Manchin: Marino will be drug czar ‘over my dead body’

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) on Tuesday said Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.) will become the Trump administration’s drug czar “over my dead body.”

“He is not going to be — I’m not — over my dead body will he be the drug czar. That is not — a person from West Virginia can look at this man at being the drug czar, a person that basically weakened it and allowed hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people to get killed,” Manchin told CNN’s “New Day.” 

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“This is wrong. And I’m sure and the president sees this — adjustments will be made,” he said.

Manchin on Monday urged the White House to withdraw Marino’s nomination to helm the Office of National Drug Control Policy following a joint report from The Washington Post and “60 Minutes” that said the congressman pushed legislation that undermined the Drug Enforcement Administration’s authority to stop drug distributors.

West Virginia, which Manchin represents in the upper chamber, has been hit hard by the United States’ opioid epidemic.

About an hour after Manchin’s comments, President Trump announced that Marino had withdrawn his name from consideration.

“Rep.Tom Marino has informed me that he is withdrawing his name from consideration as drug czar. Tom is a fine man and a great Congressman!” the president wrote on Twitter.