Under normal circumstances, someone indignantly asking the creator of My Pillow, "How do you sleep at night?!?" would be have lots of comedic possibilities. As you may have heard, though — from perhaps every single commercial for insurance, health care, pharma, real estate, educational software, kitty litter, the list is endless — these are not normal times.
Mike Lindell, guy with the "F" rating from the Better Business Bureau and multiple state lawsuits against him for fraudulent medical claims about his frikkin' pillow is touting Oleandrin, derived from a poisonous plant, to prevent and treat COVID-19. Anderson Cooper spent a good twenty minutes of his show calmly debunking every piece of bullsh*t Lindell shout-croaked.
Lindell swore he was praying, wanted to help people, was acting with integrity, and cared about truth, and every time Cooper came back at him with reminders of the lawsuits, the BBB rating, and his glorious eyerolls. But it was when Lindell tried to talk science that Anderson truly disemboweled him.
COOPER: Wait a minute, sir. Stop, stop. There's no public peer reviewed studies about this. There's no
LINDELL: -- yeah, there is. Yeah, there is.
COOPER: -- human trials published anywhere.
LINDELL: Yeah, there's a safety test that's been done in 2016 for over 1,000 people that it's safe to take and if it's safe to take --
COOPER: Excuse me. So where's the study? The only study or report out is one report from the University of Texas that was a pre-print study, and that was only involving cells in a test tube.
LINDELL: No. There's been human studies, absolutely human studies.
COOPER: Stop, sir. Where? Where are these human --
LINDELL: The FDA --
COOPER: Where are the studies?
LINDELL: The FDA's got them all.
COOPER: Why aren't they publicly out there? Why aren't they peer reviewed?
You get the idea.
Cooper kept asking him questions about this study Lindell insisted existed, but in reality is completely imaginary, and Cooper had allllll the receipts.
Lindell said Ben Carson said the supplement was fine? Cooper answered that Carson got in trouble for pushing supplements in 2016.
Lindell said he had his own study? Cooper asked where it was. Lindell said he's seen it, Cooper said, where is it?
Repeat ad nauseum.
LINDELL: You have to talk to -- I guess you have to have Dr. Carson and the company that all the tests --
COOPER: You said you read the tests, so tell me about the test. Where was it done?
LINDELL: It was done on over 1,000 people.
COOPER: Where was it done and what were the procedures for the test? You read it. Let's hear it.
LINDELL: hmna-hmna-hmna
That was when Cooper just sliced and diced him.
LINDELL: No, no, no.
COOPER: The reason he reached out to you is because you have the ear of the president, and he gets a meeting with the president, and you stand to make money from it. How do you sleep at night?
LINDELL: Anderson, that is your narrative. This is --
COOPER: You're not going to make money from this?
LINDELL: I don't care about the money.
COOPER: Really?
[...]
How are you different than a snake oil salesman? No medical background. No research. Not tested in animals or humans.
[...]
Okay. You run a company of My Pillow. Ran ads to help with snoring and migraines and prosecutors in nine counties in California sued you and you settled for a million dollars, and are not allowed to make scientific claims without any proof about your pillows. You were given -- your rating from the Better Business Bureau in Minnesota lowered to an "F" for misleading customers on a Buy-One-Get-One offer. That's not a great track record for honesty, sir.
But really, what else would you expect from a guy who tries to subliminally suggest that if you buy his pillows, you'll suddenly become Christian, too?
I am watching Anderson Cooper win a pillow fight.
— (((Josh Malina))) (@JoshMalina) August 18, 2020
Oh, and by the way: the ACTUAL medical doctor that Cooper interviewed directly after Lindell had some chilling information. Oleander is more deadly than COVID-19.
Mr. Christian praise Jesus might also be interested to know that the supplement he is pimping is used to induce abortion. But hey! You do you, My Pillow Guy!
