Elton John Shares Views on What Could Be Donald Trump’s Greatest Achievement: Ending AIDS
Elton John, the renowned British pop icon, has long been an advocate for AIDS/HIV awareness. Having established the Elton John AIDS Foundation in 1992 during the peak of the epidemic, he, along with his husband David Furnish, continues to actively campaign against the disease.
John’s foundation aims to see new HIV cases eradicated by 2030. However, recent budget cuts by President Trump pose a threat to this progress.
These cuts impact US foreign assistance, including the significant reduction of funds to PEPFAR, a global HIV/AIDS initiative. UNIAIDS warns that this could result in ‘an additional 6.6 million new HIV infections’, with about 23,000 new cases emerging daily.
This has deeply upset the music legend, who expressed his frustration to Variety: “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.”
Addressing global conflicts, John remarked, “You know, there’s a big war that’s being settled, hopefully,” referring to the 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.”
He emphasized that ‘crimes against millions of other people’ are taking place due to ‘governments and stigma and hate’, and urged, “We can stop the spread of AIDS, if people just got off their backsides and treated human beings in a Christian kind of way.”
Elton John highlighted the advancements in medical science, asserting that ‘this is the only disease that can be completely cured in one’s lifetime’.
He further stated, “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.”
According to Variety, Elton John and Donald Trump share a ‘long history’, with the singer having performed at Trump’s wedding to Melania Trump in 2005 at Mar-a-Lago.
Despite being offered to perform at Trump’s 2016 inauguration, John declined the invitation.
When asked by Variety why John didn’t directly contact Trump following the budget cuts, Furnish intervened, noting that they have been engaged in ‘very positive’ conversations with officials in Washington.
Since assuming office, Trump has issued several executive orders, some of which target transgender individuals, including a policy banning transgender people from military service and regulations affecting transgender athletes.