President Donald Trump’s dismissal of the remaining members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS is an eye-opening reminder that his strategy on HIV is to ignore the problem and ignore the people living with HIV.
On December 30, 2017, months after a half-dozen members resigned from the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS in response to the White House’s healthcare policies, news outlets reported that President Donald Trump has dismissed all remaining members, leaving the council vacant.
Former National LGBTQ Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey stated that “Trump ended 2017 with another horrendous reminder of why — in less than a full year in office — he has become the most anti-LGBTQ president in modern history.” Carey continued to blast the president, saying the president “lowered” himself and the White House with the dismissal of the remaining council members and said his actions are “part of an ongoing assault on the LGBTQ community, people of color, and of those living with HIV. This president ignored people of color and the LGBTQ community on World AIDS Day, pushed a health care agenda that would have ripped insurance away from LGBTQ, low-income, and minority families, and proposed a budget that would have cut $59 million in funding for the Ryan White Health Care Act.”