LGBTQ Leaders Rip Infl ammatory State of the Union
Trump lies throughout an address to Congress designed to rally his right-wing base
BY MATT TRACY
President Donald Trump infuriated
marginalized groups — including
LGBTQ and HIV/ AIDS advocates —
during his State of the Union speech
on February 4 when he lied repeatedly, shamed
immigrants, honored racists, attacked healthcare
reform movements, boasted about appointing
far-right judges, and pandered to communities
of color he has long attacked.
The speech marked Trump’s fi nal State of the
Union speech before he faces re-election — and
he clearly sought to rally his base in the process.
He awarded racist, sexist, and homophobic
radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh with
the Presidential Medal of Freedom and spewed
narratives about how the administration is
“lifting our citizens of every race, color, religion,
and creed.”
Trump angered advocates on multiple occasions
during his speech, including when he
dared to invoke HIV/ AIDS in the face of his
own administration’s attempts to gut healthcare
coverage and cut funding aimed at addressing
the epidemic.
“We will eradicate the AIDS epidemic in America
by the end of this decade,” Trump said.
ACT UP New York responded by posting a
tweet saying Trump “murders HIV+ asylum
seekers,” “strips medicaid expansions,” “introduces
funding cuts to PEPFAR the President’s
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, an international
funding initiative, HOPWA the federal
Housing Opportunities for People With AIDS
program, and the Global Fund, another international
AIDS initiative,” and “gives massive
pharma company a tax deduction.”
Rachel Klein, who is deputy executive director
of the AIDS Institute, a national nonprofi t, similarly
said in a written statement that Trump’s
vows to end the epidemic are complicated by his
own administration’s actions on healthcare.
“The success of the initiative depends not
only on the additional, HIV-focused resources
dedication through the initiative, but on the
continued ability of people to gain access to
health care through programs including Medicaid,
Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act,”
Klein stated. “Just last week, the administration
released new proposals that would put
Medicaid coverage for adults who have or are at
risk of HIV in jeopardy, and would shift more of
the tremendous burden of out-of-pocket health
care costs to people with individual health insurance
plans.”
The Human Rights Campaign also chimed in,
tweeting, “Trump and Pence share a disturbing
record on HIV and AIDS, including attempts to
POLITICS
As President Donald Trump fi nished his State of the Union Address where he substituted reality programming stunts for basic truth, House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose hand he had refused to shake prior to speaking, ripped up the text.
repeal the Affordable Care Act, failing to suffi
ciently fund HIV & AIDS programs, adopting
regulations to undercut patient protections,
and underfunding programs that provide access
to PrEP.”
The president claimed during his speech to
have made an “ironclad pledge” to protect individuals
who have pre-existing conditions,
despite the fact that it was President Barack
Obama — not Trump — who implemented
those protections under the Affordable Care
Act. Trump is actively trying to gut those protections
by supporting challenges to Obamacare
in federal court.
Trump also went on to warn of a “socialist
takeover of our health care system,” a politically
risky statement in light of growing support for
Medicare for All amid frustration over the steep
costs of private health insurance and expensive
Obamacare premiums. Entrance polls emerging
out of Iowa 24 hours before his speech showed
that six out of 10 Democratic caucus-goers in
that state backed single-payer Medicare for All
and many caucus-goers stated that healthcare
was the most important issue on their minds
when they chose a candidate.
Trump also bragged that prescription drug
prices have decreased, even though Gilead last
year raised the prices on multiple HIV-related
medications, including HIV prevention medication
Truvada, by 4.9 percent, according to Bio
Pharma Dive.
Like others, Lambda Legal ripped Trump for
divisive rhetoric, but also specifi cally zeroed in
on the portion of his speech when the president
thanked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
and Republican senators for approving his
CSPAN
appointments of federal judges.
“As we expected, the president bragged about
his Federalist Society-inspired packing of our
courts, including the Supreme Court, with
judges with long records of anti-LGTBQ bias,”
Sharon McGowan, Lambda Legal’s chief strategy
offi cer and legal director, said in a written
statement. “These judges are already wreaking
havoc on sacred constitutional protections, and
will undermine the legitimacy and integrity of
our judicial system for generations to come.
There were numerous other instances in
which Trump sought to satisfy deeply conservative
voters. He blasted abortion rights — an
issue that impacts not just women but transgender
men and non-binary folks — and called
himself “pro-family,” a term most often used by
conservatives signaling opposition to reproductive
freedom and LGBTQ rights, among other
issues.
Trump also patted himself on the back for
taking on human traffi cking, even though he
signed into law SESTA/ FOSTA — a bill that
was originally touted as a way to protect victims
of traffi cking by more strictly policing websites,
but wound up having detrimental effects on sex
workers who have said they’ve been forced offl
ine and pushed into far more vulnerable environments
in terms of their personal safety.
The president intended to use his speech to
capitalize on the national spotlight just months
before he takes on the future Democratic nominee.
However, those hopes were dashed by the
following morning when the Hollywood Reporter
revealed that far fewer Americans tuned in to
watch the speech — just 15.23 million viewers
— a 25 percent dip from last year’s speech.
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