James Corden says he’s using Tom Hanks to make Donald Trump care about HIV/AIDS
James Corden has ripped into Donald Trump for his apathy towards HIV and AIDS in an emotional monologue – before revealing an unorthodox way of making the president pay attention.
Speaking to his audience on The Late Late Show, the host criticised Trump for pretty much every step he’s taken in this area since becoming president.
Six people resigned from the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS over the weekend, stating that Trump and his administration “do not care” about the cause.
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In March, Trump and his Vice-President Mike Pence made proposals to gut the funding for the US’s pioneering HIV/AIDS prevention projects.
And despite all the other news stories swirling around Trump, Corden said it was “important to remember that he is still the president of the United States, and it’s still his job to take action on issues”.
When it came to HIV and AIDS, the president has failed a whole swath of Americans, the host said.
“He’s shown he doesn’t care,” Corden said, “by taking down the the Office of National AIDS Policy’s website on the day that he took office”.
The host pointed out that Trump had “refused to appoint anybody to lead that office”.
Trump’s administration also removed all mentions of LGBT rights from the White House website.
Corden added that the president has “proposed changes to health care, which if they were to happen, would devastate all marginalised Americans who are living with HIV and AIDS.”
Trump “should care,” the British host said. “We all should care.”
He divulged to the crowd that his education on HIV/AIDS had sprung from the 1993 Academy Award-winning film Philadelphia.
“It was the first time I’d seen anything about this disease on television, and as I learned more, I started to care about it, and I was thinking today: maybe that’s the problem.
“Maybe Donald Trump doesn’t care because he’s never seen Philadelphia.”
Then he revealed his plan for changing Trump’s thinking.
“To at least help find a way that he might even bring himself to care about this, today, we’ve sent 297 copies of the movie Philadelphia to Trump’s Florida hotel, Mar-a-Lago.”
He explained that this amount was “the most we could buy,” and encouraged others to send their own old copies of the Tom Hanks film to Trump’s hotel.
In the film, Hanks’ character sues his old law firm after it fires him for being HIV-positive.
Corden hoped Philadelphia would help the president to realise that HIV/AIDS was an issue that the president of the US – or any country – “can never afford to ignore.”
He then called on viewers to visit LGBT charity Lambda Legal, educate themselves, and donate to the cause.
Watch the full video here:
