White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has been roasted online for a post touting President Donald Trump’s executive order to speed up reviews of psychedelic drugs to treat mental illness.
Leavitt’s post was mocked on social media after people pointed out that it appeared as though she was announcing Trump was seeking treatment for serious mental illness.
The timing of the press secretary’s post comes amid heightened scrutiny on Trump’s mental state after a slew of outbursts on Truth Social amid the war in Iran, and his sharing of an image that depicted him as Jesus.
“Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump is Accelerating Medical Treatments for Serious Mental Illness,” was all Leavitt initially posted on X Monday with a link to the executive order.
“We’ve noticed and i’m glad he’s getting help,” reacted journalist Aaron Rupar, whose posts viral clips of the president on his X feed.
“For himself?” quipped California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office team.
“Thank GOD, he’s getting the help he needs,” said CNN contributor Bakari Sellers.
“Karoline, when I first read the post, my heart soared. I thought Donald was accelerating medical treatments for his serious mental illness,” remarked another person. “Then I figured it out. Thanks a lot.”
Others shared comical memes of the president and mocked his recent Truth Social post where he shared an AI-generated image of himself depicted as Jesus, which he later said he thought was supposed to be him as a doctor.
One person shared a meme of the president in what appeared to be a mental facility with his hands bound. “Why are you in here?” another patient resembling Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest asked him. “Nobody believes that I’m Jesus,” the AI-generated image of Trump replied.
Leavitt appeared to get the memo and reshared her original post with a clarification.
“President Trump signed an Executive Order that will accelerate access to treatments for patients with serious mental illness, reaffirming his commitment to advancing solutions that provide hope to Americans with devastating, complex, and treatment-resistant conditions,” she wrote.
Trump announced the order speeding up the review of the therapeutic benefits of LSD, psilocybin, ecstasy, and other psychedelics at an Oval Office event Saturday, alongside Joe Rogan.
Trump touted the success of the psychedelic drug ibogaine—a Schedule I controlled substance—and cited a study in which he said participants experienced an “80 to 90 percent reduction in symptoms of depression and anxiety within one month.”
“Can I have some, please?” Trump quipped, prompting the room to erupt in laughter. “I’ll do whatever it takes…I don’t have time to be depressed. If you stay busy enough, maybe that’s what works too, that’s what I do.”
Trump’s announcement follows pledges by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other administration officials to ease access to psychedelics for medical use, an issue that has won rare bipartisan support.
Veteran organizations and psychedelic advocates have long contended that the ibogaine, which is made from a shrub native to West Africa, has great promise for hard-to-treat conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder and opioid addiction.
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