Newsmax airs Mike Lindell's “cyber symposium” ad over 170 times in a single week

Lindell's symposium will be a circus of election lies

Written by Jason Campbell

Published

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is engaged in yet another effort to discredit the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, this time running a “cyber symposium” from August 10-12 in South Dakota -- an event dedicated to promoting more baseless election fraud claims which conservative cable outlet Newsmax has advertised more than 170 times over the course of just one week.

From August 2-8, Newsmax aired Lindell’s “cyber symposium” commercial at least 171 times. In addition, Newsmax aired Lindell’s MyPillow commercials at least 189 times.

Despite having also worked to sow mistrust in the outcome of the 2020 election, Fox News determined not to air Lindell’s “cyber symposium” ads. In response, Lindell pulled all of his MyPillow ads from the network.

Newsmax then ran at least nine segments during a one-week span praising Lindell and condemning Fox. These segments featured a bizarre man-on-the-street clip with a Newsmax correspondent picketing outside Fox News’ New York City headquarters on Lindell’s behalf.

From the August 4, 2021, edition of Newsmax's Stinchfield

Newsmax has been at the forefront of peddling election-related lies, conspiracy theories, and falsehoods, including hosting disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s call for Trump to send the military into swing states in order to “rerun” the election. Less than a month before President Joe Biden’s inauguration, host Greg Kelly said, “I do believe that there is a significant chance that Donald Trump could be inaugurated.” Earlier this month, Kelly claimed on air that he still has “concerns” about the 2020 election.

Amid legal threats about repeated election lies concerning voting machine companies Dominion and Smartmatic, a Newsmax host in February walked out of an interview with Lindell after the pillow baron refused to stop pushing lies about Dominion. (The host apologized the next day.)

Newsmax is not the only right-wing cable network promoting Lindell’s upcoming event to spread mistrust in our electoral system; between July 30 and August 5, OAN aired more than 150 ads for the MyPillow CEO’s “cyber symposium.”