Trump Wants to Be the Hero Vapers Don’t Really Need

Key points

• In December of 2019, Mitch Zeller, who at the time ran the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, got an urgent phone call from a fellow staffer at the agency.
• A few months earlier, President Donald Trump and his administration had vowed to take e-cigarettes in every flavor except tobacco off the market to quash a youth vaping epidemic that, at the time, saw almost 30 percent of American teens using nicotine.
• By the time Zeller received that December call, he says, the White House had different instructions for the FDA: Limit the ban to pod-based vapes, like Juuls, and leave menthol flavors alone.
• Zeller says this softer touch “absolutely” came about because Trump, heading into the 2020 election year, got spooked by pushback to his original plans.
• “The White House,” Zeller says, “went into political retreat.” Almost seven years later and well into his second term, Trump is vice-signaling even...