Whoopi Goldberg and the ladies of The View are weighing in on Bill Gates’ connection to the late Jeffrey Epstein.
“What’s been so striking to me going through all of these emails is the incredible hold that Jeffrey Epstein had over them,” guest cohost Sara Eisen shared on the Thursday, February 26, episode of ABC’s daytime talk show when discussing Gates, 70, and other people in the Epstein files. “These are not vulnerable people. They relied on him.”
The Squawk on the Street coanchor continued, “He treated them like normal people. He often bossed them around. He was rude to them in emails. They came to him for tax advice. They came to him for relationship advice.”
When cohost Sunny Hostin found it “odd” that a billionaire like Gates would be relying on Epstein “who didn’t even have a college degree or a degree in accounting,” Goldberg, 70, stepped in.
“I’m sorry. I’m not surprised by it, because we see this all the time,” Goldberg claimed during the show’s Hot Topics segment. “People who are very, very powerful will look for the person who is more powerful than them. It just happens, and that’s why you always hear about the guys that you never see but they got the money, and you know that they’re taking care of a lot of folks.”
Earlier this week, Gates spoke out in a Gates Foundation company town hall and addressed his name’s appearance in the Epstein files.
“It was a huge mistake to spend time with Epstein,” the businessman said, per a recording obtained by The Wall Street Journal. “I apologize to other people who are drawn into this because of the mistake that I made.”
Gates added that he never did or saw anything “illicit” while spending time with Epstein.
“To be clear,” he claimed, “I never spent any time with victims, the women around him.”
Gates’ message came after the United States Justice Department released another batch of Epstein files. One unsent email alleged that Gates had sexual relations with two “Russian girls” and got a sexually transmitted infection. (Gates has not publicly commented on the STI claim but confirmed he had two affairs.)
“Knowing what I know now makes it, you know, a hundred times worse in terms of not only his crimes in the past, but now it’s clear there was ongoing bad behavior,” Gates said on Tuesday.
After Goldberg shared her view, Hostin, 57, still wanted to know, “Why did they give him that much money?”
“Because he had them by the,” Goldberg — who previously explained why she’s in the Epstein files — said before her mic seemingly cut off. “Listen, when you give your power over to somebody, when you give people power over your being, they can use it however they want to, convince you to do anything because they say, ‘You know I got this information on you.’ And you don’t want to take a chance that they do have it. So you pay them. It’s a graft. It’s what grifters do.”
Hostin added, “We’re not implying that that happened,” while reminding viewers that the Gates Foundation “has denied giving any money to Jeffrey Epstein.”
The View airs weekdays on ABC. Check your local listings online.
