Former president Donald Trump, who opposes drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes, is receiving millions of dollars from Big Tobacco for his top super PAC.
RAI Services Company, a subsidiary of Reynolds American, the creator of Newport menthol cigarettes, is the largest corporate donor to the Make America Great Again super PAC. The cigarette company has so far donated $8.5 million to the super PAC this election cycle.
This comes as Big Tobacco hopes to keep efforts to ban menthol cigarettes at bay. While the Biden administration has indefinitely tabled its plan to ban menthol cigarettes, Vice President Kamala Harris previously expressed support in a 2018 letter that called for the ban on menthol cigarettes. She has not made a public statement regarding whether she would continue efforts to place a ban if elected president.
But Reynolds American is not taking any chances. The second-largest tobacco company is investing in Trump’s campaign with the belief that it will be able to sway him to its side, similar to how Big Tobacco did in late 2019 when Trump was seeking an outright ban on flavored e-cigarettes, including mint and menthol. The former president was influenced by his wife, Melania Trump, and Health Secretary Alex Azar to ban JUULs, a brand of flavored e-cigarette, following reports that they were linked to rising rates of teenage smoking.
However, reports showing that flavored e-cigarettes were popular with Trump’s base moved him to back off his ban on flavored e-cigarettes.
Stephanie Grisham, a former Trump aide, shared with the Washington Post that the former president’s initial announcement to ban flavored e-cigarettes was hastily made without the input of regulators.
“We rarely did things through a process with agencies as you should,” she said.
In 2020, Trump moved forward with a plan to exclude methanol from the flavored e-cigarette ban.
Following Trump’s inauguration, Reynolds donated $1.5 million to America First Policies, a pro-Trump policy think tank organization.
With fears that Harris may implement a ban on menthol cigarettes, Reynolds American is putting its money on the line that Trump will not ban menthol cigarettes.
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However, the Biden administration decided to pause its ban after high-profile individuals like Rev. Al Sharpton said the ban would actually worsen relationships between law enforcement and blacks, who are the predominant consumers of Newport cigarettes.
According to Sharpton, this will increase negative interactions between law enforcement and blacks as they are seeking to enforce the bans.
