Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) has doubled down on his controversial remarks about suicide, claiming that government assistance leads people to kill themselves.
"This suicide problem didn't exist until we got largesse from the government," Young said Wednesday at a senior center, according to Alaska Dispatch News. "When people had to work and had to provide and had to keep warm by putting participation in cutting wood and catching the fish and killing the animals, we didn't have the suicide problem."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Quiz of The Week: 21 – 27 JuneHave you been paying attention to The Week's news?
-
The Week Unwrapped: How do you turn plastics into paracetamol?Podcast Plus, what is the Wagner Group doing now? And why is it so hard to find a job after university?
-
The week's best photosIn Pictures A daring leap, a plastic protest, and more
-
Trump plans Iran talks, insists nuke threat goneSpeed Read 'The war is done' and 'we destroyed the nuclear,' said President Trump
-
Trump embraces NATO after budget vow, charm offensiveSpeed Read The president reversed course on his longstanding skepticism of the trans-Atlantic military alliance
-
Trump judge pick told DOJ to defy courts, lawyer saysSpeed Read Emil Bove, a top Justice Department official nominated by Trump for a lifetime seat, stands accused of encouraging government lawyers to mislead the courts and defy judicial orders
-
Mamdani upsets Cuomo in NYC mayoral primarySpeed Read Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani beat out Andrew Cuomo in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary
-
Supreme Court clears third-country deportationsSpeed Read The court allowed Trump to temporarily resume deporting migrants to countries they aren't from
-
Judges order release of 2 high-profile migrantsSpeed Read Kilmar Ábrego García is back in the US and Mahmoud Khalil is allowed to go home — for now
-
US assessing bomb damage to Iran nuclear sitesSpeed Read Trump claims this weekend's US bombing obliterated Tehran's nuclear program, while JD Vance insists the US is 'not at war with Iran'
-
Trump's LA deployment in limbo after court rulingsSpeed Read Judge Breyer ruled that Trump's National Guard deployment to Los Angeles was an 'illegal' overreach. But a federal appellate court halted the ruling.
