In a new interview with Variety, Sir Elton John expressed a near-impossible hope for those who have been paying close enough attention to US politics. While speaking about his goal of stopping the spread of AIDS, the British singer surmised Donald Trump could become “one of the greatest presidents in history” if he “ended AIDS.”
John suggested that Trump’s focus could shift toward the AIDS epidemic after the latest attempt at a peace plan in the war between Israel and Gaza.
“There’s a big war that’s being settled, hopefully,” John told the magazine, after expressing his frustration with countries in Africa, Russia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe not helping to end the AIDS epidemic. “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 continued, “My big beef at the moment is, yes, thank God, maybe there’s peace, after more things are sorted out. But there are crimes against millions of other people that are happening because of governments and stigma and hate. 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.”
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John went on to note the necessity of Republican support in the fight against AIDS, which he believes is “the only disease that can be completely cured in one’s lifetime,” before appealing to Trump’s sense of vanity by “speaking in superlatives,” as Variety put it.
“President Trump has maybe solved the peace problem,” he said. “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.”
Trump’s track record suggests he might not have the same priorities. One of his first actions in his second presidential term was to shutter the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which provided food and medical care for people with HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. In just a few months, that decision alone has led to an estimated 600,000 deaths, two-thirds of them children.
John is well-acquainted with Trump despite politely declining to perform at his 2016 inauguration. A 2019 New York Times report detailed a complicated history that dates back to the Rocket Man playing at Trump’s wedding to Melania in 2005.
In John’s note turning down the inauguration invitation, he implored the future president to continue the global fight against HIV/AIDS while leaving open the possibility of playing a White House Dinner for the UK, just as he did during the Clinton presidency.
But John doesn’t appear to have a direct line to Trump otherwise, though his husband, David Furnish, told Variety that they have had “very positive conversations” with Washington representatives.
Stay tuned for the inevitable Truth Social post once the quotes from this interview make their way to Trump.