DRM News presents live coverage of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Goalkeepers Summit interview on September 22, 2025, at 7:15 PM EDT in Manhattan, featuring Bill Gates and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez with Reuters Editor-in-Chief Alessandra Galloni. Amid UNGA, they address aid cuts, child health innovations, and SDG acceleration, including the Global Goalkeeper Award presentation. Watch now for in-depth global development insights.
Goalkeepers Summit 2025, Bill Gates interview, Pedro Sánchez award, Alessandra Galloni Reuters, Global Goalkeeper Award, UN Sustainable Development...
Questions asked in this interview
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2:26Kennedy Junior's US vaccine policy and US global leadership on public health?
10:34And also some say that big tech is spending too much on this technology. What do you think?
The country has been very generous. That goes back to 2001 where in a very bipartisan way, President Bush created both the bilateral program PEPFAR and the multilateral program, the Global Fund. And here to fore, and I hope and I'm optimistic, the US has provided a third of all the funding for the Global Fund. So they've been by far the biggest donor. The European donors collectively about match the United States, but the United States has shown great leadership on this. And that's an organization that's extremely well-run, very low overhead, working on of course HIV, malaria, and TB. We have exciting new tools for every one of those diseases. For example, a shot that protects a woman for six months and we'll get the cost of it down over the next couple of years. So, it's only $40 for an entire year of protection, which would mean coming in twice. So, you know, everyone who really goes to Africa and sees this work comes away deeply affected. And so we hope to see the US continue to provide leadership here.
So just in your optimism then, is there a specific program or programs that you think might get that fresh injection from the US government as a result of your...
Yeah. With the US government, usually this is a question for the Congress. Where the Congress did provide in the budget that's currently active very generous funding for these programs. Some of that money, a little over half is not being spent today, although there's some discussion about some of that coming back. So, we have to have really two things here. We have to have the Congress pass a budget which I'm 90% sure will be quite generous on these global health programs at most a very modest cost and then we have to convince the administration that actually fulfilling that budget commitment is a great thing for the United States and I'm also optimistic about that.
Okay. You talked about Matt. We talked just now about vaccines. So I have to ask you, what is your assessment on or of Robert F. Kennedy Junior's US vaccine policy and US global leadership on public health?
Well, obviously I have been very involved with vaccines and the biggest single reason why child death went from 10 million down to 5 million is because of the availability of new vaccines. There were really three. One called pentavalent, one called rotavirus for diarrhea, and one called pneumococcus for pneumonia. And those have been made available to all the world's children. We've reduced the cost very dramatically which is making room for new vaccines for things like HPV which is to prevent cervical cancer. It's an incredible story and we have a great pipeline of vaccines coming. It is tragic that we see this vaccine skepticism because even though the number of additional deaths in the rich world is likely to be modest, you know, every life should count and when the poor countries hear that skepticism, it spreads there as well. And there, you know, the chance of a child dying when they get measles is about 30% versus about 1% in rich countries. And so tragically that skepticism which is not well founded will have caused more deaths outside the country than inside the country. And so, you know, we're carrying the message about the value of vaccines and of course very serious about the safety testing to make sure that the benefit is overwhelming.
On vaccines. Yes. You know, I've met with him and there are other things like this HIV cure work that is what's called the gene editing approach and so I'm hoping in some areas we can work together because the US government's research budget has always been a huge supporter of global health innovation.
Prime Minister Sanchez, we are on the eve of a UNGA and of course the war in Gaza looms large this week in a major shift just in these hours. France, the UK, Australia and Canada have joined you. You were the first in recognizing a Palestinian state. So, but you have said that you want to go further for example banning Israel from sporting events. What do you hope to achieve this week?
So, you know, I had the chance to meet Prime Minister Netanyahu like two months after these horrible and terrible terrorist attacks perpetrated by Hamas and we condemn it and we urge Hamas to release hostages and this is, you know, was really clear stated by the Spanish government and I believe the whole international community. But one thing is the right of a country to defend its country and another this suffering, this humanitarian tragedy and killing innocent people. And I'm really concerned that the indifference, the lack of empathy is gaining presence in the public debate and in the minds of the international society. And that is why I think it's so important that we raise the voice. We urge for immediate ceasefire, allow humanitarian aid enter into Gaza, stop this war and open a political process that ends up with the recognition of the state of Palestine. And I think this is a must-know for the international community and, you know, coming from Europe, coming from a European country, I always share with my peers in the European Council that the same values and principles that we are defending in Ukraine are the same values that we should defend in Palestine. It's international law and international humanitarian law. And I think that when you see after two years, the question that the Israeli society should answer is if their country is more secure than before the war. I believe they are less secure and more isolated. So I think that the strategy that Prime Minister Netanyahu follows after these terrorist attacks is wrong because when you fight against terrorism there are three policies that you have to take in place. Of course there is the security dimension how to fight against terrorists but there are other two which is respect for international law in this case so justice and third politics, diplomacy. At the end of the day we need also to fight against the ideology behind these terrorist organizations. Coming from Spain that we suffered for many years for 40 years terrorism and national terrorism in the Basque country and also the jihadist terrorist terrorism in Spain. We know quite well how to fight against terrorism and I think there's a political battle that we need or at least the society need to put in place in order to let's say reduce the presence of this ideology but not killing innocent people and of course not recognizing Palestine statehood, which by the way will be the political solution to stabilize the Middle East and to allow the Israeli society and the Palestine society to live in peace and with security. And that is why I think what has happened today in the General Assembly is so important. At the end of the day, you have two countries from the Security Council, the UK and France recognizing the state of Palestine. And second, within the Western society or countries, I believe there's a large majority nowadays of countries that already recognize Palestinian statehood. And this is great news for the international community and great news for the Palestinians.
Mr. Gates, in your opening speech, you spoke about this being a miraculous time for innovation and of course you spoke of AI. Can you tell us what you are most excited about? And also some say that big tech is spending too much on this technology. What do you think?
10 more exchanges in this transcript
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Gates, B. (2025, September 22). LIVE: Bill Gates and Spain PM Pedro Sánchez Interview at Goalkeepers Summit | AC1G [Interview transcript]. DRM News. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/741227/
MLA
Bill Gates. "LIVE: Bill Gates and Spain PM Pedro Sánchez Interview at Goalkeepers Summit | AC1G." DRM News, 22 Sep. 2025. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/741227/.
BibTeX
@misc{gates2025_741227,
author = {Bill Gates},
title = {LIVE: Bill Gates and Spain PM Pedro Sánchez Interview at Goalkeepers Summit | AC1G},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, DRM News. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2025},
month = {sep},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/741227/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
