5 Things You Missed From Mike Lindell’s 96-Hour Thanks-a-Thon Live Stream
- My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell held a marathon 96-hour broadcast called the “Thanks-a-Thon.”
- He pushed baseless voter fraud conspiracy theories and spoke at length about a Supreme Court complaint that he failed to file.
- I watched 60 hours of the four-day stream so you don’t have to. Here are the highlights.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell held a marathon “Thanks-a-Thon” live stream for 96 hours from Thursday to Sunday, pushing a slew of voter fraud claims and conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.
Lindell, who has long parroted Trump’s voter-fraud claims and pushed a false theory that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, is facing a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems over his allegations involving the company.
There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, but this did not stop Lindell from continuing to make those claims during the marathon live stream, which kicked off at 1 a.m. ET on Thursday and ended just past 1.20 a.m. ET on Monday.
I watched his first marathon 48-hour live stream in April for eight hours. During that broadcast, Lindell celebrated the launch of his social media platform, Frank Speech, complained about late-night TV show host Jimmy Kimmel, and spoke about how he was “canceled” by Costco and other supermarket chains.
Since then, Lindell has held other marathon events, including a 72-hour cyber symposium in August.
It is unclear how many viewers there were on Lindell’s live stream, as Lindell’s Frank Speech platform does not show viewer numbers. However, the viewership on a YouTube stream of the event showed 9,124 views on the video by the time it ended early on Monday morning.
Here’s a quick run-down of what happened during the “Thanks-a-Thon,” so you don’t have to watch the re-runs of it yourself.
Lindell gave an extremely detailed run-through of his SCOTUS complaint
For close to two hours every day, Lindell sat down and went through all 82 pages of a complaint he intended to file with the Supreme Court. Lindell earlier promised his supporters that he would get the lawsuit — which baselessly claims widespread election fraud in the 2020 election — to the court before Thanksgiving. However, the complaint is still missing critical components, including the names and signatures of a plaintiff and counsel.
Lindell said during the live stream that the lawsuit would help to overturn the 2020 election.
“This is it. Everything’s in here,” Lindell said during a segment on the fourth day of the live stream, adding that the complaint would help to “pull down the electors” in various states. “It needs to be seen. It needs to be heard.”
He repeatedly called out the state attorneys general, complaining about their refusal to sign his SCOTUS complaint
Throughout the broadcast, Lindell repeatedly called out state attorneys general, in particular Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, saying they refused to sign on to his SCOTUS complaint.
While going through the complaint, Lindell also baselessly claimed that the Republican National Committee had put pressure on the state attorneys-general to not sign the document, causing his failure to submit a complete complaint to the court. An RNC spokesperson said that Lindell’s allegations are completely false in response to a request for comment from Insider.
#3 The pillow CEO pulled his ads from Salem Media, a network of conservative Christian radio stations
Lindell announced on Saturday that he was pulling his ads from Christian radio network Salem Media after complaining that they were canceling him and not helping to promote his cause.
“With Salem, nobody gets to sell MyPillow products going forward,” Lindell said. “You are done selling MyPillow products!”
This was after an earlier threat from Lindell on the second day of the broadcast when he said he would pull all his ads from Salem if radio hosts did not give his SCOTUS complaint airtime.
On the fourth day of the live stream, Lindell read texts on-air that he said were from Salem radio hosts reaching out to him to get him to re-consider. Lindell said on Sunday that he would likely lose friends over pulling the ads but stood firm on his decision.
“I am not selling my products on Salem Media anymore, you know, I can’t,” he said. “If I lose friends over it, and they don’t listen, and they lose sales, I lose a lot of sales by doing this. I lose a ton. My employees are going: ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Mike?’ It don’t matter to me because we lose our country.”
#4 Lindell accused mainstream journalists of bias and encouraged conservative radio hosts to go rogue
On many occasions during the 60 hours of the Thanks-a-Thon that Insider viewed, Lindell accused mainstream news outlets of providing “misinformation, disinformation, controlled opposition, or election deflection” and baselessly claimed that the press was purposefully spinning negative stories about election fraud investigations.
Lindell also called out journalists by name. One of the chief targets of Lindell’s rage was The Daily Beast reporter Zachary Petrizzo, who the pillow executive complained about multiple times during the four-day stream, and who he called “evil” during the last hour of the “Thanks-a-Thon.”
However, Lindell took the time to call out the “good media,” asking conservative radio hosts to go rogue and talk about the SCOTUS complaint, vowing to hire them if they get fired by their networks.
“You know where they should be? Right here at FrankSpeech.com,” Lindell said. “I’ll tell you this — every one of you hosts, that are on Salem or any other radio station, if you speak out, I’d rather you just do it live to get it out there … just speak it out, get yourself fired, and come on over to Frank Speech. I’ll pay their salary, you know I will!”
#5 Lindell fundraised for his ‘legal offense fund’
During the live stream, Lindell also fundraised for a “legal offense fund,” saying he’ll send a free copy of his memoir to anyone who contributes to it.
“It’s actually the Lindell Legal Offense Fund, ‘cos remember, we’re always on the offense,” Lindell said.
“If you donate anything, even if it’s $10, I’m gonna send you a free book,” Lindell said, referring to his memoir, titled “What Are the Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO.” During the stream, Lindell also described what one could look forward to in his memoir, including a chapter where he writes about digging through a carpet for crack cocaine.
Individuals can donate amounts ranging from $10 to $50,000, according to the fund’s website. The website also claims that Lindell has vetted the lawsuits for which he will use this money and that the cash donated will be used to “save our country.”
“I can guarantee you that 100% of every dollar donated to the Lindell Legal Offense Fund will go to the most urgent causes at this time,” Lindell wrote.
Lindell has not disclosed what the funds have thus far been used for. Insider has reached out to Lindell for comment.
For all that happened during the Thanks-a-Thon, several promised things did not. For one, Lindell’s Supreme Court complaint remains unsigned by state attorneys general and has not been submitted to the SCOTUS. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, to whom Lindell extended an invitation to appear on his broadcast, did not appear on the Thanks-a-Thon.
Lindell also did not appear on the stream for all 96 hours. For at least 10 to 12 hours a day, the stream consisted of re-runs of the previous day’s broadcast, a continuous stream of MyPillow ads, and screenings of the “Absolute Proof” series, Lindell’s conspiracy-theory laden movies on election fraud.
Lindell, who said in a live stream last week that he would propose an alternative to Dominion’s voting machines on Sunday afternoon, also did not make that proposal during the Thanks-a-Thon. Instead, Lindell plugged an organization set up to ensure “election integrity” called “Cause of America,” for which he is the chairman, touting it as the “way forward.”
For his part, Lindell will be back on Monday evening for his regularly-scheduled FrankSpeech.com program, The Lindell Report.
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