Every year more than 60,000 Americans die by suicide, more than twice the number of homicides. But that didn’t stop Trump from slashing funding and firing key staff at the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), including cutting 25% of the workforce behind the 988 suicide prevention and crisis hotline. These cuts also halted vital grant funding to state and local governments that operate these lifesaving hotlines.
Even though fewer than one in four Americans know about 988, the hotline still receives 12 calls every minute — that’s 17,000 people a day and more than 6 million a year reaching out in moments of desperation. The need for these services is skyrocketing, especially among young adults grappling with mental health crises and addiction. Yet Trump’s actions threaten to dismantle the very programs keeping them alive.
This is not just a policy decision — it’s a deliberate choice to abandon people in crisis. Cutting funding for drug treatment and mental health services will lead directly to more overdoses, more suicides, and more grieving families.
The question we must all ask is: why? Who benefits from depriving people of mental health support? What’s in it for Trump and his billionaire backers? A society in pain is easier to manipulate — and harder to hold leaders accountable.
If we care about our children, our neighbors, and our own futures, we must fight back. Mental health is not a political pawn — it’s a human right.
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