Bill Gates gets nervous when reporter confronts him about relationship with Jeffrey Epstein: 'For the over 100th time'



Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates became visibly uncomfortable when a reporter confronted him about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

ABC Australia reporter Sarah Ferguson asked Gates in an interview that aired Monday whether he feels "regret" for having "maintained" a relationship with Epstein "despite Melinda's advice and wishes," referring to his ex-wife Melinda French Gates.

Gates, clearly uncomfortable and annoyed with the question, admitted that he does.

"I said that I'm— this is going way back in time, but yeah I will say for the over 100th time, yeah I shouldn't have had dinners with him," Gates said.

Despite his reticence, Ferguson pushed the issue farther. Noting that "Epstein had a way of sexually compromising people," she asked whether Melinda had warned Gates about putting himself in such a position.

"No, I mean its—" Gates responded before taking a brief pause. "No. I had dinner with him and that's all."

When Ferguson asked whether Gates regretted any connection between Epstein and his charitable efforts, Gates denied that any such relationship had existed.

"I shouldn't have had dinners with him." – @billgates on his association with Jeffrey Epstein #abc730 pic.twitter.com/xdqHjyVv3U
— abc730 (@abc730) January 30, 2023


The New York Times, however, alleged in an infamous 2019 story that Gates and Epstein did maintain some type of relationship.

In fact, beginning in 2011, Mr. Gates met with Mr. Epstein on numerous occasions — including at least three times at Mr. Epstein’s palatial Manhattan townhouse, and at least once staying late into the night, according to interviews with more than a dozen people familiar with the relationship, as well as documents reviewed by The New York Times.

Gates has denied being Epstein's friend. Last year, he said that meeting with Epstein was a "huge mistake."

What has Melinda said?

Melinda Gates admitted in an interview that she had once met Epstein, whom she described as "evil personified," and said she repeatedly warned Gates about meeting with him.

"I did not like that [Bill] had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein," she said. "I made that clear to him. I also met Jeffrey Epstein exactly one time. I wanted to see who this man was, and I regretted it from the second I stepped in the door."

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Bill Gates admits COVID is 'kind of like flu,' vaccines are 'imperfect in two very important ways,' applauds Australia's quarantine camps, and says Americans aren't great at making sacrifices



Bill Gates – the software developer – has been making the media rounds the past two weeks to promote his new book about preventing a new pandemic. In interviews this week, Gates delivered his opinions on a myriad of COVID-related topics – including the coronavirus lab-leak theory, individual liberties during a pandemic, Australia's quarantine camps, issues with COVID-19 vaccines, and the possibility of climate change causing disease outbreaks.

On Tuesday, Gates was interviewed by CNN host and Washington Post columnist Fareed Zakaria at an event organized by 92nd Street Y – a self-described "cultural and community center where people all over the world connect through culture, arts, entertainment, and conversation."

Gates proclaimed, "The vaccines are imperfect and in two very important ways."

"One is they don't block infection," he said. "We were hoping that the vaccine would create enough antibodies in your upper respiratory tract, including your nose and throat, that vaccinated people wouldn't get infected."

"Well, once Omicron comes along, the vaccine is not reducing transmission, hardly at all, particularly about three or four months after you take the vaccine," Gates noted.

"The other thing is duration," he added. "You know, we're seeing through a variety of the data, Israel data, U.K. data, that particularly if you're in your 70s, within four or five months of taking the vaccine, that protection really is going down. Weirdly for young people, that protection does not seem to go down and we've seen this with previous vaccines."

"The mRNA vaccines are a miracle, but they weren't perfect," he said. "And so next time, people will have much better vaccines and, and better therapeutics as well."

Gates stated, "We're going to create some new flu vaccines that that are much better."

Bill Gates: Vaccines are imperfect in 2 very important ways...pic.twitter.com/kMlnWGty9K
— Wittgenstein (@Wittgenstein) 1651676397

Gates noted that early in the pandemic, "We didn't really understand the fatality rate, you know, we didn't understand that it's a fairly low fatality rate and that it's a disease mainly the elderly, kind of like flu is, although a bit different than that."

"So that was pretty scary period, where the world didn't go on alert, including the United States, nearly as fast as it needed to," Gates told Zakaria.

Something I was cancelled for now Gates now openly says. \n\n\u201cCOVID has a low fatality rate and impacts the elderly like the flu.\u201dpic.twitter.com/US5bIb3W8B
— Aaron Ginn (@Aaron Ginn) 1651721197

Zakaria asked Gates, "Should we accept some restrictions on our liberties?"

Gates responded, "Absolutely. But you know, the U.S., that's not our greatest strength – that is making, in some cases, sacrifice for the collective."

He opined that the U.S. made "incredible sacrifice for the collective goal" during World War II, but Gates believes Americans haven't been willing to make sacrifices since the 9/11 terror attacks.

"We're a society of individual rights, and there's a lot to be said for that," he added. "So we're not optimized for pandemics."

Speaking of civil liberties, Gates praised Australia's draconian COVID-19 response – which included quarantine camps.

Gates said there "weren't many countries" that handled that COVID-19 pandemic well during a Tuesday interview on PBS' "Amanpour and Company."

"But a few responded very quickly to scale up the level of diagnostics, and then they had quarantine policies that were well adhered to," Gates stated. "So Australia stands out, and their death rate is about 10% of other rich countries. So pretty dramatic benefit."

Bill Gates: We're a society of individual rights and there's a lot that could be said for that, so we're not optimized for pandemicspic.twitter.com/8eCb9o3PWL
— Wittgenstein (@Wittgenstein) 1651650099

Last week, Gates sounded the alarm about the possibility of a new, more deadly COVID-19 variant and called for the formation of a global disease outbreak task force that would be controlled by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Gates expounded on the dangers of a new variant in the interview with Zakaria.

"There could be more variants come that would be immune-escaping because their shape of their spike protein would be a little different," he claimed. "And sadly, they could even have a higher fatality rate. You know, I read the chance of that is, you know, maybe 5% to 10%."

Gates advised people they "need to keep boosting." He said "the public should be ready" for mask mandates to be reinstated and "not view it as a deep infringement."

Bill Gates about new variants...pic.twitter.com/6J1U1UM2Sx
— Wittgenstein (@Wittgenstein) 1651648563

Zakaria asked Gates about the warning he made at the 2017 Munich Security Conference in Germany about a "fast-moving airborne pathogen" that "could kill more than 30 million people in less than a year," which he said could happen in 10-15 years.

"I was willing to take risk and go out on a limb, because you know, the modern world is just so susceptible to this human-to-human transmissible respiratory virus," Gates said in the nearly hour-long interview.

"You know, we're invading more area, you know, we're getting into, you know, where bats are having, getting squeezed," he continued. "HIV came through chimpanzees, Ebola came from bats."

Gates also highlighted his prediction that the world was "not ready for the next epidemic" – which he declared during a 2015 TED Talk.

Bill Gates about predicting COVID-19 pandemic in 2015...\nSource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuNWRoHRzkU&t=2551s\u00a0\u2026pic.twitter.com/lZf2kKHMFs
— Wittgenstein (@Wittgenstein) 1651647011

Gates claimed that climate change increases the risks of a pandemic.

"In these changing ecosystems, have animals seeking new areas to live in, because it gets too hot in the areas they're in, and so they tend to head away from the equator," Gates suggested. "And so as they go into those new habitats, they run into farms."

Gates asserted that there are "too many humans" for all those other animals because humans are "hogging the habitat."

The Microsoft founder warned that "bushmeat markets" and "wet markets" are possible disease outbreak origins because humans are "working in such close proximity" to pigs. He added, "Flu almost always comes out of China because that's where the pigs are."

Bill Gates about climate change and the risk of pandemics...pic.twitter.com/BFnuVF662e
— Wittgenstein (@Wittgenstein) 1651693431

During a Tuesday appearance on "The Daily Show," Gates claimed that climate change would cause more diseases and dismissed the COVID-19 origin possibility of a lab leak.

"Where we should be careful about lab safety," Gates said. "It's quite clear in this case that it came across through animals."

"Almost all our diseases like HIV crossed over from chimpanzees and Africa. Quite some time ago, Ebola came from bats. This also, with one step in between, came from bats. So it's going to keep happening, particularly with climate change, where we're invading a lot of habitats."

.@BillGates: \u201cIt\u2019s quite clear in this case, [Covid] came across through animals. And almost all our diseases, like HIV, crossed over from chimpanzees in Africa quite some time ago; Ebola came from bats, this also, with one step in between came across from bats.\u201dpic.twitter.com/TVfWdUJ1dt
— Tom Elliott (@Tom Elliott) 1651649123

You can watch the entire Bill Gates interview with Fareed Zakaria below.

Bill Gates with Fareed Zakaria: How to Prevent the Next Pandemic www.youtube.com

Bill and Melinda Gates announce they are getting divorced after 27 years of marriage



Bill and Melinda Gates announced Monday that they are ending their 27-year marriage, but will continue to work together to run their charitable foundation.

What are the details?

The statement posted by Bill and Melinda on social media reads:

"After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage. Over the last 27 years, we have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all people to lead healthy, productive lives. We continue to share a belief in that mission and will continue our work together at the foundation, but we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives. We ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life."
https://t.co/padmHSgWGc
— Bill Gates (@BillGates) 1620073819.0

Forbes noted that Bill Gates — the co-founder of Microsoft and one of the wealthiest people in the world — is estimated to be worth over $130 billion. The outlet reported that he stepped down from his company in 2020 "to focus on the Gates Foundation during the coronavirus pandemic."

According to Fox Business, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation "is the largest private charitable foundation," and the couple has given tens of billions of dollars to philanthropic endeavors.

The couple has three children — Jennifer, 25; Phoebe, 18; and Rory, 21 — and have their main home outside of Seattle in Washington state.

Anything else?

The Daily Mail pointed out that the Gates' split is "the biggest divorce since" Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who announced the end of his 25-year marriage to MacKenzie Scott in early 2019. The couple's divorce was finalized in July of that year.

Bezos has traded spots with Tesla founder Elon Musk as the richest person in the world in recent years.

Scott received a 4% share in Amazon in her split with Bezos, making her one of the richest women on the planet. According to Fox Business, she is estimated to have walked away with roughly $38 billion in the divorce. She has already given away billions to charity.

Bill Gates says we won't be back to 'normal' until 2022, issues dire omen for bars and restaurants



The first truck transporting Pfizer-BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine pulled out of a Michigan manufacturing plant on Sunday, and are expected to reach their destination on Monday so that health workers could administer the vaccine. Despite the overall optimism in the COVID-19 vaccine on its way to the American people, Bill Gates warns that the coronavirus pandemic is not even close to being over.

Gates is impressed with the progress of a coronavirus thus far.

"This vaccine work is phenomenal," Gates said last week at Singapore's FinTech Festival that was held virtually. "You know, we've been working with these pharma companies, they've been doing their best, you know, thank goodness, those vaccines will bring this pandemic to an end."

Gates noted that there could be six COVID-19 vaccines ready by spring of 2021, and he expects them to be approved by summer 2021.

However, despite his optimism in the coronavirus vaccine, Gates said that the world would not return to normal for more than a year.

"There will be… By the summer of 2021, the rich countries will have more vaccine coverage than other countries. So, the rich countries will be going mostly back to normal," Gates told the Hindustan Times on Friday. "But I still think because the virus will be in the world, we still will be somewhat conservative about large public events, we will still have some mask-wearing."

"We really need to get this virus eliminated, almost everywhere or else we have seen even in countries that have done a super good job -- like Australia or Singapore or Hong Kong or South Korea – they always run a risk of reinfection," Gates continued. "So they've had to restrict tourism and other travel, but by summer that will start to open up."

Gates declared, "They won't be totally back to normal but sometime in the first half of 2022, I do think we will be able to say that we're back to normal."

On Sunday, the Microsoft CEO seemed to prescribe a coronavirus restriction that would inflict wide-scale ruination on the country's bars and restaurants.

"Bars and restaurants in most of the country will be closed as we go into this wave," Gates told Jake Tapper on CNN's "State of the Union." "And I think, sadly, that's appropriate."

"Depending on how severe it is, the decision about schools is much more complicated, because, there, the benefits are pretty high, the amount of transmission is not the same as in restaurants and bars," he continued.

"So, trade-offs will have to be made. But this -- the next four to six months really call on us to do our best, because we can see that this will end, and you don't want somebody you love to be the last to die of coronavirus," Gates added.

.@BillGates on Covid: "Even through 2022" we should be prepared for life to not return to “normal" Says “sadly"… https://t.co/TQOOfi51cK
— Tom Elliott (@Tom Elliott)1607885948.0

Coronavirus lockdowns have already decimated the restaurant industry, 110,000 restaurants have permanently closed in 2020, approximately 17% of all of America's restaurants, according to the National Restaurant Association.

Gates hinted at a financially crippling edict despite New York state's contract tracing data of 46,000 confirmed coronavirus cases between September and November finding that only 1.4% of COVID-19 infections were attributed to bars and restaurants.

New York, Pennsylvania, and Los Angeles have instituted debilitating restrictions on restaurants in the past week.