(Headline USA) President Donald Trump has signed an executive order meant to expand access to and reduce costs of in vitro fertilization and issued a presidential memorandum calling for “radical transparency requirements” from the government, which he suggested could reduce wasteful spending.
On the campaign trail, Trump called for universal coverage of IVF treatment.
Trump, who was at his Florida residence and club, Mar-a-Lago, on Tuesday, also signed another executive order as well as a presidential memorandum. The second executive order outlined the oversight functions of the Office of Management and Budget, while the memo requires the government to detail the “waste, fraud and abuse” that’s found as the Department of Government Efficiency, overseen by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, looks to cut government spending.
Trump took more than 30 minutes of questions Tuesday on a range of topics and bashed the Biden administration throughout, highlighting issues such as its handling of the U.S.-Mexico border, Venezuela policy and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Trump said he thought he had a “good chance” to end Russia’s war in Ukraine but bristled at suggestions that the U.S. and Russia had begun negotiations to end fighting without Ukraine playing a role. He even seemed to suggest that Ukraine was to blame for a war that began only after Russia invaded that country.
“Today I heard, ‘Well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years,” Trump said of Ukraine’s leaders. “You should have never started it.”
In anticipation of questions about his administration’s efforts to slash federal spending, the president said he wrote down examples of government programs around the world which he then listed off at length. They included funding to promote voter turnout in India and social cohesion initiatives in Mali.
Asked about the White House’s arguing in a court filing that Musk wasn’t the head of Trump’s government efficiency efforts, Trump said: “You could call him an employee, you could call him a consultant, you could call him whatever you want. But he’s a patriot.”
Trump said he thinks “women and families, husbands, are very appreciative” of his executive order on IVF, which offers a possible solution when a woman has trouble getting pregnant. The procedure involves retrieving her eggs and combining them in a lab dish with a man’s sperm to create a fertilized embryo, which is then transferred into the woman’s uterus in an attempt to create a pregnancy. IVF is done in cycles, and more than one may be required.
Barbara Collura, president and CEO of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, said that what the White House put out “looks extremely promising.”
“The biggest barriers for people to building their families are the out-of-pocket costs, the lack of insurance coverage for this care,” she said.
Trump spoke to reporters hours before his first joint TV interview with Musk aired in prime time on Fox News Channel. The president acknowledged during it that “inflation is back,” but noted that he’d only been in office a few weeks and insisted “I had nothing to do” with prices that remain stubbornly high.
Trump mentioned during that same interview that Musk is “probably not that happy” with things like tax breaks for electric vehicles likely not being included in tax legislation now being discussed in Congress, but he said Musk didn’t seek special treatment for Tesla.
“I haven’t asked the president for anything, ever,” Musk added. Asked about potential conflicts of interest between Musk’s governmental efforts and his businesses and how they will be handled, Trump said, “He won’t be involved” and Musk said he’d recuse himself.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
