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Tonko Slams Republicans’ Hypocrisy in Protecting Addiction & Mental Health

Calls out hypocrisy of GOP’s vote on SUPPORT Act while endorsing Trump administration’s massive cuts to addiction & mental health services

Washington, June 4, 2025
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Addiction, Treatment, and Recovery (ATR) Caucus Co-Chair, Congressman Paul D. Tonko, spoke on the House floor today to call out Republicans for failing to respond to Trump administration attacks on addiction and mental health resources.
Tonko’s speech came ahead of the vote on the bipartisan Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment (SUPPORT) for Patients and Communities Reauthorization Act. Tonko decried the hypocrisy of Republicans in bringing up this bill to pay lip service to the mental health and addiction crises while at the same time enabling the Trump administration to make devastating cuts to the very programs, services, and staff the SUPPORT Act needs to function, including decimating the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Earlier this year, Tonko held a virtual press conference with ten former SAMHSA employees who were fired as a result of cuts from this administration. Participants spoke about the detrimental impact that these cuts will have on addressing mental health, and ensuring access to substance use disorder treatment, services, prevention and recovery.
Tonko’s full remarks can be viewed HERE or read below as prepared for delivery.
 
SAMHSA’s stated mission is to lead public health and service delivery efforts that promote mental health, prevent substance misuse, and provide treatments and supports to foster recovery while ensuring access and better outcomes for all.
 
It is not an exaggeration to say that the public servants at SAMHSA work every day to prevent overdoses and suicides and save lives.
 
As a longtime champion for behavioral health parity and access to treatment and as Co-Chair of the Congressional Addiction Treatment and Recovery Caucus, bipartisan in nature, there have been a few questions on my mind.
 
For instance, how many public servants need to be fired at SAMHSA before we say enough?
 
How many suicide prevention trainings need to be cancelled before Republicans can speak out?
 
How many lifesaving naloxone trainings need to be cancelled for Republicans to say something… say anything?
 
How many lives need to be lost before Republicans tell the Trump Administration to stop the decimation of SAMHSA?
 
I have other questions too, simple ones like how many people work at SAMHSA currently? What divisions have no staff left at all? What programs have they had to cut in local communities?
 
In February, following the firing of probationary employees, I started asking these questions and since the firing of nearly 50 percent of SAMHSA’s staff I have continued asking those questions.
 
To date I have gotten zero answers. Zero.
 
Currently, we have lost 50 percent of SAMHSA staff and it’s not HHS or the Trump administration who shared that with Congress.
 
We only have confirmation that SAMHSA lost half its staff from the press and from the former SAMHSA employees.
 
That is unacceptable.
 
As a Congress if we say we care about behavioral health, then we should be ashamed that we are okay not knowing this. For four months we have been asking questions and instead of answers we have even more concerning questions.
 
I shared with our Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman that as the committee that has jurisdiction over SAMHSA, how do we not have these answers?
 
This affects every community in the country and our first action should be finding out these answers. If the administration refuses to come in, then let’s bring in the fired employees.
 
These people are some of the most dedicated public servants who did this work for all the right reasons and they served an incredible need. On behalf of all Americans, I thank all of the fired SAMHSA employees for their service to our nation. You deserved better. And frankly all Americans deserve better.
 
Our loved ones should have access to effective addiction treatment, prevention and recovery support and behavioral health support and services. 
 
The recent actions of this Trump Administration are betraying the goal of access to behavioral health treatment and support.
 
RFK and Donald Trump have proposed to eliminate SAMHSA as an independent agency, burying it in the so-called “Administration for a Healthy America or AHA”
 
Let’s remember that the whole reason Congress moved SAMHSA into an independent agency was to ensure that behavioral health was prioritized despite the longstanding stigma.

Instead, AHA would take us back to the time that behavioral health is tucked away in another agency and deprioritized.
 
When the agency is gutted, the programs and the mission suffers, and ultimately, the individuals we are trying to help with their mental health and substance use struggles will simply not get the support they need.
 
People will die.
 
I beg my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, let’s reverse course. We have an obligation to protect SAMHSA’s mission and all of our constituents who SAMHSA serves.
 
Like many of my colleagues, I support the programs in this package; but it’s completely disingenuous and frankly outrageous that Republicans are here today trying to pat themselves on the back as doing something meaningful for those struggling with addiction while the entire agency we are authorizing programs for is being dismantled – the people doing the work we are authorizing have all been fired – and the Administration is proposing even more draconian cuts for mental health and substance use programs in the 2026 budget.
 
Give me a break. 
 
It’s like we’re trying to heal a bullet wound with a band aid.

So I’m regrettably going to have to vote no and would respectfully ask my Republican colleagues to pause today’s vote and instead focus our intention on responding to the actual crisis at SAMHSA.
 
Let’s stop this performance and instead let’s do the right thing and walk out right now and meet, make calls and work together to stop this madness. Let’s actually do something to meet this moment before it’s too late and we no longer have an agency focused on behavioral health.
 
This is a truly a performative vote if Republicans are too scared to say anything when the agency is being decimated and the mission is on the line but they want to go home and say they voted for SUPPORT.

But they won't mention that it will never be implemented because the funding and staff are gone. 
 
Let’s return to my initial question: how many lives need to be lost before Republicans tell the Trump Administration to stop the decimation of SAMHSA?
 
If Republicans go forward with this vote today while staying silent as this administration takes the chainsaw to SAMHSA then it’s clear that they are willing to let SAMHSA lose all capacity to serve its mission to save lives.

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