare the opioid epidemic a national emergency.”
-Reuters Staff, “Trump says he could jettison drug czar pick,” Reuters, Oct. 16, 2017 11:58am