Trump Considers Reopening 'Insane Asylums' in Crusade Against Crime

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: MEDIAite

Sep 1st, 2025, 12:42 pm


President Donald Trump says he would consider reopening insane asylums as he expands his anti-crime crackdown. Trump made the suggestion in a Daily Caller interview with reporter Reagan Reese that dropped Monday.

When Reese floated the possibility of the federal government reopening insane asylums for those with “serious mental illness,” Trump admitted he was open to it.

“Would you be open to the government reopening insane asylums for people with serious mental illness?” Reese asked. “Yeah I would,” Trump replied. “Well, they used to have them, and you never saw people like we had, you know, they used to have them,” he added. “And what happened is states like New York and California that had them, New York had a lot of them. They released them all into society because they couldn’t afford it. You know, it’s massively expensive.”

He added, “But we had, they were all over New York. I remember when I was growing up, Creedmoor. They had a place, Creedmoor, they had a lot of them, Bellevue, and they were closed by a certain governor. And I remember when they did, it was a long time ago, and I said they didn’t release these people? And they did. They released them into society, and that’s what you have. It’s a rough, it’s a rough situation.”

Read more: https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/trump-considers-reopening-insane-asylums-in-crusade-against-crime/

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[Ocelot II]

1. He can be the first customer.

[bluestarone]

30. Agree. Plus he could fill it up with

His whole administration.

[Botany]

63. Egg Zack Lee

He is so crazy that in just the past month or so he:

*. Talked about regrassing the parks in Washington D.C. because he knew more about
grass than anybody in the world. There is no such a thing as regrassing.

*. He was so out to lunch that the Canadian Prime Minister had to stop a press conference
with he and Krasnov because Krasnov started to talk about illegals coming to vote in our
elections “but I won’t let ‘em.”

*. Welcomed the man, Vlad Putin, to a U.S. Military Base with a red carpet the very same
man who was paying 100 K per American soldier the Taliban killed in Afghanistan.

*. And some gibberish about Roger Clemens getting into the Baseball Hall of Fame and
if not he or somebody was going to sue Major League Baseball even though getting into
the Hall of Fame is under the control of the Baseball Writers.

[walkingman]

2. Be careful what you ask for, you crazy MF'er.

[CurtEastPoint]

3. Does anyone seriously use the term insane asylums?

The reporter used it and of course if she's with the daily caller then that figures

[Irish_Dem]

9. No one in the medical/psych profession uses this term.

With the advent of psych meds there is no longer a need for long term hospitalizations.
Of course RFK jr wants to change all that.

[travelingthrulife]

11. Trump does. He thinks immigrants seeking asylum are released asylum patients.

[Prairie Gates]

37. Wait until he starts in on the "sexual inverts"

I've seen some right wing nuts reviving that term. Guess who will be the first into the asylums?

[Lucky Luciano]

4. I think Reagan closed a lot of these facilities which did lead to...

…highly mentally unstable people living in homelessness. Something like this probably is not all terrible, but I sure as fuck don’t trust this regime with it. No doubt, they will start with the chronic homeless, followed by trans, then liberal activists, etc.

[Ocelot II]

7. Some of those facilities were truly awful, but just cutting people loose

with no support or outpatient care wasn't the answer, obviously. Trump wants to go back to the bad old days when mentally ill, chemically dependent and developmentally disabled people are locked up and warehoused so nobody has to see them or care for them except to feed them and keep them off the streets. That's the easy way out; really caring for people with serious mental disorders takes money and effort and Trump and the GOP don't want to bother with that.

[MorbidButterflyTat]

44. You got all that from the OP?

He just sounded like his usual delusional self to me.

[Ocelot II]

49. It's exactly what Reagan did, and I can't imagine Trump being more humane than Reagan.

[Hekate]

53. Take it from us Californians who watched it all unfold when Reagan was our governor

See my post #40
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=3522416

[MadameButterfly]

61. I've noticed Trump following up on a lot of his delusions

He just wants things back the way they used to be and doesn't ever consider new information or why things have changed

[Hekate]

40. Reagan was gov. of California when he closed the asylums/hospitals, without the promised support system

Just so you know: TL-DR

We went from having almost no visible homeless to having an ever increasing number. It was a stark contrast. Did I mention he promised a support structure that never really came about? Supervised group homes. Professionals to monitor meds and ensure they were taken.

That said, in the 1990s when I served on the County Affirmative Action Commission, we went through a series of interviews with department heads, including the Sheriff. By that time I’d already read about the revolving door of mentally ill in the County jails in Los Angeles, our gigantic neighbor to the south, and had some questions.

First and foremost, since TrumpCo. is fixated on crime and severe punishment, I learned that the very great majority of offenses by the mentally ill were petty crime. Shoplifting food items was common. Yes, 7-11 franchisees need to be protected. But the behavior was so chronic and the jails so ill-equipped to deal with it, that a reasonable person might wonder if there were some other means of dealing with the problem. Law enforcement officers and prison guards have specific training, but it doesn’t include higher-level Psychology classes.

Second, so many were homeless and without the means to gain shelter and keep it. If vagrancy is still a crime (have not checked lately) and they keep ending up in jail — well again, jails are not designed to be homeless shelters.

Third — a lot of the homeless turned out to be dual-diagnosis. They might have a drug or alcohol addiction as well. Jails are not built to deal with that either.

Fourth — why would they turn to drugs or alcohol if they were receiving medication? Sometimes the meds are not available. Sometimes the meds have side-effects that make a person feel crappier. Some people (IF they are bi-polar) miss the “high” of their bipolar cycles (as a chronically depressed person myself, I think I can imagine why someone might want that back) . And finally, maybe the side-effects of alcohol or an addictive drug are not enough to deter a person from finding their own way of dealing with their demons. It’s a free country! No one can make them take meds if they don’t want to! They have the perfect freedom as an American to live and die under the freeway — because Freedom.

In my own self defense, please do not ever imagine that I think all homeless are mentally ill. Plenty of people are in danger of falling through holes in what we laughably call the social safety net. There are just so many vulnerable Americans.

Finally, and from the heart: fuck Ronald Reagan forever.

[Lucky Luciano]

48. Thanks for your input!

[Hekate]

52. You are welcome. Thanks for reading it.

[MorbidButterflyTat]

46. Wow.

[sakabatou]

5. Lemme guess: staffed by the most cruel of ICE's goons?

[Irish_Dem]

10. Or the national guard. Maybe sent to the gulags.

[DBoon]

19. The Soviet Union would send dissidents to mental hospitals

Criticism of the regime was seen as a form of mental illness:

In the Brezhnev era a new disease was described: ‘sluggish’ or ‘creeping’
schizophrenia, the only symptom of which was the expression of politically
unacceptable views. Dissidents were treated with massive doses of psychoactive
drugs, which produced agonising side effects.

According to one former detainee, Viktor Fainberg, confining political
activists in a mental hospital not only punished the offenders, but also
discredited their ideas in the eyes of the Soviet public which, by and large,
has a rather intolerant attitude to mental illness. Even in ‘mild’ cases
of dissent – for instance, criticising the lack of safety precautions in
the workplace – just placing the offender’s name on the psychiatric register
was enough to ensure years of discrimination in employment, housing and
the educational prospects of the offender’s children

.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13217951-100-soviet-union-admits-to-abuses-of-psychiatry/

Just wait until they decide being a liberal is a psychiatric disease. Oh wait, aren't they already saying this?

[Irish_Dem]

20. Yes the western mental health community was appalled.

That Russian professionals would label dissenters as mentally ill.

Now we may soon see the same thing here in the US.

[greatauntoftriplets]

32. He may try to put them in Alligator Alcatraz.

Unit another court order bans that.

[Irish_Dem]

55. Hitler killed the mentally ill. The handicapped, impaired, etc.

Today some of these illnesses are easily treated with medication.

[bucolic_frolic]

6. A certain governor? No, Reagan cut their budgest for tax cuts.

Psychiatrists assured everyone that medications would improve the lives of the afflicted.

Try reading a new book, "UnShrunk" to see how that turned out! Author is Laura Delano.

[BumRushDaShow]

16. Pataki (R) would down one of them

[Wiz Imp]

23. Well, Reagan (as Governor) was largely responsible for the deinstitutionalization movement in California

https://capitolweekly.net/the-republican-who-emptied-the-asylums/

In the public’s collective imagination, Ronald Reagan is most often credited or blamed for emptying state mental hospitals, and subsequently failing to provide adequate care for former patients or people who in years past would have been patients. In reality, Gov. Reagan took his cue from Lanterman.

That there are tens of thousands of Californians with mental illness locked in prisons or living on the streets today cannot be blamed solely on decisions made in the 1960s.

There have been seven gubernatorial administrations since Reagan left office in 1975. Since Lanterman retired in 1978, hundreds of legislators have come and gone. But aftershocks continue from the seismic public policy shift that took place in California in 1967.

[SSJVegeta]

27. I mean. If Trump really wanted to go to heaven, reversing all the horrible shit done by Reagan (and himself)

Might be a decent start.


Let's start with the reagan tax cuts and move from there.

[ananda]

8. Isn't returning to the Dark Ages fun.

Next we'll be hearing about torture devices.

[Irish_Dem]

12. Americans will be getting horrible diseases now.

No vaccines, no treatments, no healthcare.

This is one of the torture strategies.

[MrWowWow]

13. Only if he checks himself in!

And wears a DNR T-Shirt

[tanyev]

14. How many more can Mar a Lago hold?

[multigraincracker]

15. One flew over the GOP nest

[LudwigPastorius]

17. "They released (the mentally ill) into society..."

...and society turned right around and released one into the Oval Office.

[Bmoboy]

18. Just like in Russia

Political opposition candidates get locked away "for their own good."

I can hear the ECT machines humming away.

[electric_blue68]

21. There has been some good various levels of mental heath housing in NYC from people I've occasionally met over some...

years.

Probably not enough, and some could be improved from reading what other people had to say. And some physch meds have such nasty side effects some people living w mental illness stop taking them. Then there are some people who don't take them period.

My dad suffered from several severe depressions, so I educated myself.

Fuck, drumph, and his cruel ideas!

[sop]

22. Naturally, Trump will decide who's insane and should be institutionalized.

Once declared insane, It will be easier to incarcerate them without due process.

[Bayard]

51. There you go

I'm betting he will have a lot of his Dem enemies list declared insane.

But it will also stigmatize a lot of people with mental illness all over again.

[Wiz Imp]

24. From the University of Chicago Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience

https://psychiatry.uchicago.edu/news/mike-pence-said-liberals-emptied-mental-health-hospitals-1960s-they-didnt-act-alone

Would it be possible to reinstitutionalize the seriously mentally ill today? Experts agreed it would be unrealistic to return to mass institutionalization.

The law likely wouldn’t allow it, given several U.S. Supreme Court decisions that raised the threshold for involuntary commitment, including O’Connor v. Donaldson in 1975 and Addington v. Texas and Parham v. J.R. in 1979. "It would probably be impermissible to continue to hold someone who has been successfully treated with medication, unless it can be shown they will go off their meds once released," Vanderbilt’s Slobogin said.

Even if mass institutionalization were to return, it’s unlikely to reduce violence enough to outweigh the financial and societal costs, said Linda A. Teplin, vice chair for research in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Because the vast majority of people committed would be nonviolent, she said, it would neither be cost-effective for reducing crime nor beneficial for the health of the people who would be institutionalized.

"Substance use, inequality and lack of opportunity, and access to guns are the major drivers of violence," rather than mental illness in a vacuum, Cohen said. Blaming serious mental illness "is just a diversion tactic."

[Brainfodder]

25. Deflection YET AGAIN?

If he does, I don't mind if he puts his name on them!

[Joinfortmill]

26. He's barely comprehensible.

[Prof. Toru Tanaka]

33. ......and fully reprehensible

[Joinfortmill]

62. ROFL. True.

[MorbidButterflyTat]

47. Yes

While simultaneously a criminal mastermind!!

[bucolic_frolic]

28. Trump is like Reagan, constantly revisiting a halycon past that doesn't exist anymore

Rose-colored glasses with Nazi anti-glare glaze.

[twodogsbarking]

29. White House is the insane asylum

[J_William_Ryan]

31. "Trump will decide who's insane and should be institutionalized."

Clearly this is an attack on transgender Americans most on the hateful, bigoted right consider to be ‘mentally ill.’

[soldierant]

34. I thought he was irrevocably opposed to anyone having asylum.

[greatauntoftriplets]

35. They tore most of the ones in the Chicago area years ago.

Conditions reportedly were dismal in the Victorian-era buildings. Is TACO going to give Illinois the money to rebuild?

[Prairie Gates]

36. We really have the demented grampa "Back in my day!" bozo at the helm, huh?

Fantastic.

[topcelts]

38. Close Hospitals for Mental Patients (Insane Asylums)

Reagan closed these facilities 1970s. It's a Republican thing. We don't need them now we need them. Will we be hiring a new breed of doctors. "Mengele anybody?" Master Race here we come

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

39. If so he should be committed.

[Historic NY]

41. Apparently he hasn't noticed most of the decayed structures

around the country that once served that function. They would have to build them. Some places have secure facilities for the criminally insane but they are those adjudicated by the courts.

[William Gustafson]

42. Why does he think we have an unlimited supply of funds for all these pet projects?

How is he going to pay for any of these projects? We would be bankrupt by the beginning of the new year at this rate!!

[MorbidButterflyTat]

43. It wasn't his idea

"When Reese floated the possibility of the federal government reopening insane asylums for those with 'serious mental illness,' *rump admitted he was open to it."

He "admitted" it?

This is so disingenuous. He considered it after it was suggested to him. He would probably consider any stupid thing anybody brings up to him. He doesn't know what the hell he's saying.

[LeftInTX]

45. I thought Trump died?

[Bread and Circuses]

50. I agree with TACO. Re-open them all, build hundreds more " insane asylums " for every Republican politician

[moniss]

54. He should be the first one committed. nt

[Danmel]

56. Creedmor and Bellevue are still operational

Run by the New York State Office of Mental Health and NYC Health, respectively.
Creedmor is in Queens. He's just so profoundly stupid and lazy.

https://omh.ny.gov/omhweb/facilities/crpc/

[BumRushDaShow]

57. From what I had gone down the rabbit hole to find

was that most of Creedmor's campus was pretty much dismantled and sold off but they maintain a building for the care of a couple hundred legacy psychiatric patients. And I believe Bellevue basically rebranded their psychiatric care away from the "asylum" model.

[Danmel]

59. I pass Creedmor all the time. It's off the Long Island Expressway in Queens.

Pilgrim State Psychiatric hospital is still open on long Island although much smaller than it was.
There is still a need for long term psychiatrist care, and institutional care is not inherently bad. But resources need to be provided and support services need to be in place.

[BumRushDaShow]

60. My mom used to be a social worker here in PA (worked for the state and then the city back in the '50s)

and used to be assigned cases in the psychiatric facilities here. She would sometimes tell us heartbreaking stories about what she saw. The one we had here was called "Byberry" (Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry).





https://hsp.org/philadelphia-state-hospital-byberry

It was brutal - not just the care but the environmental conditions (asbestos, etc) of the old buildings themselves (and of course the care methods were shifting), and it was finally announced that it would be closed in the late '80s. But due to the leftover population in there, it took several years to transfer them to other facilities (a bunch went to the closest facility at the time which was "Norristown State Hospital" ).

I remember driving by it before it closed when I was substitute teaching or traveling up to "the Far Northeast" (as that part of Philly was dubbed). They finally tore down the buildings by the mid-2000s and a developer came in to build an "active retirement" community on the large property.

[Cloudhopper]

58. Wow...I didn't realize Florida had been closed. n/t

[eringer]

64. Trump Crazy House

We already have one. A good start. It’s all white and it’s in DC.