Back in 2014, Mr. Kraig Moss received the worst blow possible—he found his 24-year-old son Rob dead of a heroin overdose. When Donald Trump began his campaign this past year, Moss decided to follow the campaign around the country, playing music in support of the orange one. At one rally in Iowa, Trump named-checked Kraig and even spoke directly with Moss—and the grieving father believed him.
Moss, who raised his son as a single father, spoke with Trump during a town hall meeting in Iowa earlier this year about his son. During that interaction, Trump talked about the importance of stopping the Mexican drug trade as well as the importance of providing more treatment options for addicts, Moss said.
"I told him that I lost my son ... . He said, 'First I want to let you know I'm sorry for your loss. It's got to be hard. (Heroin) is a tough drug,'" Moss said. "He had just come from New Hampshire, and it's very present there in New Hampshire. He said we have to combat it, we have to protect our borders, and we've got to stop this stuff from getting into the country."
But that was when Donald Trump told everyone what they wanted and in Moss’s case, needed to hear at the time. That’s over now, and Moss has seen that he’s been had.
"I truly believe from the heart that (Trump) is going to do everything he can. He's going to create treatment centers for the kids," he said last year.
But last week, Moss read about the proposed American Health Care Act. The Republican bill would end the Obamacare requirement that addiction services and mental health treatment be covered under Medicaid in the 31 states that expanded the health care program -- which include Moss' home state of New York.
While Moss knows he made a terrible mistake, he’s using his reality-television-like celebrity for a lot more worthwhile things now. He organized a fundraiser in his son’s memory.
He raised $3,000 for a local drug treatment center, but he said the greatest gift of the evening was that people who'd lost loved ones to drug addiction came together and comforted one another.
"We all felt less alone," he said.
He may be wrong-headed and a whole slew of things I disagree with, but he’s clearly a better man than the one in the White House.