President Donald Trump ousted a top official in his administration and pushed through a policy change mere days after a corporate donor contributed $5 million to a Super PAC he supports, according to a report by The New York Times.

Earlier this month, Trump’s Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary left his job, reportedly quitting amid swirling rumors that the president was going to fire him. Trump was annoyed at Makary for “not moving quickly enough to approve flavored vapes and nicotine products,” reported The Wall Street Journal.

Federal law has long banned the sale of any tobacco products to minors, and in 2019, Trump signed into law a bill that raised the federal minimum age to buy tobacco to 21.

The FDA has banned most flavored vapes since 2020 over concerns those products would appeal to children, allowing only tobacco- or menthol-flavored cartridges. This has, however, allowed illegal products — almost all from China — with candy and fruit flavors to dominate the $6 billion e-cigarette market in the U.S.

During his 2024 campaign, Trump vowed he would “save” vaping — an issue that appealed to younger MAGA voters. Despite Trump’s badgering, Makary reportedly refused to budge, and would not grant approvals for menthol, mango, and blueberry flavors that were sought by Glas, a vape manufacturer in Los Angeles.

On May 8, the FDA issued a new policy that both cracked down on illicit e-cigarettes and also gave a green light for an expansion of tobacco products, including possibly flavored e-cigarettes, as long as they were not targeting underage users by incorporating “certain presumptively underage-appealing elements such as depicting a cartoon-like fictional character; disguising its nature as a vaping product; or resembling a children’s toy, phone, or gaming platform.”

On May 12, Makary resigned. The Times, citing four sources close to Makary, reported that the outgoing FDA chief had “told those close to him that he could not in good conscience approve flavored vapes, given their appeal to young people, and would not do something he did not believe in.”

According to a new report by the Times, however, there some other relevant events in the middle of these few days at the FDA — a meeting with Trump and executives from tobacco company Reynolds American and a multimillion dollar donation to a Trump-backed Super PAC.

A Reynolds subsidiary donated $5 million to MAGA Inc. The same corporate entity had previously donated $3 million to the same PAC, $10 million to a PAC supporting Trump’s 2024 campaign, and the fund for Trump’s White House ballroom project. MAGA Inc. has been criticized before over accusations that the president is engaging in “pay-for-access” for PAC donors by granting pardons, appointing people to government positions, or pushing for their preferred regulatory or policy changes.

The new $5 million was donated on April 30 and revealed in a campaign finance report for the PAC that was filed Wednesday.

Two days after that donation, the Times reported, Trump met with a top Reynolds executive, two lobbyists for Reynolds, and two executives from the tobacco company Altria, to have lunch at his golf club in Jupiter, Florida.

According to the Times, the lunch chatter involved the tobacco execs and lobbyists “express[ing] dissatisfaction” with how the FDA was regulating their industry, and Trump actually interrupted their conversation to call Makary.

Makary did not answer the call, the Times reported, and the president then called Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose agency oversees the FDA, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, who heads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and got the policy changes the tobacco industry wanted:

The president complained to [Kennedy and Oz] about the F.D.A.’s regulation of e-cigarettes, according to three people briefed on the meeting who were not authorized to discuss it.

Less than one week later, the F.D.A. issued new guidance that could pave the way for major tobacco companies to begin selling flavored vapes and to snare a chunk of the $6 billion e-cigarette market away from illegal Chinese competitors.

The new policy, which bypassed the F.D.A.’s regular rule-making process, also could allow higher nicotine levels in nicotine pouches. It includes a pledge to prioritize efforts to stop the import of illegal foreign vapes, an idea that has bipartisan support in Congress.

The Times acknowledged there was “no definitive evidence linking the new F.D.A. guidance to the lunch, the donation or specific lobbying,” but the new policy is likely to be very lucrative for the tobacco industry and the change “represented a victory for an industry that mostly had been on the defensive for years.”

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) was among many who excoriated the Trump administration for the “corruption” decribed in the Times article.

Murphy wrote:

THere’s how the corruption works:

Thursday: RJ Reynolds donates $5M to Trump

Saturday: Trump invites RJR execs to Mar a Lago; execs ask to loosen regs on flavored vapes; Trump calls up RFK Jr. and tells him to change it

Friday: FDA changes the policy

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