Trump's IVF Order Is Praised—and Picked Apart

President Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order intended to expand access to and reduce costs of in vitro fertilization. As Trump put it, "I've been saying we are going to do what we have to do and I think the women and families, husbands, are very appreciative of" the executive order on IVF, which can be extremely expensive, can require multiple rounds, and doesn't always succeed. Axios puts the per-cycle cost at $12,000 to $25,000. Some, like GOP Sen. Katie Britt, hailed the move as a "promise kept"; others swung at that narrative. What you need to know:

• A campaign promise: Trump called for universal coverage of IVF in the run-up to the election, with Fox News citing this statement from a Michigan rally in August: "I'm announcing today in a major statement that under the Trump administration, your government will pay for—or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for—all costs associated with IVF treatment. Because we want more babies, to put it nicely."
• From the White House press secretary: Karoline Leavitt saw it as a full-circle moment, writing on X, "PROMISES MADE. PROMISES KEPT: President Trump just signed an Executive Order to Expand Access to IVF! The Order directs policy recommendations to protect IVF access and aggressively reduce out-of-pocket and health plan costs for such treatments."

• The asterisk: USA Today reports that while the order gives the Domestic Policy Council 90 days to make recommendations on how to reduce IVF costs for patients with and without insurance, it "has no immediate impact on the cost of IVF or expanding access to reproductive treatments."
• Doubling down on that: At MSNBC, Steve Benen writes that while he understands why Leavitt would push the "promises kept" narrative, "Trump promised ... a system in which either the government or insurance companies cover IVF costs—and there's literally nothing in the new executive order that keeps that promise. ... It's possible, I suppose, that someone in the administration will have an idea that hasn't already been considered, but as executive orders go, this one is effectively meaningless."
• A divisive issue: USA Today reports that while polls show Americans are generally in favor of IVF, Republicans aren't uniformly on board. Some are against IVF because they define life as beginning at conception and don't want to see unused embryos destroyed; others simply don't want the government to foot the bill.

(More President Trump stories.)