The New York Times - 12.09.2019

A30 N THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALTHURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2019

WASHINGTON — On the
morning of the 18th anniversary
of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks, President Trump began
his day by tweeting about his poll
numbers and attacking the news
media.
At 8:12 a.m., around the same
time American Airlines Flight 11,
the first of the four planes hi-
jacked that day by terrorists,
departed from Boston, Mr. Trump
was lashing out at an unfavorable
new poll that he called “phony”
and describing it as the latest of
“the never ending Fake News
about me.”
Soon afterward, Mr. Trump
spoke at an annual ceremony
remembering 9/11 at the Penta-
gon, where one of those planes
was crashed.
He repeated an exaggerated
account of how he had assisted
the recovery effort after the
World Trade Center was brought
down by two of the planes; re-
counted how he had been about
to watch a television interview
“with Jack Welch, the legendary
head of General Electric” when
“all of a sudden they cut away” to
the scene; and reminded his
audience that he had recently
sought to meet with leaders of
the Taliban, who provided safe
haven to Al Qaeda, which was
responsible for the attacks in
New York and Washington.
That Mr. Trump could even
consider such a meeting was a
reminder that a president whose
2016 campaign was shaped by
the threat of foreign terrorism —
and particularly by the rise of the
Islamic State, whose beheading
videos and mass-killing attacks
peaked as Mr. Trump was seek-
ing the Republican nomination —
has spent little time addressing
the “radical Islamic extremism”
he once railed against.
And his tone on Wednesday
morning underscored how Mr.
Trump, who struggles to project
empathy, maintains an awkward
connection to the memory of an
epochal American tragedy.
“It’s bizarre seeing the tweets
that are completely off topic” on a
typically solemn day, said David
Lapan, a former aide to John F.
Kelly, the president’s second chief
of staff. “He just doesn’t seem to
get the significance of the event
to the people in the audience,”
which included survivors of the
attack on the Pentagon and rela-
tives of people who were killed.
He is “once again making it
about him,” Mr. Lapan said. “It
seemed completely out of place.
And then later in the remarks
resurrecting this whole Taliban
thing.”
Mr. Trump did issue a stark
warning to terrorists, saying that
if they struck within the United
States again, “we will go wherev-
er they are and use power the

likes of which the United States

has never used before.”

“And I’m not even talking

about nuclear power,” Mr. Trump

added.

It was unclear what other

“power” Mr. Trump might have

been referring to. But the threat

was notable in part because Mr.

Trump speaks far less often than

his two predecessors about the

threat of terrorism.

That is largely because for-

eign-inspired terrorists have not

executed an attack within the

United States since October 2017,

when an Islamic State sympa-

thizer drove a pickup truck down

a bike path in Lower Manhattan,

killing eight and injuring 11, and

attacks by Islamic radicals in

Europe have abated in recent

years.

In place of terrorists inspired

by radical visions of Islam, Mr.

Trump has presided during a

surge in mass shootings by white

American men who subscribe to

racist and anti-Semitic ideology.

Mr. Trump vowed last month that

such “sinister ideologies must be

defeated,” but has barely reck-

oned with the charge that his

own language may have played a

role in their rise.

It was shortly after the Islamic

State-inspired shooting in San

Bernardino, Calif., which left 16

people dead in December 2015,

that Mr. Trump called for a “total

and complete shutdown of Mus-

lims entering the United States

until our country’s representa-

tives can figure out what the hell

is going on.”

After Mr. Trump won several

primaries that March, he told

supporters that it was the reac-

tion to the California massacre —

as well as to the killing of 130

people by the Islamic State in

Paris — that had vaulted him

ahead of his political rivals.

“Paris happened,” Mr. Trump

said. “And then we had a case in

Los Angeles,” he added, saying

that his “whole run took on a

whole new meaning.”

“And all of a sudden,” Mr.

Trump said, “the poll numbers

just shot up.”

“Trump positioned himself as

the toughest candidate on Mus-

lim extremism,” said Alex Co-

nant, an adviser to Senator

Marco Rubio of Florida, who also

sought the 2016 Republican

nomination. “It came to be a

contest about who can be the

toughest on terrorism. And

Trump became the toughest

because he said things that no-

body else could say.”

As a result, many terrorism

experts and some top officials of

the Obama administration pre-

dicted that a Trump presidency

would radicalize segments of the

country’s Muslim-American

population and produce still

more terrorist attacks. That has

not happened.

Meanwhile, Seth Jones, a

terrorism analyst at the Center

for Strategic and International

Studies, noted that the United

States military had largely de-

feated the Islamic State in Iraq

and Syria. Mr. Jones added that

Al Qaeda had recently focused

on regional conflicts in places

like Syria and Yemen.

Mr. Trump has filled the politi-

cal space by amplifying his warn-

ings about undocumented immi-

grants, said Juliette N. Kayyem,

a former Department of Home-

land Security official in the

Obama administration. Instead

of raising the specter of terrorist

attacks, Mr. Trump has warned

of hardened criminals and gang

members whom he calls “ani-

mals” illegally crossing the Mexi-

can border and terrorizing

peaceful communities.

“What Trump has done now is,

in the absence of a bunch of

attacks here that he can manipu-

late politically, he has created the

mythology of the undocumented

immigrant as terrorist,” Ms.

Kayyem said.

Through three Sept. 11 anni-

versaries as president, Mr.

Trump has dutifully attended

memorial events, but said little in

public about the group that exe-

cuted the attacks.

Although Mr. Trump is a native

New Yorker, his connection to

the attacks of that day has never

been particularly emotional.

Shortly after Sept. 11, Mr.

Trump said that if he were presi-

dent he would “take a hard line

on this,” and incorrectly added

that after the World Trade Cen-

ter’s collapse, one of his build-

ings became the city’s tallest. “To

be blunt, they were not great

buildings,” Mr. Trump told a

reporter several days later.

“They only became great upon

their demise last Tuesday.”

He did not visit the memorial

and museum where the World

Trade Center once stood until

April 2016, nearly five years after

it opened. After a relatively brief

tour, he decided not to hold the

news conference that aides had

discussed. He later told advisers

it was a mistake, according to

people familiar with the event.

And even as Mr. Trump called

for severe measures to prevent

terrorists from entering the

country, vowing to “bomb the hell

out of” the Islamic State, he also

capitalized on voter fatigue with

the seemingly endless war in

Afghanistan, rejecting the post-

Sept. 11 neoconservative vision

that had long dominated the

Republican Party.

“I will never send our finest

into battle unless necessary, and

I mean absolutely necessary, and

will only do so if we have a plan

for victory with a capital V,” Mr.

Trump said in an April 2016

speech. “The world must know

that we do not go abroad in

search of enemies.”

President Trump and his wife, Melania, on Wednesday. He recounted his 9/11 experiences, including an exaggerated account of how he assisted the recovery effort.

DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Eileen Sullivan contributed re-
porting.

WHITE HOUSE MEMO

At Pentagon, President Remembers the Sept. 11 Attacks in His Own Way

By MICHAEL CROWLEY

and MAGGIE HABERMAN

called for a ban, and Massachu-
setts and California are consider-
ing similar measures. San Fran-
cisco approved an e-cigarette ban
earlier this year, which Juul Labs,
the dominant seller in the United
States, is lobbying to reverse
through a ballot initiative.
Last year, the F.D.A. retreated
from a threat to prohibit the sale of
e-cigarettes as the increased rates
of teenage use took public health
experts by surprise. Public out-
rage stoked by accusations that
Juul Labs was deliberately target-
ing youths led the company to vol-
untarily stop shipping most fla-
vored pods, like mango and cu-
cumber, to thousands of retail loca-
tions around the country.
Agency officials had hoped that
making flavored products less ac-
cessible would reduce teenage use
of the popular devices, but instead
the latest figures show another in-
crease in youth vaping, Mr. Azar
said, after meeting with the presi-
dent on Wednesday.
Five million minors, mostly in
high school, reported that they
had used e-cigarettes recently, he
said. About one-quarter of the na-
tion’s high school students re-
ported vaping within the last 30
days in this year’s annual survey,
up from 20 percent last year.
Mr. Azar said that removing fla-
vor pods from stores just
prompted youths to shift from fruit
flavors to menthol and mint, which
were still available, rather than to
stop vaping altogether.
“What we’ve seen has been, and
it may be connected, a huge spik-
ing of children’s utilization of mint
and menthol e-cigarettes, which
remain, by all manufacturers,
available in retail stores,” he said.
The issue appeared to hit home

at the White House, where Mela-

nia Trump attended the meeting

with Mr. Azar, Dr. Ned Sharpless,

the acting F.D.A. commissioner

and the president. “She’s got a

son,” Mr. Trump said of their

teenage child, Barron. “She feels

very strongly about it,” he said.

Juul has repeatedly denied that

it aimed its products at minors,

but its sleek devices have become

more and more popular and are

easy to conceal. And even though

the company’s array of flavors

had disappeared from shelves,

they were still available online,

and a host of competitors

sprouted up with lookalike ver-

sions and similar flavors to fill the

vacuum. Juul had said that nearly

85 percent of its sales were from

mint and other flavors, and that its

decision to stop shipping them to

stores had dented their sales.

On Monday, the F.D.A. took ac-

tion against Juul, sending a warn-

ing letter accusing the company of

violating federal regulations by

promoting its vaping products as

a healthier option than cigarettes.

As for the agency’s decision to

prohibit most flavors, Ted Kwong,

a Juul spokesman, said the com-

pany would comply. “We strongly

agree with the need for aggressive

category-wide action on flavored

products,” he said.

Public health groups have long

clamored for strict curbs on e-cig-

arettes and flavors, especially be-

cause they worried that the soar-

ing use among youths was hook-

ing a new generation on nicotine

after decades of a decline in smok-

ing rates.

Matthew L. Myers, president of

the Campaign for Tobacco-Free

Kids, called the administration’s

decision “historic.”

“President Trump’s announce-

ment that the government will re-

move flavored e-cigarettes from

the market is an extraordinary

and necessary step,” he said.

“This is a public health crisis and

we cannot afford more delays in

confronting it.”

Harold Wimmer, president and

chief executive of the American

Lung Association, said the group

had long advocated removal of

products that appealed to teen-

agers.

“Flavors have been shown to

initiate kids to tobacco use and a

lifetime of addiction and tobacco-

related death and disease,” Mr.

Wimmer said.

Conservative organizations and

the vaping industry had earlier

joined forces to oppose other

F.D.A. proposals, including one

that sought to require retailers to

curb access to vaping devices,

pods and other paraphernalia to

keep them away from minors.

Since last fall, the agency has

been working on a plan to require

stores to sequester flavored e-cig-

arettes in areas off-limits to mi-

nors, but that had seemed to falter

as impractical and one that would

face significant legal hurdles. This

new announcement supersedes

that proposal.

Since Dr. Scott Gottlieb re-

signed as F.D.A. commissioner in

April, the agency had seemed

more sluggish in its efforts to con-

trol the epidemic of youth vaping.

Although Dr. Sharpless had said

he planned to continue the agen-

cy’s work to reduce both cigarette

and e-cigarette use, not much

moved forward. Dr. Gottlieb’s pro-

posal to ban menthol in cigarettes,

for example, has languished, as

has his call for reducing nicotine

in cigarettes to nonaddictive lev-

els.

But as school began around the

country and the spate of illnesses

sparked fear nationwide, calls for

the F.D.A. to take stronger action

intensified.

Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat

of Illinois and a longtime oppo-

nent of tobacco and e-cigarettes,

went so far last week as to warn

that he would seek Dr. Sharpless’s

resignation if the agency failed to

rid the market of e-cigarette fla-

vors.

Michael R. Bloomberg, the for-

mer mayor of New York, also de-

cided to weigh in this week by an-

nouncing a $160 million push to

ban flavored e-cigarettes.

In a statement on Tuesday, the

Vapor Technology Association, a

trade group, said it opposed a fla-

vor ban and essentially called the

efforts misguided.

“More than two million Ameri-

cans have died from cigarette

smoking-related illnesses over

the last five years,” the organiza-

tion said. “President Trump

shouldn’t follow the lead of San

Francisco, Mike Bloomberg and

the far left anti-business extre-

mists.”

But there is little conclusive re-

search on the long-term safety of

using Juul or other e-cigarettes.

The company’s flavor pods have a

higher level of nicotine than ciga-

rettes do, which is of concern be-

cause of the impact nicotine can

have on the still-developing

teenage brain.

Doctors have said that many

patients suffering from acute lung

illnesses appear to have vaped

some THC or cannabis-related

products, although others have re-

ported using e-cigarettes as well.

No one has singled out a particu-

lar company, device or product as

the possible culprit.

Deaths have been reported in

Illinois, Kansas, California, Indi-

ana, Minnesota and Oregon. The

patients’ ages ranged from the 30s

to middle-aged or older, and some

had underlying lung or other con-

ditions, health officials said.

And while major e-cigarette

companies like Juul and vaping

groups have sought to distance

themselves from the increasing

public dismay at the reports of in-

creasing vaping-related illnesses,

some public health agencies are

urging a halt to use of the devices

and products.

The Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention have urged peo-

ple, especially nonsmokers and

teenagers, not to vape at all. And

the C.D.C. has even recommended

that cigarette smokers trying to

quit should consult a doctor rather

than take up e-cigarettes.

A House oversight panel has

asked Dr. Robert Redfield, the di-

rector of the C.D.C., to appear on

Sept. 24 to testify about the vap-

ing-related illnesses.

In New York, Governor Cuomo

directed state health officials to

subpoena companies that market

or sell so-called thickening

agents, which are sometimes add-

ed to illicit vaping products. A

state laboratory, which detected

the agents in vaping products col-

lected from New York’s patients,

found that they were nearly pure

vitamin E acetate oil, which offi-

cials have said is a potential cause

of some of the illnesses.

U.S. Planning to Ban

Flavored E-Cigarettes

From Page A1

Juul products on display at a store in Manhattan. The company is fighting a ban in San Francisco.

JEENAH MOON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

The 45th PresidentThe Agenda