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My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell has seen his personal and corporate Twitter accounts suspended in the past week due to violating a disinformation standard regarding his repeated false claim that President Donald Trump won the November election.
He was shut down again Tuesday for propagating that conspiracy theory, but this time by a surprising source: Newsmax, the Trump-friendly, right-wing upstart cable network. After repeatedly trying to cut Lindell off as he perpetuated election falsehoods, Newsmax anchor Bob Sellers eventually gave up and, in a bizarre scene, got up and walked away from his anchor chair.
In December, both Newsmax and Fox News Channel aired segments shooting down election-fraud claims after two election-technology companies, Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, raised the prospect of legal action over what they claim is false reporting about them. Dominion has since filed a $1.3 billion defamation suit against former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell.Â
Tuesday’s Newsmax segment featuring Lindell, a Trump ally, was set up to discuss his Twitter suspensions and whether they fit into the larger context of “cancel culture.” Last week, Twitter permanently banned Lindell’s personal account for perpetuating the falsehood that the election was rigged. On Monday, the company’s corporate Twitter account was permanently suspended after Twitter said Lindell used it to get around the personal ban.Â
Twitter suspended Trump’s account permanently earlier in January when he was still president, citing the risk that he would incite further violence after a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.
When Newsmax anchor Heather Childers, appearing on a separate screen from Sellers, asked Lindell about the Twitter suspensions, he started spewing false claims about Dominion machines and Sellers immediately stepped in, talking over the pillow pitchman.
“Mike, Mike,” Sellers started, trying to interrupt Lindell multiple times. “Mike, you’re talking about machines that we at Newsmax have not been able to verify any of those kinds of allegations. We just want to let people know that there’s nothing substantive that we’ve seen.”
Sellers and his producers appear to have been prepared for Lindell’s allegations, as the anchor had a prepared text at the ready.Â
“Let me read you something,” said Sellers. “While there (was) some clear evidence of some cases of vote fraud and election irregularities, the election results in every state were certified and Newsmax accepts the results as legal and final. The courts have also supported that view.”
“So, we wanted to talk to you about canceling culture. We don’t want to re-litigate the allegations that you’re making, Mike,” Sellers said as Lindell spoke over him, gesticulating toward the camera.
When the anchor followed up by asking whether Lindell could make an argument that the Twitter ban should be temporary, not permanent, the My Pillow magnate went back to his earlier claims.
“No, I want it to be permanent, because I’m revealing all the evidence on Friday of all the election fraud with these machines,” he said. (According to Mediaite, Lindell at one point said, “You are as bad as Twitter,” to the Newsmax anchors in an overlapping conversation that was at times unintelligible.)
That was one false claim too many for Sellers. “Can I ask our producers? Can we get out of here, please?” he said, asking for an end to the interview segment. “I don’t want to have to keep going over this. We at Newsmax have not been able to verify any of these allegations.”Â
As Childers tried to regain control of the interview and Lindell continued talking, Sellers, on the center screen, left his chair and walked off camera.
Later, Newsmax spokesman Brian Peterson provided a company statement about the interview: “Newsmax and its anchor only wanted to make clear that it has found no evidence of software manipulation involving the election. However, Mr. Lindell is entitled to his own opinion and has a different viewpoint than ours.â€
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