He was talking about not letting C++ code into the Linux kernel.
As a C++ programmer, my cope for this is that back then's C++ was today's C#. It was the even-higher-level, comfier, shortcut language, loved by noobs and normies who aren't true hardcore nerds (identified by the masochism of choosing to write C) and write code that makes you cringe. (Although the situation is better today since C# excludes classes of errors C++ doesn't, so it actually IS friendlier than C while C++ merely gives you the illusion that it is. :p That it's often used as a beginner language blows my mind given how complicated it is once you get to learning it.)
Today, I think C++ has been bled off of those people (who have since fled to higher levels of abstraction while only hardcore nerds harbor the masochism to have stuck to C++), and modern C++ has made the language so much more powerful, that it would be worthy of being in the kernel. That said, we have Rust, which is an even better replacement for C.
