WASHINGTON – In April, the Trump administration named former FOX News reporter Sara Carter as its pick for director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). The closest Carter has come to acquiring drug policy, public health, or law enforcement expertise is reporting on the role of foreign drug traffickers in the illicit American cannabis market.
But she looks good on TV.
Congress created the ONDCP in 1988, at the height of Ronald Reagan’s escalation of the war on drugs. The director, frequently referred to as the country’s “drug czar,” oversees all domestic and international anti-drug efforts of the executive branch and is mandated by law to “take such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of a substance … listed on Schedule I” of the Controlled Substances Act.
The position requires Senate confirmation.
Carter is one of at least seventeen former FOX personalities serving in or awaiting confirmation for senior-level administration jobs. What the Columbia Journalism Review called “Trump’s TV Cabinet” also includes Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, and “Border Czar” Tom Homan.
