Trump signs women's health order as Melania takes center stage two weeks before midterms

President Donald Trump stood in the Rose Garden on Monday and signed an order his administration called a turning point for federal women's health policy. The audience included Cabinet secretaries, physicians, and a first lady who had spent months engineering the moment. Two weeks before the November 3 midterm elections, the White House left little ambiguity about the audience it hoped to reach.

Trump's executive order establishes a dedicated Women's Health Division within the National Institutes of Health and a White House task force focused on the subject. The order directs HHS to set up the new NIH division within 90 days. What it does not do is put a dollar figure on any of it.

What the order actually says

The executive order calls for more research into maternal health, mental health, endometriosis, infertility, fibroids, and menopause. It also lists Alzheimer's and heart disease, osteoporosis, and stroke.

The task force will be led by White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who recently announced she is cancer-free, and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The new Women's Health Division at NIH will not replace the existing Office of Research on Women's Health but will have a broader mandate beyond research.

First Lady Melania Trump laid out five pillars of women's health innovation, including research funding directed at conditions that disproportionately affect women and the use of artificial intelligence to speed up medical discoveries. She also called for accelerating the timeline for getting promising medicines to female patients and ensuring accessibility of medical breakthroughs for women of all income levels.

"Beginning today, we will change the reality of women's health," the first lady said at the ceremony. The president credited her with coming up with the idea. "Think of it, a women's health division, and it hasn't been done, but it's been done under Trump," Trump said. "When I heard about it, I said, 'Are you sure they don't have that? Who the hell wouldn't have a women's health division?'"

What it replaced

NIH has run an Office of Research on Women's Health since 1990. But the Biden administration had gone further. The order revokes former President Joe Biden's March 2024 executive order on advancing women's health research, which was championed by then-first lady Jill Biden, as well as a November 2023 memorandum that created a White House initiative on the issue.

Many goals in the new order mirror Jill Biden's initiative, which sought more research and helped generate nearly $1 billion in federal investments through existing programs. Trump's order contains no specific new funding, leaving implementation dependent on congressional appropriations.

The order does not say how much money the division will receive, how many staff it will have, or which NIH institute or center will house it. It must be carried out subject to the availability of appropriations, meaning Congress controls the money. Any change in diagnosis or treatment would depend on research that has not yet been funded or started.

A contested budget backdrop

The funding question sits uneasily alongside the administration's recent budget record at NIH. Women's health research has been a flashpoint since early in Trump's second administration, with scientists saying their work was in jeopardy because it fell in the blast zone of 'gender ideology' reviews. The word 'women' in grants triggered special reviews at NIH while the nation's academic research was paralyzed by moves to slash funding or eliminate diversity mentions.

The administration's fiscal year 2026 budget request proposed cutting NIH funding by roughly 40 percent and reducing funding for the HHS Office on Women's Health. Congress rejected those proposals, increased NIH funding, and raised the Office of Research on Women's Health budget by nearly 30 percent, to $106.48 million.

Congressional appropriations do not guarantee that agencies release the money. In October 2026, the Government Accountability Office concluded that HHS had improperly withheld more than $78 million in research funding at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. GAO had previously found improper withholding of NIH grant funds as well. These findings concerned existing programs, not the new women's health initiative, but they illustrate why spending decisions matter as much as budget announcements.

House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) fired back quickly. 'I could not agree more with the First Lady, but her husband's policies tell a different story,' DeLauro said in a statement. She accused Trump and budget director Russ Vought of proposing to slash hundreds of millions of dollars from programs that support women's health and of seeking the elimination of entire HHS agencies that conduct women's health research.

DeLauro pointed to Trump's fiscal year 2027 budget, which proposed $43 billion for NIH, a cut of $6 billion, or 12 percent, below the fiscal year 2026 enacted level.

The administration's broad cuts to scientific research have included studies focusing on women as it continues to eliminate grants with a 'DEI' or diversity focus. Last year, the administration announced that the long-running Women's Health Initiative, a study of preventive health strategies, would be closed early before abruptly reversing that decision amid protest.

The midterm factor

The timing was hard to ignore. The White House announcement comes about two weeks before November 3 elections and as Trump's job approval ratings have declined. An AP-NORC poll conducted earlier in October found women more likely than men to say healthcare is 'one of the most important issues' in the upcoming election.

The same survey found that in the midterm elections, Democrats and Republicans were tied among men, but women plan to vote Democratic by a 14-point margin.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who faces a tough reelection campaign, had criticized the administration's cuts in April, saying that 'the administration's emphasis on canceling diversity-related grants has resulted in less research aimed at women's health.' Monday's order represents the White House's most direct answer to that criticism.

The Trump administration has also launched a safety review of the abortion pill mifepristone that could pave the way for restrictions. Major medical groups have criticized the move as politically motivated while anti-abortion groups argue the review is moving too slowly. Earlier this month, U.S. officials told a court the review would be completed by March. That review runs on a separate legal track from Monday's order but complicates the White House's pitch to women voters.

USA Today reported that the first lady pressed for the initiative through a series of working sessions she arranged inside the East Wing, including meetings with physicians and other experts from the public and private sectors. She met with officials from Health and Human Services to establish the task force. The first White House task force working session was scheduled for Monday afternoon, immediately after the signing.

What to Watch

• HHS has 90 days to stand up the new NIH Women's Health Division. Watch whether the agency publishes a formal organizational chart, budget line, and leadership hire, or whether the structure exists only on paper.
• The GAO found HHS improperly withheld more than $78 million in research funding at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Congressional oversight committees are likely to press on whether a similar pattern repeats with funds destined for the new division.
• Sen. Collins's reelection race in Maine is one of the handful of Senate seats that will determine which party controls the chamber. How she responds to the order, and whether it gives her political cover, will be worth tracking in the final two weeks before November 3.
• The mifepristone safety review, due in court filings by March, sits on a collision course with the administration's new 'pro-women's health' framing. Any restriction on the pill would test whether Monday's Rose Garden message holds.
• White House spokeswoman Allison Schuster said the task force "will work to close critical research gaps and strengthen care for women across all stages of life." The first public deliverable from that task force, and its projected budget ask for fiscal year 2028, will reveal how much of Monday's ceremony translates into federal spending.

Sources: White House (executive order text) | Associated Press via U.S. News | NBC News / Reuters | STAT News | Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) press release | Katie Couric Media analysis | Medical Daily | Spectrum News