President Trump donated his full third-quarter salary to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health to help further the department’s efforts to combat opioid addiction.
The president made good on his promise to donate his full $400,000 salary to various government agencies this week by cutting a check for $100,000 earmarked “to continue the ongoing fight against the opioid crisis.” The Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health manages federal public health offices and programs, including the surgeon general’s office.
In 2017, opioid overdoses claimed the lives of 47,600 Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Opioids were responsible for 67.8% of all drug overdose in the United States that year.
Since taking office, Trump has divvied out his salary to government operations he values the most, including donations to several agencies working to combat various forms of addiction. Trump donated his second-quarter salary of 2019 to the Surgeon General to raise awareness of the dangers of e-cigarettes and his 2018 third-quarter salary to alcoholism research at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
The president’s older brother, Fred Trump, died of alcoholism in 1981.
“To this day, I’ve never had a drink,” Trump said in 2017. “And I have no longing for it. I have no interest in it. To this day, I’ve never had a cigarette. … He really helped me. I had somebody that guided me. And he had a very, very, very tough life because of alcohol. Believe me — very, very tough, tough life. He was a strong guy, but it was a tough, tough thing that he was going through. But I learned because of Fred. I learned.”
Trump, 73, has also donated his salary to issues beyond addiction, including his first-quarter donation to the Department of Homeland Security during his battle for border wall funding in early 2019.
