WASHINGTON: The billionaire American business magnate and philanthropist Bill Gates has claimed that US President Donald Trump asked him twice about the difference between HPV/HIV and that it was ‘kind of scary’ how much Trump knew about Gates’ daughter.
Gates made the comments in response to a question at a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation meeting. Footage of Gates’ comments was released on Thursday night by MSNBC.
Bill Gates told the audience that he met Donald Trump twice after he was elected president of the United States, first time in December, 2016 and then in March, 2017.
“I never met Donald Trump before he was elected. There was a thing during the election where he and I were at the same place and I avoided him,” Gates said.
“Then he got elected so I went to see him in December (2016),” Gates said. “So when I went to talk to him, it was actually kind of scary how much he knew about my daughter’s appearance. Melinda [Gates’ wife] didn’t like that too well.” Gates revealed.
He explained that Trump and Gates’ daughter Jennifer Gates had met at an event in Florida where Trump was being ‘super nice’ to her, left the event and then came back twenty minutes later in a helicopter because ‘he wanted to make a grand entrance’.
Never before seen footage obtained exclusively by All In shows Bill Gates discussing meetings with Donald Trump #inners pic.twitter.com/GouJwYKghi
— All In w/Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) May 18, 2018
Gates remarked how in both meetings with Trump the president asked him about the harmful effects of vaccines.
“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 — I think it was Robert Kennedy Jr — was advising him that vaccines were causing bad things. And I said no, that’s a dead end, that would be a bad thing, don’t do that,” Gates said.
“Both times he wanted to know if there was a difference between HIV and HPV, so I was able to explain that those are rarely confused with each other,” Gates recalled as the audience burst into laughter.
The issue of vaccines remains a controversial topic in the US as several lawmakers and members of the public believe they cause harm.
According to the US Centers for Disease control & Prevention (CDC) “HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus. It is the virus that can lead to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome or AIDS if not treated. Unlike some other viruses, the human body can’t get rid of HIV completely, even with treatment. So once you get HIV, you have it for life.”
“HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection (STI). HPV is a different virus than HIV and HSV (herpes). 79 million Americans, most in their late teens and early 20’s, are infected with HPV. There are many different types of HPV. Some types can cause health problems including genital warts and cancers. But there are vaccines that can stop these health problems from happening,” the CDC says about HPV.
