Bill Gates Had to Explain to Donald Trump the Difference Between HIV and HPV

In new video footage from a Gates Foundation meeting shared by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, Bill Gates recounted interactions with Donald Trump that reveal Trump likely doesn’t know (or, at least, regularly forgets) the difference between HIV and HPV—somewhat unsurprising considering the fact that he doesn’t care about women or the LGBTQIA community, but upsetting nonetheless.

“I’d never met Donald Trump before he was elected,” begins Gates, “there was a thing during the election where he and I were at the same place, and I avoided him.” The Microsoft founder also shared a weird interaction where Trump knew his daughter from a horse show in Florida. “So when I first talked to him it was almost scary how well he knew, how much he knew about my daughter’s appearance,” says Gates. “Melinda didn’t like that too well.”

Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew.

Super gross obsession with women and their appearance (as well as a story about Trump driving away and returning on a helicopter in order to make a grand entrance) aside, Gates continues his story of meeting with Trump on two occasions: once at Trump Tower and again at the White House. Both meetings were focused on science and innovation, and Gates encouraging Trump to pursue “a broad set of things in energy, in health, in education”, one of them being the acceleration of the HIV vaccine.

This anecdote is the especially concerning and terrifying part:

“In both of those two meetings he asked me if vaccines weren’t a bad thing because he was considering a commission to look into ill-effects of vaccines. And somebody, his name was Robert Kennedy Jr., was advising him that vaccines were causing bad things and I said, ‘No, that is a dead end, that would be a bad thing, do not do that.’”

“Both times he wanted to know the difference between HIV and HPV and so I was able to explain that those are things that are rarely confused with each other.”

The revelation that the who fired the HIV/AIDS Council without any explanation, appointed a VP who continually attacks any kind of HIV funding and crusades against Planned Parenthood, and, well, has generally fostered a hostile environment to sexual health, might not actually know what any of those things are is not fully surprising. It is, however, disgraceful and horrendous.

(via Time, image: Thomas Hawk/Flickr)

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Charline Jao

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