Mark Halperin, a journalist and former White House press secretary Sean Spicer are at odds on the issue of marijuana being federally legalized by President Donald Trump.
The Morning Meeting is a podcast that features two hosts who discuss the executive order signed by the President on Thursday, allowing crypto in retirement accounts.
Spicer served in Trump’s first administration and said that, had someone told him ten years earlier, an 79-year old GOP president was “leading the charge on AI and crypto,” he never would have believed. “There’s no chance” because, “the Democrats have already seized these issues.”
Halperin said that “you forgot marijuana legalization too,” launching a 30-second cross-talk in which the two talked back and forth.
Spicer: “Well, we’re not getting—that’s not going to happen. “That will not occur.”
Halperin: Oh, yes it will. “Oh, yes it will.”
Spicer: No, not with this President. No, no, no.”
Halperin: “It will.”
Spicer: He will never do it, No.
While Trump endorsed rescheduling cannabis—as well as industry banking access and a state-level legalization initiative in Florida—on the campaign trail, he’s hasn’t publicly endorsed federal legalization.
People in Trump’s circle have mixed opinions about what he might do to reform cannabis policies. Some industry players are optimistic that Trump will follow through on his promises.
For example, newly released Federal Election Commission (FEC), filings indicate that a cannabis industry-funded committee contributed $1 million to Trump’s MAGA Inc. mega PAC in this first half of the year.
The PAC also reported an expenditure $120,500 to a strategic consulting and research firm associated with Trump, Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, LLC, for “legal” services. The same firm conducted a survey of registered voters that showed a majority of Republicans back a variety of cannabis reforms that is promoted on the PAC’s website.
Scotts Miracle-Gro, the owner of a major garden supply company Scotts Miracle-Gro said that Trump told him “multiple” times since he took office that his intention was to complete the marijuana rescheduling.
Earlier FEC records also previously showed that Trulieve and Curaleaf contributed a total of $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee following his election last November.
Trump’s former acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) also recently predicted that the administration will soon “dig in” to the state-federal marijuana policy conflict, emphasizing the need to “eliminate confusion, not create it” amid the rescheduling push.
Meanwhile, Terrence Cole, who was sworn in last month as the new administrator of the DEA, declined to include rescheduling on a list of “strategic priorities” the agency that instead focused on anti-trafficking enforcement, Mexican cartels, the fentanyl supply chain, drug-fueled violence, cryptocurrency, the dark web and a host of other matters.
That’s despite the fact that Cole said during a confirmation hearing in April that examining the government’s pending marijuana rescheduling proposal would be “one of my first priorities” after taking office.
Cole will be sworn-in as secretary of state on Wednesday. A day earlier, the Senate gave its final approval for the Trump nominee. Almost immediately afterward, a major marijuana industry association renewed the push to make progress on the long-stalled federal cannabis rescheduling process.
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