Bill Gates hopes talk with Trump on vaccine programs was ‘enlightening’

Microsoft founder Bill Gates said in an interview broadcast Sunday that he hopes his conversation with President Trump about vaccines was “enlightening.”

“You know, we talked about vaccines and how they’re miraculous,” Gates told “Fox News Sunday” about his two meetings with Trump. 

“We talked about these different programs and so I’m hopeful that was enlightening to him.”

{mosads}“But it didn’t have the impact you hoped?” host Chris Wallace asked Gates.

Gates said his hopes were not reflected in Trump’s first budget.

“That was a disappointment to us,” Gates told Wallace. “It was taking the medical research budget, called the NIH bringing that down fairly dramatically.  Taking the aid programs, including the on-going HIV commitments and bringing those, so definitely I was disappointed in that.”

Gates noted that the Trump administration is new and likely did not grasp “how difficult HIV is” and the consequences of cutting back on research. 

Gates said he hopes the next budget is “more generous in these areas.”