Donald Trump’s executive order to ease restrictions on marijuana is the culmination of more than a yearlong campaign by the cannabis industry to persuade the president to embrace a cause the GOP has historically opposed.
The effort included not only traditional levers of influence such as lobbying and political donations, but encompassed opinion polling and one-on-one conversations with friends of the famously sober president.
“I've never been inundated by so many people as I have about” reclassifying marijuana, Trump said during a signing ceremony in the Oval Office on Thursday.
High on that list of people was Howard Kessler, a financial services executive and longtime friend of Trump’s who attended the future president’s wedding to Melania Trump in 2005. Kessler pushed and prodded Trump to sign the executive order, according to multiple cannabis industry and administration officials with knowledge of how it came about. He was also a champion for one of the other policy changes Trump announced Thursday: a pilot program that would allow Medicare to cover treatments involving CBD for seniors.
Also instrumental was Kim Rivers, CEO of Florida’s largest medical marijuana company Trulieve. It was she who convinced the president to include reclassifying marijuana in Thursday’s executive order, according to two people briefed on the conversations granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
Rivers met Trump in early 2024 at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, to discuss a ballot measure campaign to legalize recreational marijuana in Florida that year. Trump eventually backed the state legalization effort, which fell short of the supermajority it needed to pass. Once Trump took office, Rivers traveled to the White House to discuss marijuana policy, including for an Oval Office meeting last week.
“There hasn't been a single time that I've had the privilege to be with the president where we talked about medical cannabis and research, where he wasn't supportive,” Rivers said in an interview, recalling multiple interactions over the past year and a half. Thursday’s executive order, she said, was the result of many months of work and did not come as a sudden decision on Trump’s part.
The administration has come to treat the cannabis industry like other sectors, Rivers said — a triumph after long being viewed as taboo. She recalled a meeting earlier this year with representatives from a range of industries, including cannabis. Trump asked the same types of detailed questions to each sector, she said — there was no difference despite the illegality of cannabis at the federal level.
“We haven't necessarily been at the table in the past,” she said.
Beyond her personal relationship with Trump, Rivers’ company has spent heavily on influence efforts and retains a slate of lobbyists with close ties to the president. Trulieve’s first lobbying firm in D.C. was Florida heavyweight Ballard Partners in 2018. And the company has hired two more firms this year with Florida ties: Advocus Partners, which is home to Trump-linked lobbyist Nick Iarossi, and Rubin, Turnbull and Associates, which counts Caroline Wiles, daughter of Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles, among its leadership.
“The Chief of Staff’s daughter is not a lobbyist and had nothing to do with the President’s decision to sign this executive order,” White House spokesman Kush Desai told POLITICO. “As he himself stated in the Oval Office, President Trump made this decision after hearing from many friends and supporters, including Howard Kessler and various veterans groups.”
Trulieve also contributed $750,000 to Trump’s inaugural committee, according to campaign finance disclosures. Trulieve donated another $250,000 to American Rights and Reform, an industry-funded super PAC that has given $1 million to Trump’s super PAC.
POLITICO tracked at least 26 lobbying registrations related to cannabis this year, up more than 60 percent from last year and more than double the number of registrations in 2017, the first year of Trump’s first term in office.
These registrations include Weedmaps, which also hired Rubin, Turnbull this year. Jemmstone hired Ballard Partners, while Verano Holdings hired Trump campaign adviser David Urban’s firm, BGR Group.
Meanwhile Team Hemp, an industry nonprofit, has hired three lobbying firms – more than any other player — including Frontline Government Relations’ lobbyist, John Pence, a former Trump advisor, and Martin Obst and Robert Goad at MO Strategies, who have also worked with the president.
On Capitol Hill, the US Hemp Roundtable has hired former Republican staffers at Williams & Jensen, including Daniel Ziegler, who worked for House Speaker Mike Johnson until March, and Susan Hirschmann. And the Hemp Beverage Alliance has hired lobbyists at Crossroads Strategies, including Salim Almeddin, a former staffer to Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Hunter Moorhead, a special assistant for President George W Bush. MAG Industries has hired Andrew Robreno at Capitol67 Strategies, a former Republican staffer who most recently worked for Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.).
Despite Trump's executive order, deep divisions over marijuana inside the president’s party remain. New Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters was one of the most vocal Republican supporters of a 2024 ballot initiative in Florida that would have legalized recreational marijuana. The ballot measure failed despite earning Trump’s endorsement last fall. And this week, nearly four dozen Republicans in the House and Senate urged Trump in letters to change his mind on rescheduling the drug.
On the other side, American Rights and Reform, a super PAC funded by the cannabis industry, has also paid at least six figures to the firm led by Trump’s longtime pollster, Tony Fabrizio, to illustrate broad support for loosening marijuana restrictions. Such public support evidently resonated with the president, who referenced polling numbers for reclassification multiple times during the signing ceremony.
Over and over, though, administration officials mentioned the influence that anecdotes from people like Kessler, a leukemia survivor, had. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said “we wouldn’t be here today” without Kessler’s input.
“God bless you for being a pain in our sides,” Mehmet Oz, Trump’s head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, told Kessler in the Oval Office. He joked that with the signing of Thursday’s executive order, Kessler had finally promised to stop calling Trump on the issue.
Amanda Chu contributed to this report
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