Tuesday, September 17, 2002

Another meeting at the White House on the President’s AIDS initiative. This time I presented the program to Josh Bolten in his office in the West Wing. Also present were Gary Edson, Jay Lefkowitz, Terrell Halaska, Mark Dybul, Joe O’Neill, Robin Cleveland, Kristen Silverberg, Carol Thompson. We are definitely moving along. Clearly Josh wants to do it. He thoroughly liked my presentation. The problem will be OMB and the question of where we are going to get the money. Issue also is if the President accepts it, when can we announce since the budget for 2002 has not even been settled and 2003 has virtually decided. We want to announce soon since WHO and other organizations are dancing around the question of an implementation strategy and we do not want to President to lose the leadership edge. Josh asked OMB (Robin) to work out a budget scenario and get back to him. They also will elevate it up one more notch to Andy Card, Condolezza Rice and Mitch Daniels. We will meet again soon.