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Topics: Elton John, Donald Trump, Politics, Health
Callum Jones
Topics: Elton John, Donald Trump, Politics, Health
Elton John has explained why he thinks 'ending AIDS' would be Donald Trump's greatest achievement.
The British pop star, 76, has spent many years spreading awareness of AIDS/HIV. He founded the Elton John AIDS Foundation in 1992 at the height of the epidemic and continues to speak about the issue to this day alongside his husband, David Furnish.
The aim is for new cases of HIV to be eradicated by 2030, though President Trump's recent cuts could cut short progress.
Aid to US foreign assistance, including slashing millions of dollars of funding to PEPFAR, a global HIV/AIDS response programme, with UNIAIDS estimating that the pause could lead to 'an additional 6.6 million new HIV infections', with around 23,000 new infections per day.
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And this has angered the music icon, as he told Variety in a recent interview: "I just am enraged by it. It’s very frustrating when you’ve got the tools in your hand to end it, and then you find that countries won’t help."
"You know, there’s a big war that’s being settled, hopefully," the 'Rocketman' singer added, speaking of the current situation in Gaza. "But there’s another war, with people who are suffering from HIV and AIDS that should be able to get their medicine but can’t, because governments won’t let them. It’s inhumane. So my big beef at the moment is, yes, thank God, maybe there’s peace, after more things are sorted out."
He went on to say that there are 'crimes against millions of other people' that are occurring because of 'governments and stigma and hate', adding: "It’s so frustrating when you have the medicine, you have prep, you have the antiretrovirals. We can stop the spread of AIDS, if people just got off their backsides and treated human beings in a Christian kind of way."
The singer went on to say that with the leaps and bounds of medical and scientific advances, 'this is the only disease that can be completely cured in one’s lifetime'.
John continued: "President Trump has maybe solved the peace problem. If he wants to go down as one of the greatest presidents in history … if he ended AIDS, that would really be a feather in his cap."
John and Trump have a 'long history', according to Variety, with the singer having previously performed at the President's wedding to the First Lady, Melania Trump, in 2005 at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
He was even asked if he wanted to perform at Trump's 2016 inauguration, but ultimately declined the offer.
Variety even asked why John didn't just call Trump after the cuts, to which Furnish stepped in and said that they had been having 'very positive' discussions with officials in Washington.
Since his inauguration, Trump has enacted a few executive orders, mostly aimed towards transgender people, including a policy to ban transgender individuals from entering the military, and allowing trans women to compete in women's sports.