(Headline USA) Leftist billionaire Bill Gates admitted this week that he personally lobbied Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., for months to sign onto Democrats’ new spending bill, which includes billions of dollars for radical climate change and energy initiatives.
Gates, a longtime proponent of alleged environmentalism, said he persuaded Manchin to get on board with President Joe Biden’s climate agenda, and encouraged Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to keep working towards a deal with Manchin after Biden’s Build Back Better agenda failed, according to Bloomberg.
Gates’s campaign also helped Manchin and Schumer’s offices during negotiations over the “Inflation Reduction Act,” he said.
“I will say that it’s one of the happier moments of my climate work,” Gates said. “I have two things that excite me about climate work. One is when policy gets done well, and this is by far the biggest moment like that.”
Gates said he’s tried to build a relationship with Manchin over the past three years because of the senator’s position on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. And even when Manchin came out in opposition to Build Back Better, Gates said he “kept trying because I just didn’t see another chance.”
He met with Manchin and Manchin’s wife in January, Gates said, to discuss West Virginia’s dependence on coal mining. Gates reportedly suggested that some of these jobs could be replaced by small nuclear power plants.
And in July, both Gates and Manchin attended the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Idaho.
“We had a talk about what was missing, what needed to be done,” Gates said. “And then after that, it was a lot of phone calls.”
Gates was also in regular communication with Schumer, who at one point complained that he had “shown infinite patience” with Manchin.
“You’re right,” Gates recalled telling Schumer. “And all you need to do is show infinite plus one patience.”
