Newsmax host Bob Sellers, who walked away during an interview with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell on Tuesday, has said that there was some confusion over what was to be discussed and that he could have handled the situation differently. He added that Lindell will still be an important guest of the network.
“We were supposed to discuss Twitter’s decision to ban him and the impacts of cancel culture on his business, but there was some confusion, and Mike thought that we were to talk about vote fraud in the recent election,” Bob Sellers told viewers during his program on Wednesday.
“I was frustrated that we couldn’t focus on the current, very pressing issue of free speech and cancel culture, and, in hindsight, there is no question that I could have handled the end of the interview differently,” he went on and said.
Sellers and co-host Heather Childers were trying to interview Lindell, a vocal Trump supporter, on Tuesday about how cancel culture has affected his business after Twitter suspended accounts of both Lindell and his company MyPillow for good after Lindell posted about allegations of voter fraud using the accounts.
Sellers tried to focus the talk on “cancel culture” but to no avail, while Lindell kept talking about the allegations of fraud during the interview. Sellers then asked his producer to cut away from Lindell, and shortly after that, walked off screen.
Twitter has shut down My Pillow’s official account after Lindell used it to circumvent a ban on his personal account. Twitter said it had permanently suspended My Pillow for violating its policy against “ban evasion.” Lindell, a Minnesota businessman, was banned from Twitter a week ago over repeated claims that the presidential election was rigged.
Sellers said on Wednesday that the allegations of vote fraud Lindell was trying to discuss had been “covered extensively on Newsmax,” which always tries to “seek out all points of view.”
Lindell on Monday condemned Twitter’s decision during an interview with USA Today, saying that the social media giant is trying to destroy him. “I can’t believe they’re doing this to my company,” Lindell said. “They’re out to destroy me.”
He told Newsmax during
another program on Tuesday that while many big retailers were no longer selling his My
Pillow products, his company is still hiring more staff with customers now buying directly from this website.Sellers on Thursday added that Lindell is a friend of the network and that “Mike also made clear he thinks Newsmax is great—his words—and I can tell you he will continue to be an important guest on Newsmax.”
GQ Pan contributed to the report.
