Trump Signs an Executive Order, Apr. 18, 2026
April 18, 2026 · The White House · 0:49:31
Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube
What happened
President Donald Trump signed an executive order at the White House on Saturday, April 18, 2026, announcing what he called “historic reforms to dramatically accelerate access to new medical research and treatments based on psychedelic drugs.” The order, as he described it, “directs the FDA to expedite their review of certain psychedelics already designated as breakthrough therapy,” treatments he said are “currently in the advanced stages of clinical trials.”
He framed the action around veterans: “In many cases, these experimental treatments have shown life-changing potential for those suffering from severe mental illness and depression, including our cherished veterans,” and, as he stated the figure, “since 9/11 we’ve lost over 21 times more veteran lives to suicide than on the battlefield.” With him were Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, and NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, along with Congressman Morgan Luttrell and retired Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell. The President credited a call from Joe Rogan among those that prompted the move: “He said, ‘We have to do something about this.’ And I looked into it. I called Bobby. I called Oz. I called Marty and Jay, and it was really uniform support.”
Why it matters
The signing puts an expedited-review directive for breakthrough-therapy psychedelics on the record as administration policy, aimed first at the veteran suicide crisis as the President states it. It is recorded on the Health & MAHA hub.
Scoreboard watch
This is a candidate item for the weekly scoreboard: an executive-order signing directing expedited FDA review, checkable against the order’s text and the FDA’s review actions that follow.
Sources: The White House, “President Trump Signs an Executive Order, Apr. 18, 2026,” The White House, April 18, 2026 (official upload, embedded above). All figures and characterizations as stated by the President at the signing.
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