President Donald Trump sat down with the *Daily Caller’s* Reagan Reese in the Oval Office on August 29 and delivered a blunt assessment of two major crises plaguing America: the mental health disaster driving crime and homelessness, and the unresolved scandal of the Deep State’s Russiagate conspiracy.
Trump didn’t hold back. On the question of mental health, the president argued it is long past time for the United States to reconsider reopening mental institutions—once common in America before liberal “reforms” in the late 20th century shut them down.
“You know, they used to have them, and you never saw people like we have now,” Trump said, pointing out that states such as New York and California once operated large facilities like Creedmoor and Bellevue. “They released them all into society because they couldn’t afford it,” he explained, adding that while costly, the institutions served a critical purpose: keeping dangerous and severely ill individuals off the streets.
Trump noted what millions of Americans already see every day: the direct link between shuttered asylums and today’s exploding homelessness and crime crisis. “You can’t have these people walking around,” he said bluntly, speaking to the safety of ordinary citizens who must now deal with the fallout of decades of failed liberal policies.
Indeed, the closure of state institutions was celebrated by progressives at the time as “reform,” but the reality has been decades of misery on city streets, open-air drug markets, violent attacks, and unsafe communities. Trump’s call to revisit the policy is sure to resonate with Americans who are tired of watching once-great cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York collapse under the weight of progressive negligence.
But Trump didn’t stop there. In another part of the interview, he turned his attention to the Deep State actors behind the Russiagate hoax—a conspiracy that weaponized the FBI, DOJ, and intelligence community against a sitting president.
Asked whether arrests should follow newly declassified documents exposing the scandal, Trump was clear: “There should be. What they did is a disgrace. They cheated, they lied, they did so many bad things, evil things that were so bad for the country.”
Trump pointed to the Obama-era officials and intelligence operatives who manufactured the Russia collusion lie, emphasizing that they—not his administration—were the real criminals. “They’re bad people. They’re sick people. They’re the ones that committed all the crimes. We didn’t commit crimes—they committed all the crimes.”
Though Trump refrained from naming specific officials, his meaning was obvious. Figures like James Comey, John Brennan, and Adam Schiff orchestrated a years-long smear campaign to undermine his presidency, while the media eagerly carried their water. Senator JD Vance has echoed Trump’s sentiment, vowing that indictments for these “bad actors” are inevitable.
The contrast could not be sharper: while Democrats weaponize lawfare to target Trump with endless indictments, the real corruption—the criminal behavior of the Deep State—remains largely untouched. Trump’s message is clear: America cannot move forward without accountability, both for the criminals in Washington who abused power and for the public safety crisis unleashed by failed progressive policies.
And as Trump reminded Reese from the Oval Office, he’s not afraid to speak hard truths: “Because you can’t have these people walking around.”
