Anderson Cooper's Resurfaced Interview With Bill Gates Has People Talking

Early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, Anderson Cooper had an emotional on-air moment. In April 2020, the veteran news reporter was interviewing Katie Coelho whose husband Jonathan Coelho died from the respiratory virus at 32-years-old. As Cooper spoke to Coelho on CNN via video he started to read the note her husband left behind, but the anchor became choked up. "He wrote a note that he," Cooper said before pausing to keep from crying on-air. "That he left in his phone and part of it reads 'I love you guys with all my heart and you've given me the best life I could have ever asked for.'" Once again, Cooper began to lose composure and apologized to Coelho. "Jonathan's good with his words, huh?" she replied during the tender moment.

In September, after availability for the COVID-19 vaccines became widespread, Dr. Anthony Fauci appeared on "Anderson Cooper 360°" and talked about how critical those vaccines were for the public. "The data are overwhelming to show why it is so important, if we want to get this outbreak under control in this country, to get vaccinated," Fauci said. The Chief Medical Advisor to the president also touched on federal mandates the White House passed to encourage vaccine uptake. "I think the president is being somewhat moderate in his demand," Fauci said, per The Week. 

Cut to December, and an old interview Cooper conducted with Bill Gates about vaccines has some people riled up.

Bill Gates had long been a proponent of the COVID-19 vaccines, and during an August 4 appearance on "Anderson Cooper 360°," he discussed the difficulties of reassuring the vaccine-hesitant. "So, this is a communications challenge like none we've ever faced," Gates told Anderson Cooper. The CNN anchor later asked Gates which hypothetical federal mandates could help encourage people to get vaccinated. "Do you think the Federal government or state governments, or the very least Federal government should mandate, if you want to get on an airplane, you have to be vaccinated; if you want to get Social Security, you need to be vaccinated; if you want to get whatever benefits they give, you need to be vaccinated for." 

Of course, the anchor did not say he supported these mandates — he simply posed the question to Gates. Nonetheless, the point about possibly withholding Social Security payments from the unvaccinated was reshared in a viral video clip via Twitter on December 24, and the responses were predictably divisive. "Anderson Cooper made #antivaxxers angry. And honestly, I can't even thank him enough," one Twitter user wrote. "Love how he p***es off the anti-vax cult," another added. Others weren't as thrilled. "Anderson Cooper wants Social Security to be withheld from the unvaaxed..What a miserable m0nster!" one person tweeted. "Anderson Cooper suggests withholding Social Security benefits from the unvaccinated. Screw that and I say that as someone coming from the left," another wrote.

The conversation seems to have been misconstrued, but that hasn't stopped people from having strong opinions about it.