Microsoft’s billionaire founder and vaccine enthusiast Bill Gates said on Sunday that President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic was “mind-blowing because you can’t get the federal government to improve the testing.”

During an interview on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” host Zakaria asked, “How do you explain the fact that the richest country on earth, that spends per capita maybe two to three times as much on health care as all the other rich countries in the world, seems to be kind of at the bottom of the pile of the advanced countries in the world in being able to handle this pandemic, what would be your answer?”

COVID testing seems to be Bill Gates’ main criticism. Gates responded, “Well, it took a number of mistakes. And I wouldn’t have predicted that we would do so poorly. You know, our Centers for Disease Control is the best group of epidemiologists in the world. In fact, everyone relies on them.”

“But a variety of missteps by the U.S. and then the political atmosphere meant that we didn’t get our testing going,” the philanthropist continued.

Gates then listed what he believed were those missteps. “You know, it’s nonsense that any sort of travel ban we did was at all beneficial,” Gates said. “That, you know, doesn’t pass the common sense test in terms of the waves of people that U.S. citizens that were allowed to keep coming in.”

“And now, you know, we executed our lockdowns less nationwide and with less fidelity than other countries,” he said. “So, we’re paying a pretty dramatic price, and not just in deaths. We also pay it in terms of the economic toll, which is up in the trillions.”

Gates added, “Our testing, of course, to this day, it’s mind-blowing that because you can’t get the federal government to improve the testing because they just want to say how great it is.”

President Trump has pointed out that America has done more COVID testing than any other country.

Who do you think would win the Presidency?

By completing the poll, you agree to receive emails from LifeZette, occasional offers from our partners and that you've read and agree to our privacy policy and legal statement.

“I’ve said, don’t reimburse any tests, so the result goes back after three days,” Gates emphasized. “You’re paying billion of dollars in to get the worst test results of any country in the world. You’ve created this incentive for the commercial guys to have long lines because you do not want to waste government money. You pay as much for the late result as the timely result.”

“No other country has this testing insanity because they won’t talk about fixing it because they’re— you know, they think they need to just keep acting like they’ve done a competent job,” Gates finished.

Bill Gates has been heavily involved behind the scenes, promoting universal vaccines for COVID-19 when one is discovered. His Foundation’s website boldly declares, “When a COVID-19 vaccine is ready, this group will make sure the whole world can access it.”

This piece originally appeared in ThePoliticalInsider.com and is used by permission.

The opinions expressed by contributors and/or content partners are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of LifeZette.