On Monday in New Hampshire, President Donald Trump will present his blueprint to combat the opioid epidemic, which includes a mandate for the Justice Department to allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty for some drug dealers, senior administration officials said on Sunday.
The details: A top administration official told reporters during a background call that law enforcement "is a key part of the holistic approach to combat" the "surge" in opioid addiction, and the DOJ would seek the penalty for some drug dealers "as appropriate under current law." But they declined to say under what circumstances it would be deemed appropriate. The DOJ didn't immediately respond to Axios' request for comment on the issue.
The Trump administration is vetting Robert Redfield, an HIV/AIDS expert at the University of Maryland Medical Center, to take over as the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Politico reports.
The bigger picture: The last CDC director, Brenda Fitzgerald, resigned at the beginning of the year after reports of her purchasing stock in tobacco companies surfaced. Redfield served on the advisory council on HIV/AIDS for President George W. Bush, Politico reports, and is co-founder of the Institute of Human Virology.
