Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accused the Biden administration's Food and Drug Association of slow-walking U.S. manufactured vapes, which allowed Chinese companies to fill a vacuum and market to American children.
"We are gonna wipe them out," RFK Jr. told Sen. Ashley Moody, R-Fla., during Senate hearing Wednesday. "We are gonna get rid of all of them."
The Trump administration's crackdown on Chinese vapes is a winning issue for the 2026 midterm elections, a GOP operative told Newsmax in a statement Thursday.
"This is smart politics from Kennedy," the operative said, hailing President Donald Trump's FDA Commissioner Marty Makary for rebuking the Chinese vapes as an "attack" on American youth. "The Democrats' inaction on illicit Chinese vapes hurt them in the 2024 elections.
"If Trump can deliver a win on this issue he can help the party sustain the gains he made with suburban moms who are worried about the harmful influence Chinese vapes have on their children."
Protecting America Initiative has been active in urging state lawmakers to follow Trump's leading in cracking down on Chinese efforts "influence and disrupt America from the inside out," spending more than $500,000 targeting suburban women across Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania to hammer the Biden administration on the illicit Chinese vapes.
Also, it launched an ad campaign this year, denouncing unregulated Chinese vapes being sold illegally in the U.S.
"When you put up these barriers, which you also do is you create an illicit market for these products, which could be more harmful," Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., is shown saying in the ad.
It also quoted a 2019 Trump warning.
"If you watch prohibition, you look at the alcohol," Trump is shown in the ad, "if you don't give it to them, it's going to come here illegally. But, instead of legitimate companies making something that's safe, they're going to be selling something on the street corner that's going to be horrible."