(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The New York Times revealed last October that billionaire Bill Gates made a secretive $50 million donation to support Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential run.
But like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other tech moguls, Gates is apparently having second thoughts in the wake of Trump’s landslide victory of Harris. The Microsoft co-founder told the Wall Street Journal that he recently spoke with Trump about global health challenges, and came away from the meeting impressed.
“I had a chance, about two weeks ago, to go have a long and actually quite intriguing dinner with him,” Gates said during an interview with Journal Editor in Chief Emma Tucker, the contents of which were published Friday.
“I felt like he was energized and looking forward to helping to drive innovation,” Gates reportedly said. “I was frankly impressed with how well he showed a lot of interest in the issues I brought up.”
While Trump and Gates may seem like an unlikely duo, they do have something in common: Much to the chagrin of MAGA diehards, they’re both in favor of the experimental COVID-19 vaccine. Gates spoke about that to the Journal.
“He, in the Covid days, accelerated the vaccine innovation,” Gates reportedly said. “So I was asking him if maybe the same kind of thing could be done here, and we both got, I think, pretty excited about that.”
Gates was referring to the Trump administration’s controversial Operation Warp Speed, which fast-tracked the development of the COVID-19 vaccine. Critics, including the nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services, have argued that the MNRA shots produced by Warp Speed have had massive health side effects—while failing to stop the spread of COVID.
However, both Trump and Gates have maintained that the vaccine program was a success. Trump also has the House GOP echoing that line. The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released its final report in December, deeming Warp Speed as a “tremendous success and a model to build upon in the future.”
“The vaccines, which are now probably better characterized as therapeutics, undoubtedly saved millions of lives by diminishing likelihood of severe disease and death,” the report said.
“The subcommittee report quoted Dr. Fauci as one of its sources that Warp Speed was a success. By nearly all accounts, this was an incredible feat of science which was made possible by the unique structure of OWS. Dr. Fauci, though reluctant to give credit to the Trump Administration, characterized the effort as ‘the best decision [he’s] ever made with regard to an intervention as director of the institute,’” the report said.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
