DNC Northeast Press Secretary Elizabeth Renda released the following statement on Jeff Sessions’s roundtable event to discuss opioids in Portland today:

“After descending on New Hampshire yesterday, Jeff Sessions is headed to Portland today to peddle his administration’s empty promises on the opioid epidemic in Maine. Mainers don’t need another Trump administration political stunt in their state, and they definitely don’t need Sessions’s hollow rhetoric on the opioid epidemic that is plaguing their communities and taking hundreds of lives every year. Maine has the eighth highest opioid overdose death rate in the country and needs real action. Yet, the Trump administration has proven unable and unwilling to deliver the results the country needs to combat this crisis.

“If Sessions and Republicans actually cared about the deadly opioid epidemic gripping the state, they would join Democrats by fighting to implement Medicaid expansion in Maine. Instead, Trump’s Republican cronies in the state like Paul LePage continue to obstruct the expansion against the will of Maine’s voters, while the president  proposes massive cuts to the program, which is critical for treatment. Medicaid covers nearly 4 in 10 non-elderly adults in the country suffering from opioid addiction, and in Maine, the program finances 38% of total buprenorphine spending.

“It’s time for Sessions and the Trump administration to join Democrats by working to find solutions to this problem instead of showing up for an hour to deliver more of their empty rhetoric.”