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

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...

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