U2 frontman Bono was awarded the first George W. Bush Medal for Distinguished Leadership on Thursday for his work fighting the HIV/AIDS crisis and poverty in Africa.
“It’s a huge honor to [win] this award, and I’m here to honor your leadership on the greatest health intervention in the history of medicine,” Bono said in a live-streamed conversation from the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Rolling Stone reported.
Bono visited the White House in 2002 and asked then-president Bush to give financial support to several humanitarian organizations so they could work toward stemming the AIDS crisis in poor countries around the world.
The singer credited Bush’s action in funding the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the Global relief fund with saving “probably 21 million lives,” Rolling Stone reported.
Bush, in return, credited Bono’s support for the initiatives with helping them pass through Congress.
“The truth of the matter is, PEPFAR never would have made it out of Congress had you not been engaged. The first time I met you, you knew more statistics, like you were coming right out of the CIA,” Bush said, Rolling Stone reported.
The gala was originally scheduled before the death of Bush’s mother, former first lady Barbara Bush, and Bono praised her during the streamed conversation for helping destigmatize AIDS by publicly holding babies with AIDS and having contact with others with the disease.
“You were born of an AIDS activist, sir, and you became one,” Bono told the former president, Fox News reported.
Bono expressed concern that the Trump administration is “talking about turning back” from the AIDS funding.
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