The Pillow Guy and the R.N.C. Chair

The Run-Up

The New York Times

News Commentary, Politics, News

4.4 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 April 2023

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Throughout our reporting inside the Republican Party over the past few months, one person kept showing up: Mike Lindell, MyPillow chief executive and election denier. At the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting, he ran to unseat the party chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel. At the Conservative Political Action Committee in Maryland, he couldn’t walk 10 feet without being cornered for a selfie. And more recently, he was a part of news coverage about the Dominion lawsuit and Tucker Carlson’s ouster from Fox News. While plenty of people don’t take him seriously, Lindell represents, maybe better than anyone else, the challenge facing the Republican Party in this moment: an establishment trying desperately to satisfy its base, despite evidence that their extreme beliefs are costing the party elections. After months of reporting on that dynamic, we talk to Mr. Lindell and Ms. McDaniel, two people who sit at opposite poles of the party.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Okay. We do have results. Okay. 167 votes were cast, which means you'd need 84 to have
0:12.5	a majority. There's this moment from my reporting that I can't stop thinking about. It was
0:17.8	late January. The RNC had just held its vote for party chair. Mike Lindell. Mike Lindell
0:27.5	received four votes. Harmeet Dillon received 51 votes. And Rhonda McDaniel received 111 votes.
0:37.4	Rhonda McDaniel had easily won reelection. So I'm pleased to announce Rhonda McDaniel
0:43.0	has been elected chairman of the Republican National Committee and the gavel is yours.
0:48.6	Congratulations. And the first thing she did. Thank you. We got it. We got it. We got
0:57.5	to get Mike and Harmeet up here. Mike and Harmeet, can you please come up? Thank you
1:01.2	for the race you ran, for the leaders you are in our party. We are so grateful for you.
1:08.6	Was called her two challengers. Fellow RNC member Harmeet Dillon and my pillow CEO Mike Lindell.
1:16.0	Up to the stage for a moment of unity. She hugged Dillon and then Lindell.
1:26.8	Thank you. I can't say enough wonderful things about Mike and Harmeet. And then got serious.
1:36.7	We need all of us. We heard you grassroots. We know. We heard Harmeet. We heard Mike
1:42.6	Lindell. But with us united and all of us going together, the Democrats are going to hear
1:48.0	us in 2024. When we take back the White House and the Senate. Thank you. Thank you.
1:57.0	McDaniel had gotten 111 votes. Lindell had gotten four. But here was McDaniel telling the crowd
2:04.4	that the party needed him. Lindell, the far right infomercial celebrity and leading voice of
2:11.7	election denial. These machines were used to steal our election by other countries including China.
2:19.9	The man who'd repeated to bunk claims about voting machine fraud again and again for years.
2:25.5	They stole the 2020 election. They stole down tickets. The champion of arguably the most
2:30.8	losing issue of the midterm elections. We got attacked by China and they flipped this election.
2:37.0	For me, this moment on stage perfectly captures the challenge facing the Republican party right now.
	...

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