Anderson Cooper had MyPillow CEO and Trump advocate (and Tucker Carlson’s sole advertiser, at this point) Mike Lindell on his CNN show Tuesday. Lindell was there to explain the completely unproven miracle drug Oleandrin that he and Ben Carson have been pushing to Donald Trump. Oleandrin is an extract from a very toxic plant called Nerium oleander. Lindell, a man who previously settled with the government for false advertising and general business fraud, also has a financial stake in the company. Shocking, right?
In recent months Lindell has been given a platform at presidential press conferences to push his conman’s brand of Christianity and received taxpayer money to make face masks he cannot produce. His miracle drug has not been approved by the FDA for the dietary supplement list nor for an Investigational New Drug (IND) application number. This is arguably because there are no meaningful studies on the extract and its supposed benefits, and the one non-peer-reviewed study on the matter has so far been deemed inconclusive. But that didn’t stop Lindell from coming on Cooper’s show and doing what he does best: try to sell his product.
It’s hard to describe how off-the-rails this more than 20-minute interview goes, and how quickly this happens. Lindell begins by hoarsely blathering about how Jesus and praying have brought this miracle supplement to him and how he’s brought it to the president of the United States through providence. Cooper very quickly points out that there are zero scientific studies on the matter, to which Lindell replies that there are. Cooper presses and Lindell has no evidence, but says he does. [He doesn’t]
It’s bananas. Here are some of the highlights:
- Anderson Cooper starts early on by asking Lindell, “How are you different than a snake oil salesman?” Then, subsequently, Cooper calls him a “snake oil salesman” about three times, with increasing severity.
- Lindell continuously uses the word “misconstrued” to describe everything from “mistaken” to “misconstruing.”
- Cooper points out that Ben Carson has been in trouble for taking money from a dodgy supplement company and Mike Lindell settled out of court for falsely advertising that his pillows cured all kinds of very real maladies, which his pillows do not.
- When Lindell tries to lie about the nature of courtroom time, chalking it up to political witch-huntery, Cooper remarks, “That’s sad. That’s sad. For a man that professes faith, for you to lie like this is really extraordinary.”
- He asks Lindell at one point how he sleeps at night.
Ouch.
Finally, Cooper gets to the brass tacks, as Lindell begins talking more about how this “amazing cure” will hopefully at least get passed by the FDA as a supplement. This is what this con is all about, Cooper explains: “This will be sold as a dietary supplement—that’s how you’ll skirt this—you won’t be able to actually say, you won’t be able to actually advertise it as for COVID-19, correct? You would just put it on as a dietary supplement and going out and doing a lot of publicity, you would just hope that people would use it off-label, believing it will have COVID benefits and you will profit financially. That seems to be the theory you are operating on.”
Lindell just shouts some more until Anderson calls him a snake oil salesman again, at which point Lindell attempts the classic right-wing snowflake move of whining about being called names and being persecuted for their boneheaded beliefs and chicanery, to which Cooper responds rather clearly that the reason he is treating Lindell this way is because “You are telling people who are desperate to take something that is unproven, potentially dangerous, and you have no evidence to back it up. It’s kinda morally bankrupt.”
I’ll edit that for you Anderson. It isn’t “kinda” anything. It is totally morally bankrupt. The true low of this conversation filled with nothing but lows is that right here. Lindell very quickly says he hasn’t told anyone to take this. He is very clear that he hasn’t told anyone to take this “amazing cure” for COVID-19. He’s just “given it to my friends and family and saved their lives.” Wow.
Here’s a picture of Lindell and what seems to be his teleprompter. Gotta sell some supplements!
