Trump Says He Signed Executive Order to Bring Back Mental Institutions
President Donald Trump revealed he signed an executive order to restore mental institutions and asylums, emphasizing the importance of getting “people off the streets.”
During a press briefing Tuesday, Trump highlighted his administration’s accomplishments.
“[I] We signed an executive order to bring back the mental institutions and the insane asylums,” Trump said. “We’re going to have to bring them back. I hate building these idiots, but we need to get people off the streets.
Trump went on to say that growing up in Queens, New York, there was a place called “Creedmoor.”
Trump recounted how he asked his mother why there were “bars on the windows.” He said his mother told him, “There are people in this building who are very sick.”
“I’ll never forget — I don’t know if it’s still there, because they got rid of most of them,” Trump added. “The Democrats in New York brought them down, and people are living on the streets now. That’s why there are a lot of people in California and other places living on the streets.”
In an interview with Daily Caller White House correspondent Reagan Reese in August 2025, Trump was asked if he would be “open to the government reopening insane asylums for people with serious mental illnesses.”
Trump responded by pointing out that “states like New York and California” that had psychiatric facilities ended up releasing people “back into society because they couldn’t afford them.”
“They had it, and you never saw people like us, you know, they had it,” Trump said. “And what happened was states like New York and California had them, New York had a lot of them. They released them all into society because they couldn’t afford them. You know, it’s extremely expensive. But we had them, they were everywhere in New York.”
