Melinda French Gates says she’s ‘absolutely not’ voting for Trump, will vote for Biden

Melinda French Gates revealed she plans to vote for President Biden over former President Trump in November, pointing to the former president’s past remarks on women and reproductive rights.

When asked by “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King if she will campaign or endorse a particular candidate, French Gates said, “More than likely, yes.”

French Gates, a philanthropist and the ex-wife of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, was then asked if she could share who that candidate “might be,” to which she said, “Well, I don’t think it would be any surprise.”

“I think — first of all, I think it’s really important to say that I have voted in some elections Republican and some elections Democratic,” French Gates said. “But in this election, I cannot vote for a man who rolls back women’s reproductive rights and says the heinous things that he says about women. So, I absolutely am not voting for Trump, and I will vote for Biden.” 

She told King it is up to women to show up to the polls in November as they did during the midterms.

“It is going to come down in this election — it will come down to the women turning out in the battleground states. They … women turned out in the midterm elections and said, ‘This is enough,’ and we’ve got to do it again,” French Gates said.

French Gates is a staunch reproductive rights advocate and committed $1 billion to women’s causes last month.

She celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision last week that upheld access to the abortion medication mifepristone, while noting the greater fight for reproductive rights remains ongoing.

“Today’s Supreme Court decision is welcome news, but the fight for reproductive rights is far from over,” she wrote on the social platform X. “Someone else will file a lawsuit. Another state will pass legislation restricting women’s options.” 

Reproductive rights have remained a top political topic in the two years since the conservative Supreme Court majority ended Roe v. Wade. Trump has taken credit for the high court decision through the appointment of three conservative justices to the bench.

The Biden campaign has repeatedly linked Trump to the state-level abortion bans that have been enacted since the Supreme Court ruling and has warned of further restrictions on the procedure if Trump is reelected in November.

French Gates’s full interview with “CBS Mornings” will air Tuesday.