Newsmax anchor WALKS OFF set after trying to stop MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell spouting election fraud theories about Dominion voting machines during segment Twitter censorship
Newsmax was forced to cut off Mike Lindell live on air when he started spouting election fraud conspiracy theories during a segment about MyPillow being permanently banned from Twitter.
Bob Sellers stormed off camera Tuesday night as he tried to fact-check Lindell and stop him pushing unfounded claims about Dominion Voting Systems rigging the presidential election.
Lindell was appearing on the show after Twitter banned the corporate account for MyPillow Monday, citing 'repeated violations of our Civic Integrity Policy'.
The ban came after Lindell appeared to use the company account to call for Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to be jailed - one week after Lindell himself was barred from the platform for supporting Donald Trump's claims of election fraud.
Lindell was asked about the ban on Newsmax Tuesday night but instead launched into a rant spewing out unfounded claims of fraud in the presidential election and claiming he had '100 percent proof' that Dominion had committed mass voter fraud.
There is no evidence of election fraud involving Dominion or any other entity, with dozens of lawsuits filed by Trump and his supporters tossed, recounts coming up with the same vote counts and the Trump administration even admitting the election was legal and fair.
Dominion Voting Systems has already threatened to sue both Newsmax and Lindell over them pushing conspiracy theories about its ballot counting machines.
Newsmax was forced to cut off Mike Lindell live on air when he started spouting election fraud conspiracy theories during a segment about MyPillow being permanently banned from Twitter
Bob Sellers, an anchor for the right-wing news outlet, ended up storming off camera Tuesday night (center) as he tried to fact-check Lindell and stop him pushing unfounded claims about Dominion Voting Systems rigging the presidential election
'What happened with your Twitter account and the company page?' co-host Heather Childers asked Lindell at the start of the segment.
'Well, first mine was taken down because we have all the election fraud with the Dominion machines,' said Lindell.
'We have 100 percent proof,' he said, continuing as Sellers interrupted.
'Mike, Mike, Mike - thank you very much,' Sellers said, repeating Lindell's name multiple times to try to get him to stop talking.
Sellers fact checked the MyPillow boss explaining there is no evidence for his claims as Lindell proceeded to shout over him.
'You're talking about machines that we at Newsmax have not been able to verify any of those kinds of allegations,' Sellers said.
'We just want to let people know that there's nothing substantive with that we've seen.'
Sellers then read a written statement saying that Newsmax, a conservative outlet popular with Trump, 'accepts the results as legal and final' - while Lindell continued to shout over him.
'Let me read you something,' he said.
'While there were 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.
Lindell was appearing on the show after Twitter banned the corporate account for MyPillow Monday, citing 'repeated violations of our Civic Integrity Policy'
Sellers' empty seat in the center after he called for the producers to get involved when Lindell wouldn't stop
'The courts have also supported that view,' he added.
Sellers tried to pull the conversation back to the topic Lindell was brought on the show for, saying 'we wanted to talk to you about cancel culture.'
The two men both continued to speak at the same time, with Childers briefly attempting to wade in to the ruckus.
As Lindell continued to shout over him, Sellers asked him if he thought the Twitter ban should be temporary rather than permanent.
Lindell appeared unable to hear the anchor over his own voice as he paused before saying: 'What?'
'Could you make an argument that this could be a temporary banning rather than permanent?' Sellers repeated, while Childers chuckled.
Twitter said in a statement that the MyPillow account had been banned for 'repeated violations of our Civic Integrity Policy'
Lindell once again launched into the unfounded fraud claims: 'No, I want it to be a permanent because you know what? They did this because I'm revealing all the evidence on Friday of all the election fraud of these machines - .'
At this point, Sellers asked the show's producers to get involved.
'Can I ask our producers, can we get out of here, please? I don't want to have to keep going over this. Newsmax has not been able to verify any of those allegations,' Sellers said, as Lindell again shouted over him.
Sellers then stood up and stormed away off view from the camera.
The altercation came just days after Newsmax threw its support behind Lindell with an online promotion urging viewers to buy his products after MyPillow faced a boycott from many stockists.
In the promo the outlet described Lindell as 'an American hero' and said 'he stood up for what he believed, and he continues to fight for what’s right.'
Newsmax had also repeatedly pushed the unfounded claims of election fraud in the weeks that followed Trump's loss to Joe Biden, as Trump urged his followers to switch away from Fox when the Rupert Murdoch-owned outlet was first to call Arizona for the Democrat.
But the site changed tact when Dominion threatened it with defamation lawsuits and anchors read out statements on air in December saying there was no evidence of rigged voting machines.
MyPillow was 'permanently suspended' from Twitter on Monday, following a series of tweets that appeared to be from Lindell.
'Jack Dorsey is trying to cancel me (Mike Lindell) out!' the MyPillow account tweeted on Sunday. 'Jack will be found out and should be put in prison when all is revealed!'
Twitter has a policy against so-called 'ban evasion', or using an alternate account to tweet after being barred from the platform, and similarly banned Trump aides after the former president tried to tweet from their accounts following his own ban.
Another tweet from the MyPillow account addressed to Dorsey read: 'I know you are tied into the election fraud! You are so afraid of being found out! So many are looking forward to you being brought to justice!'
The tweets also expressed thanks 'to everyone who has supported MyPillow during this time.'
'We are extremely busy and hiring as fast as we can to handle all the shipping!' read one tweet identifying Lindell as the author.
Twitter said in a statement that the MyPillow account had been banned for 'repeated violations of our Civic Integrity Policy'.
A MyPillow spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com on Tuesday.
Prior to his own ban, Lindell had repeatedly pushed allegations that Dominion Voting Systems had switched millions of votes from Trump to Joe Biden in swing states during November's presidential election.
No proof has emerged to support the alleged plot, which would require hundreds of local election officials from both parties working in concert to throw the election.
The MyPillow account tweet addressed to Jack Dorsey (above) read: 'I know you are tied into the election fraud! You are so afraid of being found out!'
In an interview last week, Lindell accused Twitter of posting messages to his account without his permission before he was banned.
'My friends are going 'You're not tweeting very much and when you do…' — I said I'm not doing that! So I try to take it down and I got something from Germany saying these are Twitter rules and you cannot do this, take anything down. So they ran my Twitter for 14 or 15 days,' Lindell told Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
'They didn't take it down all the way,' he said, referring to a temporary suspension before his ban.
'I just couldn't do anything and they were running my Twitter like they were me,' Lindell alleged.
It wasn't clear what tweets he was claiming weren't his, as his past tweets were no longer accessible after Twitter suspended his account, and Lindell didn't detail specific claims.
The MyPillow CEO then accused Dominion, the voting machine maker, of hiring 'hit groups and bots and trolls' to go after his vendors.
'I've been all-in trying to find the machine fraud and I found it. So all these outlets that have been calling me - from the Washington Post, New York Times, every outlet in the country - they go, 'Mike Lindell, there's no evidence and he's making fraudulent statements.' No, I have the evidence, I dare people to put it on. I dare Dominion to sue me because it would get out faster. They don't want to talk about it. They don't want that, they just want to say: 'Oh, you're wrong.''
Lindell himself was barred from the platform for supporting Donald Trump's claims of election fraud. They are seen together at a White House event in 2017
Dominion Voting Systems has already threatened Lindell with a lawsuit in a legal letter, over his repeated claims that their machines were rigged in favor of Biden.
Dominion already filed a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit on Monday against Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who led the former president's efforts to challenge the election results.
Meanwhile, Lindell had already been 'canceled' by some of his biggest buyers, including Bed Bath & Beyond and Wayfair, for his continued support of Trump and the 'Stop The Steal' Campaign
Lindell supported Trump's campaigns financially and was his campaign chair in Minnesota. He also spoke several times in praise of the former president, including once in the Rose Garden.
He visited the White House earlier this month but Trump cut their meeting short. Lindell had brought with him notes on martial law and the Insurrection Act, photos show.
Mike Lindell appears at a Trump rally in Georgia last month. He is a staunch supporter of the former president and was honorary chair of Trump's campaign in Minnesota
It was unclear which of Lindell's now-deleted tweets had led to his being banned, but Twitter's civic integrity policy tries to moderate misinformation around elections on the site, the company says.
Many of Lindell's claims had been red-flagged by Twitter as disputed, and he deleted a post last month calling on Trump to declare martial law in seven states.
While he said he opposed the Capitol insurrection on January 6, he voiced support for spurious theories that Antifa impostors were involved in the riot.
Even after Biden took office last week, Lindell said he was still holding out hope that the Supreme Court would somehow reinstate Trump.
Lindell is also thought to have political ambitions of his own and reports say he is considering a run for governor of Minnesota, a state that Trump lost narrowly in 2016 and by a bigger margin in 2020.
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