Chris Stewart: “I recently had an experience with a group of, maybe, 50 people, and I asked them: How many of you have been impacted by…”

“I recently had an experience with a group of, maybe, 50 people, and I asked them: How many of you have been impacted by suicide or an attempted suicide, someone in your family, someone that you love and care about? Nearly every hand went up. We are experiencing a crisis among our youth, a crisis among our veterans, and now with COVID-19, a crisis among the general population as we go into our social isolation. It is worse now than it was, and it has been a crisis for a long time. There is a tool that will help. The Suicide Prevention Hotline number that creates a national hotline number, 988. No matter where you are in the country, if you are in the middle of a mental health crisis you can get help. We have been working on this for 3 years. It is bipartisan, it is bicameral, it will save thousands of lives, especially now in the midst of this other crisis that is creating so much emotional stress on so many Americans. Madam Speaker, I am asking the leadership, bring it up, finish it, give us unanimous consent today. Let's make this tool available to help Americans who need the help, please. ____________________”