ALLENTOWN, Pa. – FBI Director Kash Patel joined a roundtable hosted by Sen. David McCormick (R-PA) earlier this month to discuss the work the Trump administration, Congress, local law enforcement, and area prosecutors have done to curb the fentanyl trade in Pennsylvania over the past 13 months.

McCormick led the packed event at the Edward N. Chan Federal Building and said that while the state's death rate due to fentanyl overdoses has significantly decreased over the past year and a half, there was still work to be done. The senator said that fentanyl killed 4,000 Pennsylvanians per year between 2020 and 2023, but preliminary data showed that number fell to approximately 1,500 in 2025.

"That is the lowest number in a decade," McCormick said.

Patel credited the disruption of trafficking networks, enhanced enforcement efforts, and the direction of treatment and recovery programs for the substantial progress.

Sitting across from Patel and McCormick were the Cullen, Miller, and Ott families, all of whom lost children to fentanyl. They discussed the pain and devastation they experienced, stressing they don't want to see it happen to another family.

In 2024, then-candidate Donald Trump campaigned on a drug-war approach to fentanyl. This included strong border security and enforcement, pressure on foreign nations such as China and Mexico to curtail the flow of fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking, and severe legal penalties to disrupt drug supply chains.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said that because of the state's collaborative efforts with both the local and federal partners, his office was able to remove a staggering 56.5 million doses of fentanyl last year alone.

In a joint interview with the Washington Examiner after the roundtable, both McCormick and Patel discussed how moved they were by the families' stories. They said the success of the past year was an inspiration to increase their efforts going forward. Patel discussed his visit with his counterpart in China, which resulted in increased export controls on the 13 precursor chemicals used by Mexican cartels to produce fentanyl.

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: You discussed numbers today in the fentanyl crisis, but you also sat across the table of families who were one of those numbers. What is the human element of this crisis like for you........

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