{"id":54424,"date":"2018-03-02T21:45:58","date_gmt":"2018-03-03T05:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.46.6.243\/?p=54424"},"modified":"2018-03-02T21:45:58","modified_gmt":"2018-03-03T05:45:58","slug":"the-first-lady-at-the-white-house-opioids-summit-president-trumps-closing-comments-as-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=54424","title":{"rendered":"The First Lady at the White House Opioids Summit&#8230;President Trumps Closing Comments As Well."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Good afternoon.  Thank you all for being here today.  I want to be here to personally tell each of you that what I [you] do today, it matters.  Everyone in this room knows that our country is in the middle of the opioid crisis.  And I\u2019m so proud of the work that this administration has already done to combat this epidemic.  We all know there is still much work to be done, which is why you\u2019re all here today.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BuWPzvU-Hqg\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I know one panel will focus on the supply side of this crisis, and the other panel will focus on the prevention, treatment, and recovery.  Our unified goal is that of helping all who have been affected by drug addiction.  And, for me, that means focusing on babies and young mothers, which is something I have been often seeing in my travels.<\/p>\n<p>I want to read some of a letter I received from a woman named Betty Henderson, a mother who lost her son to drugs.  She wrote this letter to me just one month after her son passed away.  Ms. Henderson is here with us today.  Betty, please join me.  (Applause.)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDear Mrs. Trump,<\/p>\n<p>On September 22, 2017, a needle took the life of my 29-year-old son, Billy.  The day after my son\u2019s death, I had to go to the medical examiner\u2019s office to claim his body.  No mother should ever have to claim their child\u2019s body.  I\u2019m sure that you as a mother would have some understanding of the depths of despair that I experienced on that day.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs. Trump, I\u2019m asking for your help in claiming these lost souls before drugs take them from this Earth.  I pray that we give peace to families in knowing that they told their loved ones how much they are treasured.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Betty, thank you for having the strength to reach out in the midst of your grief.  Your story touched me, and I know it has now touched everyone in this room.  Just as you said in your letter to me, let us all take a moment now and celebrate your son\u2019s life.  Thank you very much.  (Applause.)<\/p>\n<p>MS. HENDERSON:  Thank you.<\/p>\n<p>MRS. TRUMP:  Let\u2019s all keep Betty and her son, Billy, in mind today as you are working through some of the issues related to the opioid epidemic.  Sadly, she is not alone in her grief, and we need to change that.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you again for your hard work and commitment to this topic.  You are all making a real difference, and I look forward to hearing the important action items that everyone will take away from today\u2019s summit.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you all.  God bless you.  And God bless the United States of America.  Thank you.  (Applause.)<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UMbZtrTXFaU\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/v9FeXIM2sGE\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Remarks by President Trump at the White House Opioids Summit<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  Well, thank you very much, Kellyanne.  And it\u2019s an honor to be with you.  I just said I was going to stop over, say hello to some of the great families and some friends \u2014 some friends that have had some incredible difficulty.  I know what you\u2019re going through.<\/p>\n<p>Melania is here someplace.  Where is our First Lady?  Where is she?  Where\u2019s Melania?  Hello, darling.  So she feels so strongly about it.  Kellyanne feels so strongly about it.  And I do.<\/p>\n<p>And a friend of mine, Steve Witkoff, who is a great developer in New York City \u2014 stand up, Steve.  I didn\u2019t know you were going to be here.  Steve had some big difficulty.  He went through \u2014 Steve, come on up here.  Steve has been one of my great friends over the years.  A tremendously successful man.  And would you want to just discuss this?  Because we\u2019re all among friends here.  You know, it\u2019s a tough thing to discuss, right?<\/p>\n<p>MR. WITKOFF:  It is.  It is.<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  But I was there when he was going through something with a very special boy, right?  Go ahead.<\/p>\n<p>MR. WITKOFF:  I remember the hug you gave me when the world was \u2014 when I felt all was lost.  I listened to Eric\u2019s story.  I lost my son in 2011.  And he didn\u2019t buy drugs on the Darknet; he bought drugs on the Internet \u2014 a website owned by three of the largest U.S. corporations in the country today.  So it\u2019s not just the Darknet.<\/p>\n<p>But he was a great kid, and he detoxed the first night with me.  So he was my special child.  So if I lost him \u2014 I always felt hopeless before you were elected.  And I\u2019ve never lobbied my friend about anything.  I\u2019ve just supported you because I so believe in you.  But if my son knew that you were going to take up this battle \u2014 oh, my gosh, he must be upstairs applauding every single day.  So I am so grateful.  Thank you.<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you, Steve.  You take care of yourself.  Thank you.  (Applause.)<\/p>\n<p>And Steve went through something where he thought everything was perfect.  He thought everything was fine.  And his boy was recovered.  And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he got some very bad news.  So I fully understand what you\u2019re going through.<\/p>\n<p>The administration is going to be rolling out policy over the next three weeks, and it will be very, very strong.  I\u2019ve also spoken with Jeff about bringing a lawsuit against some of these opioid companies.  I mean, what they\u2019re doing and the way \u2014 the distribution.  And you have people that go to the hospital with a broken arm, and they come out and they\u2019re addicted.  They\u2019re addicted to painkillers, and they don\u2019t even know what happened.  They go in for something minor, and they come out and they\u2019re in serious shape.<\/p>\n<p>So we\u2019re going to very much \u2014 you know, as you know, I think we\u2019ve been involved more than any administration, by far.  It\u2019s a problem that\u2019s growing.  And drugs are a similar but different problem, in the sense that we have pushers and we have drug dealers that don\u2019t \u2014 I mean, they kill hundreds and hundreds of people, and most of them don\u2019t even go to jail.  You know, if you shoot one person, they give you life, they give you the death penalty.  These people can kill 2,000, 3,000 people and nothing happens to them.<\/p>\n<p>And we need strength with respect to the pushers and to the drug dealers.  And if we don\u2019t do that, you\u2019re never going to solve the problem.  If you want to be weak and you want to talk about just Blue Ribbon Committees, that\u2019s not the answer.  The answer is you have to have strength and you have to have toughness.  The drug dealers, the drug pushers are \u2014 they\u2019re really doing damage.  They\u2019re really doing damage.<\/p>\n<p>Some countries have a very, very tough penalty \u2014 the ultimate penalty.  And, by the way, they have much less of a drug problem than we do.  So we\u2019re going to have to be very strong on penalties.  Hopefully, we can do some litigation against the opioid companies.  I think it\u2019s very important because a lot of states are doing it, but I keep saying, if the states are doing it, why isn\u2019t the federal government doing it?  (Applause.)  So that will happen.  So that will happen.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, I just want to pay my respects to everybody.  Some of you have gone through a lot.  Many of you in this room have gone through a lot, more than anyone can imagine.  We\u2019re with you a hundred percent.  We\u2019re fighting for you, and we\u2019re going to win.  We\u2019re going to win.  Thank you very much.  Thank you, everybody.  Thank you.  (Applause.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Good afternoon. Thank you all for being here today. I want to be here to personally tell each of you that what I [you] do today, it matters. Everyone in this room knows that our country is in the middle of the opioid crisis. And I\u2019m so proud of the work that this administration [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Fullscreen-capture-322018-94334-PM.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/54425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}