According to Axios, Donald Trump told his health secretary yesterday that he regrets getting involved in the administration’s policy on vaping, according to two sources familiar with the conversation.

“I should never have done that f***ing vaping thing,” Trump said during an impromptu call on speakerphone in an Oval Office meeting.

The Trump Administration’s ban on flavored vapes has been one of its most prominent health policy decisions, but trying to find a compromise between public health groups and the pro-vaping community caused massive political headaches.

Trump decided to call Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar during a campaign meeting, while discussing health care with his political team. He sometimes does that with cabinet secretaries, in an impromptu fashion, during meetings when their issues come up.

However, according to Axios, Azar got defensive after Trump expressed regret for the vaping policy.

Both sources familiar with the conversation said Trump wasn’t expressing regret for the specific vaping policy outcome, which the team believes is the right one, but rather for personally wading into vaping and e-cigarette policy in the first place rather than leaving it up to the Food and Drug Administration.

It was his wife Melania that originally fought to get vaping banned, and who was reportedly the one who forced Trump into taking a serious look at the issue.

I am deeply concerned about the growing epidemic of e-cigarette use in our children. We need to do all we can to protect the public from tobacco-related disease and death, and prevent e-cigarettes from becoming an on-ramp to nicotine addiction for a generation of youth. @HHSGov

— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) September 9, 2019

The concerns are being driven by fresh evidence that the teen vaping epidemic is getting worse and drawing in young teens around the same age as the Trumps’ son Barron. The Centers for Disease Control’s annual youth tobacco survey found that more than a quarter of high school students had used e-cigarettes in the past 30 days, and the overwhelming majority of youth e-cigarette users cited the use of popular fruit and menthol or mint flavors.

“We can’t have our kids be so affected,” Trump said. “That’s how the first lady got involved. She’s got a son … a beautiful young man, and she feels very, very strongly.”

Trump about Melania, “she’s got a son — together — that's a beautiful young man and she feels very, very strongly about it."

Yo, Stable Genius, aren’t you the father? By the way, his name is Barron. You’re welcome.🙄pic.twitter.com/e57u2oJY9x

— ʝεɳ🍑 (@jennerific713) September 12, 2019