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Democracy Dies in Darkness
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politicsBiden administrationThe FixThe BriefsPollingDemocracy in AmericaElection
2024
politicsBiden administrationThe FixThe BriefsPollingDemocracy in AmericaElection
2024
Trump in Power


WHY BIG TOBACCO IS BETTING ON TRUMP


AS THE INDUSTRY FIGHTS A BAN ON MENTHOL CIGARETTES, A REYNOLDS AMERICAN
SUBSIDIARY HAS BECOME THE LARGEST CORPORATE DONOR TO THE MAIN PRO-TRUMP SUPER
PAC.

16 min
806

A woman smokes at the 2020 “Million MAGA March” in Washington, D.C., held to
protest the results of the presidential election. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
By Isaac Stanley-Becker
, 
Dan Diamond
and 
Josh Dawsey
September 18, 2024 at 7:52 a.m. EDT

America’s top tobacco regulator was on a work trip in the Netherlands in
September 2019 when he got wind of President Donald Trump’s plan to take abrupt
action on vaping, the booming business offering a substitute for smokers but
presenting hazards of its own.

“This was coming out of left field,” said Mitch Zeller, at the time the director
of the Food and Drug Administration’s tobacco center.



Zeller supported the plan Trump put forward the next day in the Oval Office:
removing mouthwatering flavors, such as mango and mint, that were making
e-cigarettes so popular with teenagers. But he feared that Trump’s hasty rollout
would doom the effort, he said in a recent interview.

Indeed, Trump soon shelved the proposal amid pressure from lobbyists and
political advisers who warned the move could endanger his 2020 reelection
campaign because of the popularity of vaping, the heating of nicotine to make an
inhaled aerosol.

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Four years later, the tobacco industry is banking on Trump’s chaotic approach to
public health — and pliable views on policy — as it confronts a new challenge to
its bottom line: efforts by regulators in the Biden administration to ban
menthol cigarettes, which represent 36 percent of the cigarette market.

The top corporate donor to the main pro-Trump super PAC is a subsidiary of
Reynolds American, the second-largest tobacco company in the United States and
the maker of Newports, the No. 1 menthol brand in the country. The subsidiary,
RAI Services Company, has given $8.5 million to the super PAC, called Make
America Great Again Inc., federal records show. The company does not appear to
have contributed money to groups backing Vice President Kamala Harris, the
Democratic presidential nominee.

Skip to end of carousel


TRUMP IN POWER

This story is part of an occasional series reexamining episodes from the Trump
presidency to better understand how Trump would exert power if returned to the
White House. Read more.

End of carousel

Big Tobacco’s bet on Trump shows how corporate interests believe the former
president can be swayed by campaign donations — and brought into line even on
issues where he has shown some independence from GOP orthodoxy, said former U.S.
officials and industry lobbyists. The contributions represent a muscular move by
the company into presidential politics. A Reynolds PAC funded by employee
contributions donated just $25,000 to a Trump campaign committee in 2016, and
the company contributed $1 million to Trump’s inauguration in 2017. These
entities do not appear to have made contributions in the presidential race in
2020. A Reynolds representative did not respond to detailed questions about the
company’s political giving or its interactions with Trump.

The Biden administration is again delaying a ban on menthol cigarettes amid
political pressure from Big Tobacco. Here’s how we got here — and why it
matters. (Video: Drea Cornejo, Brian Monroe/The Washington Post)

Over the past three decades, political contributions by the industry have
declined, especially at the federal level, as companies focused their efforts on
state and local controversies over higher cigarette taxes and smoking
prevention. Reynolds’s major pro-Trump move bucks that trend.



Brian Ballard, a prominent Trump-aligned lobbyist whose firm has represented
Reynolds since 2017, suggested the company make the donations, according to a
person familiar with the activity. Reynolds executives have met with Trump on
multiple occasions in 2023 and 2024, including a lengthy meeting earlier this
year in New York where they emphasized their concerns about a menthol ban, said
the person, who, like some others interviewed for this story, spoke on the
condition of anonymity to reveal sensitive details. The executives also raised
other subjects with the former president, especially counterfeit vaping pens
they said were flooding in from China through the Port of Los Angeles and
cutting into their profits. Ballard did not respond to an email seeking comment.

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Former company employees and lobbyists, as well as former Trump aides, said
Reynolds sees Trump as its best hope of achieving a range of objectives,
including fending off a proposed ban on menthol cigarettes, which is in limbo.
The Biden administration has delayed a final decision after political advisers
warned the president that it could cost him votes among Black smokers who
studies show favor the products. The delay may give Trump authority over the
ultimate policy if he returns to the White House.

The issue is now a thorny one for Harris. She has previously supported efforts
to limit the products, though her campaign did not respond to questions about
her current position. A Trump spokesman also did not respond to questions about
his view. Conservatives believe the issue can be used to erode Black support for
Harris: A Republican-aligned group is spearheading a $10 million ad campaign
tying her to the administration’s proposed ban.

The advertising blitz is a further illustration of the political significance of
Big Tobacco and its causes this November. The industry’s influence could carry
over into policymaking next year.

Stephanie Grisham, who witnessed the back-and-forth over tobacco regulation as
an aide to both Trump and his wife, Melania, said the GOP standard-bearer will
see the Reynolds donations as a sign of “loyalty” and look to return the favor
if elected.

“It would absolutely weigh on his thinking,” said Grisham, who has publicly
disavowed Trump.




‘BULLY HIM’

Trump is no fan of smoking.

“I tell people, ‘No drugs, no drinking, no cigarettes,’” he said in a podcast
interview last month.

For years, he has expressed revulsion for the habit. “I watch people smoke; it
looks terrible to me,” Trump said on the campaign trail in 2015. “It’s
terrible.”

When he was elected, the teetotaling, cigarette-averse president seemed like a
natural ally for antismoking advocates. In 2017, Trump’s FDA commissioner, Scott
Gottlieb, put forward a comprehensive tobacco strategy calling for reduced
nicotine levels in cigarettes.

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A year later, health officials received alarming new data that focused their
attention on e-cigarettes. Vaping by minors was skyrocketing, driven by the
popularity of products offered by Juul Labs that came with a range of flavors,
such as mango and menthol. In 2018, Gottlieb labeled teen vaping an “epidemic”
and proposed ways of curbing flavored e-cigarettes, saying he wanted to ban
menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars as well.

The issue caught the attention of Kellyanne Conway, senior counselor to the
president and Trump’s onetime campaign manager, according to Grisham, Trump’s
press secretary at the time and also an aide to the first lady.

According to Grisham, Conway brought her concerns about flavored e-cigarettes to
Melania Trump, knowing the first lady wanted to work on issues involving
children.

“She knew Mrs. Trump would be able to influence her husband,” Grisham said.



Conway said she never favored banning flavors but “protecting kids,” including a
proposal to raise the age to 21 for e-cigarette sales and other tobacco
products, which Trump signed into law in December 2019. Conway said she doesn’t
favor prohibiting products including vapes and menthol cigarettes, adding, “The
Democrats are the party of bans.”

But when Trump gathered his top health officials in the Oval Office in September
2019 to act on the issue of teenage vaping at the urging of his wife and Conway,
senior officials framed their action as a sweeping ban. Alex Azar, the health
secretary, said the aim was to “clear the market” of flavored e-cigarettes,
including mint and menthol, allowing the products to be sold only once they
gained formal approval from federal regulators.

Zeller, the top tobacco regulator, who was in the Netherlands when the hasty
meeting was called back in Washington, said he believed right away that Trump’s
approach was a mistake. His staff hadn’t drafted anything, Zeller said; they
weren’t prepared with regulations or policies to make good on the announcement.

“I knew there would be a vacuum in the aftermath of the announcement that would
be filled by all those who oppose a flavor ban, creating a political nightmare
for the White House,” said Zeller, who is now retired from government and
advising a pharmaceutical start-up developing technology to treat tobacco
dependence.

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Within two months, Zeller’s prediction had come to pass. As health officials
readied plans to take most flavors off the market, Trump’s campaign advisers
presented him with data showing that vaping was popular among his supporters. On
Nov. 4, the day before a planned news conference to launch the decisive action,
Trump balked, refusing to approve a one-page memo advancing the policy.

Conway was frustrated, as was the first lady, recalled Grisham, though she said
Melania Trump understood how her husband would view the matter. “I think Mrs.
Trump threw up her hands because she knew that if anything was going to impact a
potential second term, he wasn’t going to do it.”

A Trump spokesman did not respond to questions about the former first lady.



Looking back, Grisham added, the policy was bound to fail because of the chaotic
way it came about.

“We rarely did things through a process with agencies as you should,” she said.
“So this was more of, ‘Let’s get him in a room, let’s convince him or bully him
with his wife there, let’s get him to say yes and say it publicly.’”

Early the following year, the Trump administration moved forward with a
scaled-back plan to limit flavored e-cigarettes, notably exempting the popular
menthol flavor from the regulation. Public health groups were incensed. The
American Lung Association said the lack of more decisive action would
“compromise the health of our nation’s children.”




ALIENATING THE BASE

Public health experts turned their hopes to Joe Biden, who had emerged as a
major advocate for cancer prevention in the waning days of the Obama
administration.

“If I could be anything, I would have wanted to have been the president that
ended cancer, because it’s possible,” Biden said in October 2015, as he
announced that he would not seek the presidency that cycle while grieving his
son Beau’s death from brain cancer.

Biden oversaw the Obama administration’s cancer moonshot and, after leaving
office, stood up his own cancer initiative in 2017, in which he repeatedly
warned about the risks of smoking. Biden also signaled that fighting cancer
would be a presidential priority, vowing on the 2020 campaign trail to renew his
efforts to address the disease.

“Once we beat covid, we’re going to do everything we can to end cancer as we
know it,” Biden said in February 2021, several weeks after taking office. Two
months later, federal regulators announced their intention to ban menthol
products, and, in April 2022, the FDA released its proposed rule.

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The political sensitivities of banning menthol were immediately apparent, with
some Black lawmakers and advocates saying it represented an unfair crackdown on
products favored by the Black community. White House aides, meanwhile, stressed
that Biden was deferring to public health experts, as the administration
asserted that the planned ban could prevent as many as 654,000 deaths in the
United States — including as many as 238,000 among African Americans — over the
next 40 years.

Menthol, a chemical found in mint plants that can also be made in a lab,
provides a cooling sensation when added to cigarettes, making smoking less
harsh. A study based on Canada’s experience outlawing menthol cigarettes in 2017
concluded that a similar ban in the United States would lead 1.3 million
Americans to quit smoking and save hundreds of thousands of lives.

According to two current U.S. officials and one former senior official, Biden
had support for his cancer efforts inside the White House from Harris, the
daughter of a cancer researcher, who as a senator had signed a 2018 letter
supporting a ban on menthol cigarettes. Fighting cancer “is an issue of personal
significance to so many and for me,” Harris said in February 2022 remarks,
reflecting on her mother’s death from breast cancer. “You see, after a lifetime
working to end cancer, cancer ended my mother’s life.”



The vice president’s office declined to address her position on the menthol ban.
A Harris aide said that the issue “is being taken very seriously” but that no
decision had been reached.

But as regulators worked to finalize the administration’s menthol rule, warnings
of the political blowback became more acute. Cornell Belcher, a Democratic
pollster, issued a memo last year arguing that a ban risked alienating Biden’s
“base supporters” in the 2024 election, citing his own polling in battleground
states. Belcher’s poll and analysis were funded by Altria, a tobacco company.
Neither Belcher nor Altria responded to requests for comment.

There has been effectively no progress on the menthol ban over the past year,
officials said, with the White House repeatedly missing its self-imposed
deadlines to finalize it. In April, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier
Becerra released a terse, two-sentence announcement that the administration
needed “significantly more time” to consider debate over the ban. Asked this
month about the status of the ban, federal officials referred back to Becerra’s
statement.

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Even if Biden belatedly moves to finalize the rule, it could now be blocked or
rolled back by a newly elected Trump because it requires one year to be fully
implemented.

Meanwhile, Harris is already facing well-funded attacks over the
administration’s proposed ban.

A memo circulated by a group called Building America’s Future — which is staffed
by veterans of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s unsuccessful bid for the Republican
presidential nomination — describes menthol as “The Niche Message That Can
Reverse Harris’ Consolidation of Black Voters.” The nonprofit is part of an
effort to spend $10 million on ads linking her to the stalled rule and targeting
Black voters in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North
Carolina and Wisconsin.




CHANGING THE DEBATE

Black smokers have similarly been at the heart of a lobbying campaign undertaken
by Reynolds, according to internal documents obtained by The Washington Post.

One document, marked “confidential,” outlined the “objectives” of the company’s
influence efforts. Among them: “Change the debate on menthol in DC.”

Advocates for prohibition say banning menthol would reduce chronic disease and
save lives, especially among Black Americans. Reynolds has sought to flip that
argument on its head. In another memo circulated to company lobbyists, Reynolds
argued that a ban would weaken relations between communities of color and law
enforcement. The one-page memo bluntly warns of an “increased likelihood the
police will use force on a person of color” if police were required to enforce a
ban, which it calls “counter to progressive policing principles.”

The memo includes statements from prominent civil rights activists, including
the Rev. Al Sharpton, who is quoted in the memo arguing that any consideration
of banning menthol cigarettes must “include a candid discussion about racial
disparities and selective prosecution in communities of color.” The National
Action Network, which Sharpton founded, has received donations from Reynolds, as
both the civil rights leader and the company have acknowledged. They have
declined to detail the amount. Sharpton’s organization did not respond to a
request for comment.

The company has used a similar argument on Capitol Hill, telling lawmakers that
a menthol ban would “create another Eric Garner situation,” said a former
Reynolds lobbyist, referring to the 43-year-old Black man killed in 2014 by
police after he was stopped on suspicion of illegally selling single cigarettes.

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Public health advocates and policymakers have dismissed those arguments as false
and inflammatory, noting that the crackdown targets retailers, wholesalers,
distributors and other businesses — not individual smokers.

Claims that a menthol ban would lead to abusive policing in Black communities
are “unfounded,” 21 attorneys general wrote to Biden in January. “The FDA
plainly states that federal authorities will not enforce the proposed menthol
ban against individual consumers.”

At the same time, Reynolds has been eyeing what the former lobbyist said the
company views as a more potent tool to prevent prohibition of menthol
cigarettes: putting Trump back in the White House.

When he was first elected in 2016, Trump wasn’t seen as friendly to the
industry, said a former Reynolds executive. “We all knew his profile: doesn’t
drink, never smoked,” the former executive said.

The company gave little to his campaign but donated to Trump’s inauguration,
which secured executives a spot at a dinner with the newly minted president,
said a person who attended. In 2017, Reynolds also put $1.5 million into the
pro-Trump nonprofit America First Policies, according to a corporate disclosure.

Though the company has made bipartisan political donations, senior leaders
appreciate that Republicans are more lenient with the industry than are
Democrats, said a former longtime employee. “The mindset of the organization
was, ‘If we can get a conservative leader in place — at the local level, at the
state level and at the federal level — it would benefit the industry,’” this
person said.

That preference became more pronounced as the Biden administration pursued its
menthol ban, said the former lobbyist. The issue is critical for Reynolds: A ban
would spoil one of the company’s most significant recent ventures — the
acquisition in 2015 of the Lorillard Tobacco Company, which makes the Newport
brand of menthol cigarettes.

“The whole reason they bought this company is about to be banned,” said the
former lobbyist.

Reynolds executives feel they narrowly escaped a ban under Biden and can’t count
on their good fortune should Harris win the presidency, said the former lobbyist
and other former employees. They said the aim now is not just to help elect
Trump but also to deepen the company’s relationship with him.

Zeller, the former top tobacco regulator, said the company’s plan could work.
Trump’s expressed disinterest in the fine points of public policy and the
anti-regulatory agenda of the people likely to staff his potential second term
would make him “susceptible to outside interests, financial or otherwise,” he
argued.

Regulators made modest but surprisingly significant gains in antismoking efforts
when Trump was last in the White House, Zeller said. A second Trump term, he
predicted, would be different.

“Those days are long gone,” Zeller said.

Clara Ence Morse contributed to this report.


ELECTION 2024

Follow live updates on the 2024 election and the contest between Vice President
Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump from our reporters on the
campaign trail and in Washington.

Potential assassination attempt: Trump was unharmed in what authorities are
investigating as another potential assassination attempt, after a man pointed a
rifle into a Florida golf course where the former president was playing. Police
arrested Ryan Wesley Routh, a 58-year-old man who spent recent years trying to
join the war in Ukraine, according to online posts and law enforcement
officials.

Presidential debate: We asked swing-state voters who won the debate. This is
what they said. Catch up on the first presidential debate between Harris and
Trump with key takeaways and fact checks from the night.

Policy positions: We’ve collected Harris’s and Trump’s stances on the most
important issues — abortion, economic policy, immigration and more.

Presidential polls: Check out how Harris and Trump stack up, according to The
Washington Post’s presidential polling averages of seven battleground states.

Senate control: Senate Democrats are at risk of losing their slim 51-49 majority
this fall. The Post breaks down the eight races and three long shots that could
determine Senate control.

Show more

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