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Former President George W. Bush made a rare appearance in Washington, DC, on Friday – gathering some big names from his administration, a key political opponent in former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and even Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates – to help protect his signature foreign policy achievement.
The US government says it literally saved 25 million lives, but Bush is afraid most Americans don’t know that fact.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, which the rock star Bono, in a video message beamed into the event, called a “genius plan, pretty crappy acronym.”
Pelosi sat a row behind Dr. Anthony Fauci, who worked on the federal response to AIDS, and just in front of Ukraine’s ambassador to the US – in addition to funding Ukraine’s effort to repel Russia’s invasion, the US also helps fund Ukraine’s effort to control AIDS. They’re all hoping the US reups on PEPFAR, which costs a relative pittance in US government tax dollar terms – $7 billion in 2022 and more than $110 billion total over 20 years – but has saved so many people.
Tatu Msangi found out she was HIV positive in 2004, after she was already pregnant with her daughter, Faith.
“Seventeen years later, my daughter, Faith, stands alongside me as a representative of the 5.5 million babies born HIV free as a result of years of the PEPFAR program,” Msangi said.
It’s not exactly clear that PEPFAR or its funding are in any danger, and I could not find any top Republicans who are actively lobbying against it.
But with the new GOP majority in the House talking about spending cuts and the current White House frustrating the former president by hoping to roll the…
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