Bill Gates sat down for an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper and the topic was the coronavirus pandemic. The billionaire spoke about the severity of the coming winter wave of coronavirus outbreaks. When asked by Tapper if shutdowns should be put in place again, he was in favor of it. “Sadly, that’s appropriate.”

Tapper began by asking if governors who have been hesitant to shut down businesses again should do so since the prediction is that the coming wave of the virus will be the worst one yet. Gates began by saying that wearing face masks is an easy way for everyone to fight the spread. Then Gates specifically chose restaurants and bars as examples of businesses that should shut down for four to six months. Jake Tapper just sat there and allowed Gates to opine without any pushback at all. I guess it’s easy for a billionaire to say that the owners of bars and restaurants should suffer in order to curb the spread of the virus. It’s no skin off his nose.

A billionaire tells @jaketapper we should keep closing down businesses. He goes unchallenged. 2 people who will still eat well no matter, who will continue to be rich, who can survive an extended lockdown and still eat steak and drink fine wine.

This is a heartless conversation. pic.twitter.com/R6b6AbAxZ9

— DaybreakInsider (@DaybreakInsider) December 13, 2020

My question is this – who decided that Bill Gates is an expert on the coronavirus? Why should anyone be taking advice from him? Sure, he donates a lot of money to health care charities and organizations but the last time I checked, he’s not a doctor, a researcher, or even a professor in any medical field. Yet, CNN and other news outlets frequently ask Gates for his opinion on health care issues. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation does work on a global scale and that’s commendable. It has donated $1.75 billion toward coronavirus research, according to Forbes. But, Gates isn’t a medical expert. The liberal cable hosts never question his reasoning, he’s fawned over by them. Tapper is no different than the rest of them. This behavior is actually quite cringeworthy.

Even if you agree with the message – I don't — the optics of the world's richest (or second or third richest, whatever) man telling other people to shut down their businesses for half a year are about as bad as it gets. https://t.co/T5Rd4yWPGn

— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) December 13, 2020

Gates criticizes President Trump’s executive order that brings his America First stance to coronavirus vaccine distribution. He rightly wants Americans to be given access to vaccines before the U.S. ships them overseas for other countries to use. It is Trump’s job to protect Americans, it is his priority, as it should be. Gates is a globalist, though, and implies it is selfish to think this way. He sprinkles in a little hyperbole as he says the executive order mandates that there is to be no sharing of the vaccine until “every” American is vaccinated. Fact check: False.

Tapper asked when Gates thinks we will get back to some form of normal life. Gates predicts that may be late summer. What wasn’t asked by Tapper is how small business owners will ever be able to get back to normal life if they continue to face random shut down orders for up to six months at a time. How do they feed their families and pay their mortgages? That is normal life for non-billionaires. They just want to work and keep their employees working, too.

He said 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 that you love to be the last to die from coronavirus.”

Gates was asked when he believes the U.S. will regain some sense of pre-coronavirus life, and he said by late summer, the U.S. will be closer to normal than at the moment.

“But even through early 2022, unless we help other countries get rid of this disease, and we get high vaccination rates in our country, the risk of reintroduction will be there and, of course, the global economy will be slowed down, which hurts America economically in a pretty dramatic way,” he said.

We don’t live in a vacuum but to tie in some kind of virtue-shaming about global sharing of the coronavirus vaccines is not helpful, certainly at this point when the vaccines are only now becoming available. Gates sounds like an out-of-touch billionaire and Jake Tapper doesn’t seem to understand that, either. He’s willing to go along to fit in with the swampy crowd.