President Donald Trump took executive action on Thursday to create the White House Great American Recovery Initiative in order to better coordinate the country’s national response to addiction.
“Many of those with me today have personally known the heartache of a loved one taken by drug or alcohol addiction,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I do, just like millions of American families.”
The president’s elder brother, Fred Trump Jr,. died of a heart attack in 1981 at the age of 42 after years of alcoholism that derailed his career as a pilot.
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“Every year, we lose an estimated 300,000 people to drug and alcohol abuse, and the real number is probably much, much higher than that,” the president said. “Thankfully, drug overdose deaths plummeted by 21% in the last year.”
From behind the Resolute Desk, between Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum‘s wife Kathryn Burgum, who is also a recovered alcoholic, Trump explained how the pair would chair the initiative and provide advice across the public and private sector to ensure more Americans receive the treatment they need and are celebrated as their progress through the recovery process.
A White House fact sheet on the initiative adds that it will specifically advise the federal government on how to better align programs with “data-driven updates,” in addition to “directing appropriate grants to support addiction recovery, with a focus on prevention, treatment, and long-term resilience.” That is on top of advising how to implement programs that “integrate prevention, early intervention, treatment, recovery support, and re-entry.”
Trump was not the only person present at the executive order signing ceremony to have personal testimony regarding drug and alcohol addiction. Others included peace missions special envoy Steve Witkoff, whose son Andrew died in 2011 from an opioid overdose.
“With this framework and treatment, recovery is not the exception, it is the expectation,” Kathryn Burgum said.
Kennedy added that “for too long, our nation has responded with fragmentation, with stigmatization, and silence instead of science, compassion and coordination.”
“With the Great American Recovery Initiative, we finally bring the full strength of the federal government together across healthcare, law enforcement, housing, labor, faith communities, and the private sector, to save lives, restore families, and rebuild communities that addiction has hollowed out,” he said.
The signing ceremony was Trump’s second public appearance on Thursday and the second time he declined to answer questions from reporters as his administration comes under scrutiny for its immigration law enforcement tactics.
“Thank you, please,” he told reporters as he pointed toward an Oval Office door.
Earlier, during his first Cabinet meeting of the year, Trump similarly declined to take questions and call on Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to speak before reporters.
“Mr. President, why not take questions?” one reporter asked as White House aides tried to push members of the news media from the Cabinet Room.
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Trump this week deployed border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota after this month’s fatal shootings of protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, undermining Noem’s leadership of her department.
At the same time, Trump has at least publicly continued to support Noem, even as Republican senators, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Thom Tillis (R-NC), implore her to resign.