A disturbing trend affecting 5 million American children

In the Oval Office yesterday, President Donald J. Trump announced bold action from his Administration to combat a new type of addiction threatening American families.

“We have a problem in our country. It’s a new problem. It’s a problem nobody really thought about too much a few years ago, and it’s called ‘vaping,’” the President said. “And the parents don’t know too much about it.”

About 8 million adults use e-cigarettes today—but so do 5 million American children. “An entire generation of children risk becoming addicted to nicotine because of the attractiveness, appeal-ability, and availability of these vaping products,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said.

Watch: Trump Administration removes all flavored e-cigarettes from the market.

To protect our children and ensure that e-cigarettes return to their original function—helping adults gradually overcome nicotine addiction from tobacco products—President Trump has authorized the Food and Drug Administration to finalize rules that ban the sale of all flavored e-cigarettes.

The President’s actions come as a result of new data, not yet released, from the National Youth Tobacco survey. Secretary Azar briefed the President and First Lady on the new report yesterday, which shows a surge in adolescent usage of e-cigarettes. It also confirmed that children are drawn to flavored e-cigarette products in particular.

The ban will cover all non-tobacco flavored e-cigarettes, which includes bubblegum, fruit, alcohol, mint, and menthol flavored products.

See the chart First Lady Melania Trump shared on child e-cigarette usage.

More: “Melania Trump calls for government action against e-cigarettes”

Remembering the heroes of United Flight 93

While President Trump and the First Lady led a moment of silence on the White House South Lawn yesterday, Vice President Mike Pence and Second Lady Karen Pence traveled to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to visit the Flight 93 National Memorial. The memorial stands on the very ground where the plane crashed 18 years ago. The President and First Lady visited the site last year.

Vice President Pence: A “common field” became a “field of honor forever”

On a beautiful Tuesday morning 18 years ago, Flight 93 left Newark Airport bound for San Francisco, carrying 40 heroic passengers and crew members from across our country. Within 81 minutes of takeoff, their lives would be taken from us. The heroic actions they took in that short time frame have earned them a place of honor in history.

“America was attacked on September the 11th, but America took the fight back to our enemies on that very same day, not on some foreign battlefield, but right here in the skies above these fields, where the heroes of Flight 93 were forged,” the Vice President said.

“History records they ran forward. They charged toward the cockpit. At 10:03 a.m., Flight 93 plummeted to the Earth.”

Today, the names of these 40 men and women are etched in marble in that field, the Vice President explained. “I want to assure their precious families, they’re also carved into the hearts and the memory of the American people.”

Learn more about the Flight 93 National Memorial.

More: President Trump and the First Lady at the Pentagon 9/11 ceremony

Video of the day: First Lady at the Kennedy Center

First Lady Melania Trump recently helped dedicate the REACH, a new immersive learning theater at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

As Honorary Chair of the Kennedy Center, Mrs. Trump opened the exhibit with remarks at the Center’s new Welcome Pavilion. “This is a momentous occasion for the arts,” she said. “The Kennedy Center has always been a powerful tool to bring people together. This new addition will be so valuable to Washington D.C. and is so important to our community and to our nation as a whole.”

Photo of the Day

Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour

Vice President Mike Pence addresses State and local officials from Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah at the White House State Leadership Day in the South Court Auditorium | September 12, 2019