CONFIDENTIAL:
IF ONLY Ivanka Trump were as persuasive as Bono. Superchef Mario Batali (inset) hosted the first-ever Eat RED Food & Film Fest on Tuesday, where he told attendees he was doing the event pro-Bono. “When Bono calls, I answer,” he joked with guests, adding that he’d be seeing the U2 singer, who founded the RED charity, next week. “You don’t say no to Bono.” Batali also privately roasted the First Daughter. “I don’t think Ivanka is intrinsically evil, but she’s ineffective in her role because (President) Trump is whimsical and doesn’t listen to anyone, including Ivanka,” he told one partygoer, when asked if the President’s 35-year-old daughter was the Trump administration’s silver lining when it comes to combating AIDS. The week started with six members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/ AIDS resigning in an open letter to Newsweek in which they stated Trump “simply does not care” about the AIDS epidemic.
Batali went on to tell our spy he first became aware of AIDS in the ’80s when he was working in San Francisco. “There was this mysterious deadly crisis that my friend and kitchen workers and chefs were falling victims to AIDS and dying,” he recalled, calling the disease “the scariest thing I saw in San Francisco.”
Batali isn’t optimistic that the Trump administration will do much to fight AIDS, but he did tell our insider, “We can cure AIDS in our lifetime.”
The Babbo owner certainly did his part at Tuesday’s Eat RED Food & Film Fest, which took place in Bryant Park and was attended by guests, including chefs
Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Danny Bowien, and rapper Action Bronson.
All proceeds went to fight AIDS with RED and was matched by the Bank of America and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Guests were treated to food and gift bags, as well as a screening of “Sleepless in Seattle.”