President Trump Donates Third Quarter Salary to Alcoholism Research
President Donald Trump has donated his salary for the third quarter of 2018 to a federal agency that seeks to research and combat alcoholism in America.
The President donated $100,000 to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the division of the U.S National Institute of Health tasked with combatting and preventing alcohol dependency throughout the country.
Unbeknownst to many, Trump, while famously claiming to have never taken a drink in his life, has somewhat of a tragic life experience involving the disease.
Trump has spoken of watching his older brother, Freddy, struggle throughout his life with alcoholism, dying at the far-too-young age of 43 in 1981 in part because of his condition.
Trump has compared seeing his brother die in what could have been the prime of his life to similar experiences many Americans have had in watching their relatives have their lives ruined by pharmaceutical opioids. Speaking at a October press conference, he described watching his brother’s struggles with alcoholism:
“[Fred] was a great guy, a handsome person. He was the life of the party. He was a fantastic guy, but he got stuck on alcohol. And it had a profound impact and ultimately [he] became an alcoholic and died of alcoholism. He would tell me, ‘Don’t drink ever.’ He understood the problem that he had and that it was a very hard problem.”
Trump pledged to donate his presidential salary as a candidate in 2016, thus far having donated his salary as chief executive to the Department of Veteran’s Affairs and the Department of Education, among other charitable causes.
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