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86 - Donald Trump should treat people especially women with more respect, and continue investments in poorer countries for the sake of global security, the world’s leading philanthropic couple Bill and Melinda Gates said on Tuesday.

In remarks accompanying the annual letter to the public about global development issued by their philanthropic foundation, Melinda Gates said ³I wish our president would treat people, and especially women, with more respect when he speaks and tweets.” And Bill Gates warned that the proposed Trump administration budget could directly lead to millions of preventable deaths around the globe, due to proposed vast cuts to foreign aid and development funds. ³86 generosity if that goes away, even a 0 cut would mean 5 million deaths over the next decade,” he said at an event with his wife to launch the Bill and Melinda Gates )oundation’s 0 letter. The Trump administration, as it did last year, proposed billions of dollars in cuts to foreign aid, which makes up less than of 86 spending, in its 0 budget outline. /ast year, lawmakers in &ongress from both parties mostly ignored the request, and Gates said he hoped they would again this year too. In a separate interview, Melinda Gates criticized Donald Trump’s habit of using Twitter to attack women and minority groups. ³Those kinds of comments just don’t belong in the public discourse,” she told the Associated Press. 6he added that while some of Trump’s comments about women have troubled her, his rejection of the feminist label has not. ³6ome men have trouble and some women, quite frankly, have trouble embracing that term and what it means, so that honestly doesn’t bother me. It’s more the specific comments he’s made over and over again about specific people or minorities or women that just do not reflect the values I see across the 8nited 6tates,” Melinda Gates said. ³To have Africa be stable, to have health systems that stop pandemics, and to reduce the chance of our army having to go fight somewhere and lose lives these investments, even in that sort of µAmerica first’ mindset, are still very, very wise,” said Bill Gates, referencing Donald Trump’s longstanding rhetoric dismissing foreign aid as a wasteful handout to non-Americans. Melinda Gates added ³If you believe in any form of soft power, if you believe that the world is more peaceful when it is prosperous and low-income nations can build into middle income nations, then you invest in foreign aid. It makes absolutely no sense to us when we see administration budgets come forward and there are huge cuts.”

(The Guardian)