Bulwark Takes - Mike Lindell Burned It All Down for Trump... and Lost Anyway

Episode Date: August 13, 2026

Sam Stein and Will Sommer look back at the wildest moments from Mike Lindell’s career after the Trump-backed election denier lost the Republican primary for Minnesota governor. From refusing to accept election results and offering a $5 million challenge, to arguing with a kid at the Democratic National Convention, getting served legal papers onstage, and blaming the CIA, Lindell has produced no shortage of memorable moments.Upgrade your everyday. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to https://Quince.com/BULWARKTAKES. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too.

Hey, everyone, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bullwork. I'm joined by Will Summer to talk about one of Will's favorite characters, someone that Will knows quite well, someone whose product Will is a big fan of. I believe you sleep constantly on a my pillow. Every night. Every night. It's the best. Actually, I was told, someone did review the pillows, and they're like, it's not, they're not that great. We're talking about Mike Lindell, who lost his Republican primary race for governor of his home state of Minnesota.

bit of, I guess, a surprise. I don't know how you feel about it, but Trump did endorse the guy. He, you know, usually that's determinative enough to win. What's not a surprise is that Mike Lindell, at least as of now, has not conceded a loss. In fact, prior to the election being called, he talked about there being potential irregularities. This is not a surprise at all because Mike Lindell is one of the great election deniers of our era. And I guess it's not a bit. Maybe he really does believe this stuff. But Will, what were your takeaways? Why did Mikey Lendell not come through at the end? Yeah, you know, I was pretty surprised that he lost, but maybe I shouldn't have been because in the final weeks of the race, there was a lot of drama because he had proposed a

sort of like work permit program for undocumented immigrants that obviously enraged Republican primary voters. And I think this is one of these situations. Why would he do that? Good question. You know, sometimes I think you have these guys who are like really like idiosyncratic characters and then because of that I mean they're just shooting their mouths off and they're cut and I think Michael and Delto's credit is like well we just can't have he said he wanted a six month pause on deportations and I think maybe in his heart of hearts he you know he's a guy with big feelings and maybe he thought you know this is crazy and obviously it's in Minnesota where ICE is very sensitive issue and so he did that and then suddenly Republicans are like what are you thinking and they really turned on him he pivoted to early to the general. He counted his chickens before they hatched. What is he doing? I think that's right. And in terms of, you know, his refusal to acknowledge his defeat, you know, I guess we should have expected it. I mean, this is a guy who basically set the my pillow empire on fire, launched himself into many different lawsuits, all to prove Donald Trump didn't lose in 2020. And the idea that that he would accept his own defeat, we probably should

have known, wouldn't happen. What is it going to happen when Donald Trump doesn't echo Lindell's claims that this election was fraudulent. Like, it would be one of the great betrayals of our, but totally in line with Trump. For Michael Endel to burn it all down on behalf of Trump's election, then Trump to be like, you know, I'm fine with Lisa Damuth, who won the primary thing. Yeah, Lisa Dumas, who stole the election from my old buddy, Mike, you know, I'll campaign for her. I'll tweet about her. You know, it's a good point.

I mean, we've seen this happen in the past where it's like certain candidates, either your race is so important or you're seen as charismatic enough that you get a little like stolen election heat from the GOP. But then other people like we saw it with Kerry Lake. I mean, she in Arizona, she wanted to do like a stolen election thing. And they were like, our heart's not in it. Yeah, it only works one way with Donald Trump. Well, look, we wanted to take the occasion to sort of, you know, talk about the greatest hits for Mike Lindell. You're a chronicler of the guy for better or for worse.

I don't know which one, honestly. But you, I asked you to compile some of them. because we're not going to, I don't know how much more time we're going to be able to talk about Lindell. He's not going to be a candidate for governor. I'm sure he'll be in and around Trump, but, you know, Trump's not running again. So this could be, like, we might have passed the high watermark for Lindell. And I think it's worth just sort of reflecting on what a shooting star we were able to witness. So I want to start, we have like, I don't know if we're going to get to all nine clips.

We have a lot. But let's start with one of the classics, which is him debating a child at the, at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. And he's kind of sneaking in here. You want to know more in your state? They just found 250,000 votes. This happened last week, a judge voting Georgia that are missing from the 2020 election. This just came out.

You're behind you. You should. So your source is. Trust me, bro. That's your source. No, the source. It's in your papers in Georgia. You need to read your news.

You haven't given me any last name. You need to read your news. No, this is your Georgia news. I mean, there's so much to stew on here. Like, what is he wearing? So I think it's worth noting that Mike is basically in disguise. And so he's wearing a hat and sunglasses and he's, I think, shaped the mustache. And so I don't know if someone recognized him or if he was just like, I just can't,

I've got to argue with this 10-year-old from the Midas Dutch network. And he just, I mean, at that point, Mike, you just have to look at yourself. You think mid-shout and think, where did it go wrong? No, do I need to reconsider? Well, he's one of these guys that's probably, it's very hard for him to go incognita. Not because, like, he can't put on a wig and sunglasses and shave his mustache. As soon as he utters one word, you're like, wait, that's Mike Lindell. That's the cookie monster.

Oh, wait, no, it's Mike Lindell. It's a very iconic voice. So that guy, that kid was with Midas Touch. Who was the kid? Do we know? I think his name is Noah. So that's the, but it certainly is kind of an odd situation that Mike Lindel I guess he was taking all comers essentially, you know, Cheryl, I'll argue at this elementary school kid.

Oh, my God. Okay. His name is Noah, K-N-O-W-A. But you're curious where he's at these days. Noah, if you're watching, give us a holler. It's kind of an interesting tactic, too, to send a kid to the convention to do these interviews. Creates viral moments for sure. So maybe we should look into that.

All right. So Mike Lindel has tried and true history of freaking out at people who are asking him questions. Let's play number two where he goes absolutely nuts and accuses Adam Mockler of working for Dominion, the voting machines that successfully sued Fox News. Who are you from? What network is there? YouTube channel. I run my own YouTube channel.

Yeah. Well, I fund it myself. Right. You fund it yourself, right? I can say whatever I want. Oh, you can say whatever you want. Let me tell you, that you love, do you work for Dominion? This guy must work for Dominion and smart magic.

It's better than working for Russia like you do. I mean, you're helping bottom here, poo, and undermine the election. I'm the American dream on steroids. I was an ex-crack addict and found Jesus Christ. You need help. This kid needs prayer. We need to pray for him. We need to pray for him.

I love it. Keep booing. All right. Wow. You know, the thing about Mike Lindell, the reason I think in party has so many classic clips is because it just takes the slightest bit for him to just explode. I mean, you say, like, I'm not so sure about that, Mike Lindell. What are you talking about? You would think a guy.

who's found Christ and who lives on pillows would be calm, rested. Well rested, his geese cotton sheets, all the My Pillow brands. We should note that Mike Lindell officially stepped away from My Pillow to focus on this gubernatorial run. I suspect he'll come back to it, but if he gave up the empire and doesn't, what a cell phone. Well, it has a lot of financial issues. I mean, he's been facing various lawsuits, you know, some of the warehouses. had issues. Like, I think perhaps it, it needs that setty hand of Michael Endell at the Tiller. Yes, for sure, obviously. And they were advertising a lot on, like, all the MAGA outlets.

And, like, at one point in time, I think they're like one of the bigger advertisers on true social. But I, you can fact check me on that. All right, this one was a classic. I mean, I watched us and almost spit up my whatever I was drinking at the time. He was at CPAC appearing on stage. You get served papers and just makes a big spectacle of it. Let's watch. country, most of them break a law within the first three months. Most of them, we're on TV here, please. We're on TV, please.

We're on TV, please. We're on TV, please. We're on TV, please. What are you serving it with? What are you serving them with? I'm not accepting. What are you trying to serve the man? We're on TV, please.

We're on TV, please. Serve them. If you don't touch it for more than three seconds, you aren't served. You were doing so well. Don't grab the paper. Just say, we're on TV, please. We're on TV, please. Well, to be clear, he's on James O'Keefe's online show.

You know, to the, hey, hey, this is TV. Don't hate. Online shows are great. How dare you? That was classic. Lindell, should have just kept going, man. All right, here's him claiming that over 54 countries have been taken over by machines. And this is very important.

You hear me on this. Over 54 countries have now been taken by the machines or are getting taken by the machines. And you never get to go back. Venezuela, Australia, they're gone. You don't get to vote out the machines once they're there. Once they're there, you don't get your country back. That was Mike Lindell visiting from the future. He's from 2050.

What does he mean? Is he talking about the voting mechanisms? He's talking about the voting machines? I think what he's talking about. He's a guy with like, he gets very into the technical guts of things. Like he's obsessed with like the software and the voting machines. But he obviously, he has this expressive personality and he kind of stumbles over it. So you end up with these situations where he's talking about like the robots taking over Australia.

His obsession with machines is like hilarious because he said at a carrier guy that he had announced the class action lawsuit, lawsuit against, quote, all machines. So whatever. Irons, dryers. You never know those machines. All right, let's talk about the lumpy pillow incident. Let's play this video. It's a bit long.

Two videos. But just keep watching. It's about a minute and 35 seconds long. And I'm not asking about the lumpy pillow calls. No, they're not lumpy pillows. That's not what they call on. Okay. When you say lumpy pillows, now you're an asshole.

You got that? You're an asshole is what you are. No, he's an asshole. He's an ambulance chasing asshole. That's what you are. Lumpy pillows, kiss my ass. Put that in your book. They answer anything, any problem customer

that wants to reach Mike Lindell. Those are the ones. I want to talk to Mike Lindell. I want to talk to Mike Lindell. They send them to here and they go, or they call about, maybe they didn't get their pillow on time because of the FedEx.

or whatever. Well, we'll cover them, even though it could be somebody else's fault. Nobody called because of a lumpy pillow. Do we know who leaked this video? And did they intend for it to be a negative leak? Absolutely. The Washington Post leaked it. The Washington Post has done stuff to me ever since the Cyber Symposium when they said the story about that I didn't get attacked, they're physically attacked. They called me a liar, even though we had the picture of the guy that did it.

They also, the $5 million challenge, the Washington Post leaked that out. And I believe they're tied to the CIA. I mean, I know all the evidence I have. A lot of the evidence I have with Dennis Montgomery. He worked for the CIA. He 100% believes this ties back to them. Oh, boy.

And it's disgusting. They leaked this out, but it backfired on him. Wow. If a guy came up to you at a gas station and started talking like that, like the Washington Post is after me. I think they work for the CIA, me and my buddy Dennis. You know, oh, okay. Who's Dennis? Well, I can explain that, Sam. Of course you can. Dennis Montgomery is a guy who is a sort of charismatic huckster who came up with the idea, among other things, that a rogue CIA supercomputer called Hammer and Scorecard stole the election.

And this has been a specter that Mike Lindell bought into this idea. And then that kind of prompted a lot of the lawsuits again. Okay, that makes, well, now it makes complete sense. To your point about the gas station, I was, that's almost exactly what I was thinking when I was watching. I was like, imagine this man as the governor of your state, just like for a brief moment, like, clearly not all there. A bit temperamental, a bit ornery, triggered easily, believes that the Washington Post is in cahoots with the CIA. I don't know. It seems like Minnesota may have dodged a bullet on this one, but that's just me. Yeah, on one hand, obviously, we're disappointed that he's not going to make it to the general.

On the other, I suppose, you know, Minnesota's a state with its own issues and it deserves, you know, a at least somewhat credible candidate for governor. To say the least, there's a couple of quotes where he talks about using drugs. I think we've covered it. I'll just read the quotes. You don't need to play him. But, you know, I genuinely, like, this is the part of Mike Lindell that I appreciate. He had a, if you read the story, he was very much trucked on crime. and managed to get out of that addiction, which kudos to him in all sincerity.

He said, they came out with all kinds of defamatory. Oh, Mike was the biggest drug dealer. No, I never dealt a drug in my life. I said, I tried to rid the state of Minnesota of drugs by doing them all. It's a pretty funny line. I'll give them that. So, you know, I don't need to play that video. I will just take a moment as we sort of make fun of Mike Lundelt to just acknowledge that

he had a tough journey and he made it out to the other side. and that's great. So good for him. This message is sponsored by Quince. August is the perfect time to hit reset before the autumn rush begins. And honestly, I can't think of a better place to start than my closet. That's why I love shopping at Quince. Quince specializes in everyday staples that work harder, like their ultra-soft organic cottantees and their premium magnolian cashmere sweaters. They're versatile, timeless, and transitioned seamlessly from my casual workday to dinner out. A few of the favorite things I've gotten from Quince are their short-sleeved linen shirts. They're lightweight, comfortable, and they make it easy to look put together in the summer without feeling like I'm trying too hard. And if your

closet is hanging on to some basics that have definitely seen better days, well, Quince is a great place for an upgrade. Their premium denim and Taylor Chino started just $60. Kid you not, $6.60. With the kind of fit and quality you normally expect to pay a lot more for. Upgrade your every day. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers. Our to quince.com slash bulwark takes. Got free shipping on your order in 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK 2. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash bulwark takes.

Another thing I do want to read, there was a tweet about how Mike Lundell was quoted as saying that the FBI, quote, came out of nowhere and it basically seized his phone while he was at an arpeas in Mercado, Minnesota. don't know where that is. I probably should have done my research beforehand. But, Will, what happened there? This was a time the Biden administration was in charge. You know, election truthers were hunted across the land. And in this case, he was just done with a fishing trip. And he pulled tired and, you know, wet, I imagine, into an Arby's. And the FBI swooped in and took his phone. And, you know, this tweet we're reading is, you know, he really like contacted all the conservative media. And it was like,

oh, my God, they swooped in. They were actually investigating his relationship. with Dennis, we mentioned earlier, from Hammer and Scorecard. And so he, you know, it obviously didn't really come to anything, but it, but it was just kind of another Mike Lindell adventure. There's so many of them. Okay. Last but not least. So he had a $5 million contest, right?

Where he's like, if you can disprove my claims of election fraud, I'll play $5 million, right? Yes. He had this thing called the Cyber Symposium where he gathered all of the election cranks from across the land. and they kind of, you know, cooked up their ideas. And part of this was this idea that he would offer $5 million for someone to disprove, essentially to prove that the election wasn't stolen. And someone took him up on the offer, came up with, wrote a whole paper arguing,

you know, disproving his claims. And then when he was presented with it, Michael Endell said, no, unfortunately, I don't think you proved it, so I won't pay you. It became a lawsuit. The guy was awarded the $5 million. But unfortunately for him, ultimately, I think an appeals court ruled that basically Mike Lindell's offer was so vague and, you know, unspecific that it could not be enforced. And so the guy did not, or Mike Lindell did not have to pay the $5 million.

Okay. So, yeah, that basically summarizes the Mike Lindell experience. Just, you know, faking it until you make it, screaming at people, including kids at convention halls, being a crank and not winning the primary for Minnesota governor. There is a shot of him with tinfoil on his head. There it is. Mike Lindell holding tinfoil but also wearing a tinfoil hat, looking like a tin pot conspiracy theorist, which he is. And Minnesota, congratulations on not going down this route. Donald Trump, you backed a fool. But I guess you had to because he backed you. Do you think this is the last we heard of him? No, I think we'd be dead wrong if we said this was the last we've heard of Mike Lindell. He'll be back, probably running for office again. I feel like he got a taste for it. He's been a lot of his campaign money buying copies of his own memoir. Does he have any money? left. Where is the money coming from? You know, that's a good question. People still love those pillows,

you know, they love the sheets. They love all the textiles. So I think, you know, Mike Lendell will be back. He's a great American character. You know, what more can you say? We can say a lot more, but we're not going to because we've exhausted our appetite for Mike Lendell for the time being. We're going to talk about Derek Van Orden, who is also going batshit with election conspiracy series. Let's just do it for one minute. Derek Van Orden, Congressman from Wisconsin, who's in a tight race, believes that Democrats completely engineered the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary in favor of Crowley so that Francesca Hong did not win, which she narrowly lost last night. And this just goes to show you that, like, there's no price to pay to being a complete crank

and a conspiracy theorist when it comes to elections. And everyone does it now on the Republican side. Yeah, I mean, I think we're seeing whenever the sort of progressive candidate loses that the Republicans see, you know, very little cost to just being like, oh, the election was stolen. and alleging that, you know, the, you know, just kind of trying to drive a splinter within the Democratic Party. Yeah, just to give you sampling, here we have Derek Fenordin saying, told you the Democratic stops went two for two last night, both of their handpicked candidates, one, disenfranchising voters, the anointed one, Rebecca for Wisconsin,

that's his competitor now in the general Rebecca Cook, and the dropout Crowley were picked by the DC and Madison. He went on to do like a dozen or so tweets to just nonstop. They're all basically the same. He believes that this was just manipulated so that he would have to face a tougher election climate. All right. Well, that's just the world we live in, unfortunately. But we're trying to bring you the truth here at the bulwark, trying to poke fun at some of the absurdities.

And if you enjoy that, you know what to do. You just got to subscribe, support the mission. Will, thanks as always. Appreciate it, buddy. Thanks. Thanks, everyone. Bye.