President-elect Donald Trump’s (R) appointee for U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi will likely make the drug epidemic – especially stemming from the southern border – one of the main priorities while in office should she be confirmed by the Senate. During President Trump’s announcement that he had chosen Bondi to lead the Department of Justice, the former president mentioned her work on the Opioid and Drug Abuse Commission.
President-elect Trump stated on Truth Social that Bondi would be "Making America Safe Again."
“I am proud to announce former Attorney General of the Great State of Florida, Pam Bondi, as our next Attorney General of the United States. Pam was a prosecutor for nearly 20 years, where she was very tough on Violent Criminals, and made the streets safe for Florida Families. Then, as Florida’s first female Attorney General, she … did such an incredible job, that I asked her to serve on our Opioid and Drug Abuse Commission during my first Term — We saved many lives!” said Trump.
Bondi has spoken to The Floridian publisher Javier Manjarres on multiple occasions, both as a candidate for Florida Attorney General and while in office. During those moments, Bondi was ahead of the (national awareness of the) fentanyl boom, warning of its prominence in heroin and its unbelievable potency.
Here she is as Florida Attorney General in 2017:
“The drug problem has been around forever, and unfortunately, the drugs keep changing, basically with technology, and [are] getting worse and even stronger than the others,” said then-Florida AG Bondi. “We, as you know, fought the prescription drug abuse, the quote ‘pill mills’ with oxycodone, shutting them down throughout our state. But now really the newest epidemic, not only in Florida, but you know, I work with my counterparts all over the country, and this is a national epidemic, heroin, heroin mixed with fentanyl and carfentanil.”
Bondi later shared the process by which fentanyl was being manufactured and brought into the United States.
“But what they're doing is these drug dealers are – we used to think of heroin as a needle, a dirty needle in a dark corner and injecting someone in the arm with it, but no more. Heroin is coming in a pill form. And of course, it's coming in through the traditional smuggling routes of Asia, through Mexico, into our state, and it's very, very frightening because these dealers are mixing the powder heroin with, as I said, fentanyl and other things. And fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin, but they're putting it now in a pill form,” said Bondi.
President-elect Trump selected the former Florida AG for the U.S. position on November 21.
