Trump signs an executive order creating a women’s health task force and a new NIH division, with Melania Trump at the center

The first lady took the microphone in the Rose Garden on Monday and announced the project in her own words. “This is a transformative moment for women in America. Beginning today, we will change the reality of women’s health,” Melania Trump said. It will establish, she said, “a new standard for women’s health in America.”

The executive order the president then signed, passing it to his wife so both signatures went on the document, creates two things: a White House task force on women’s health and a division inside the National Institutes of Health focused on women’s health research. The task force is to be led by Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who recently announced that she is free from breast cancer, and by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Its first meeting was scheduled for Monday afternoon in the Roosevelt Room, hours after the signing.

Trump praised his wife’s extraordinary leadership and skills and said she will help improve the health of the nation’s women and girls. “These are mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, and under the Trump administration, we’re going to get them the care and support that they need and deserve,” he said. Around the couple stood Kennedy and his wife Cheryl Hines, Dr. Mehmet Oz, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, Jennifer Hegseth and other officials.

The order itself does not appropriate money, and the White House has not yet published the task force’s membership beyond its two leaders or a timetable for its recommendations, as of October 19. What it does is put the first lady’s name and the president’s signature on a standing federal structure for an issue that usually lives inside agency budgets, and it gives that structure a room, a chairman level leadership and a first meeting on its first day.