Column By John Young
Nothing could be more debasing than to have fighters extract blood from each other on the White House lawn while fat cats urge them on.
Or so you thought. Consider a more gruesome beat-down at this president’s pleasure.
Unbeknownst to most Americans, a UFC-style pummeling transpired at Mar-a-Lago in April. Big Tobacco did the damage. Its bloodied victim: public health.
Not to confuse: This didn’t come down in a ring. It happened over a lunch — at which industry donors extracted a favor from history’s most easily debased president. The main course? Let’s say it was served on Venmo.
What the tobacco executives got is a newly expanded market — fruit-flavored vapes and flavored nicotine pouches — when their overfed lunch host put down his Diet Coke and phoned Health Secretary Robert F. Google Jr. to tell him the Food and Drug Administration would henceforth drop its previous resistance to these things.
To get this, tobacco lobbyists donated $5 million to the president’s super PAC. Sounds about right.
Newton’s Law of Physics has to do with actions and reactions.
Of this president, one can assume: For any action, there’s an electronic transaction.
Worried about roping more young people into the vape game, health groups like the American Lung Association vehemently oppose fruit-flavored vapes.
Another fierce foe: Dr. Marty Makary, who was FDA commissioner at the time of the call.
In so many words, Makary said, “OK,” to the president’s order, and then resigned.
This decision, said administration spokesman Kush Desai, had nothing to do with voracious special interests bribing a president.
The only consideration guiding White House health policy, he said, is “gold-standard science.” Except this president is mostly interested in the part of that empty claim that denotes a precious metal.
Curious, I looked up Kush Desai. He’s a good-looking guy, almost suspiciously so.
Upon hearing his facile blow-off about self-evident conflicts of interest, I wondered whether Desai is a real person or, desperate to find anyone who will justify the deeds this corrupt president commits, the White House had turned to AI.
Mouthpiece robots.
What are other MAGA droids saying on behalf of this indefensible administration? Here’s one:
“There are no conflicts of interest.”
That’s what another White House spokesperson, Davis Ingle, told The New York Times in a story headlined, “Watchdog is Steamrolled by Industries it Regulates.”
It was about the neutering of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.
To be honest, the commission has little bearing on your family or mine.
It has a lot to do with how members of the president and his family are enriching themselves.
It regulates cryptocurrency and the scarily booming prediction market, epitomized by bet-on-anything entities like Kalshi and Polymarket.
The issue: What had been, under former President Joe Biden, a proactive five-member commission to regulate players like these is down to one.
Not surprisingly, the lone member of the commission — chairman Michael Selig — has represented crypto firms and entities in the prediction racket.
This is in keeping with a president who has his own family crypto enterprise and has promised hands-off policies on the industry.
Meanwhile, the president’s eldest son has direct advisory roles with both Kalshi and Polymarket.
Junior says he doesn’t trade on either platform.
To which all should ask, “Why the heck not, JR?”
Choosing not to drill full-bore into this fertile field hardly fits the family axiom about actions and transactions.
Oh, yeah, you know he’s a player.
Regarding policy for just about anything in which the president and his spawns might benefit, said spokesman Ingles, know that the administration will only act “in the best interest of the American public.”
That is, after they get what gold they desire.
Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email him at jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author.
