MILWAUKEE — Mike Lindell arrived at the Republican National Convention with two important goals.
Washington
Mike Lindell won’t give it a rest
What would it take to turn these things around? Paper ballots and, well, mattress toppers.
“You got to get everyone in this country on board with getting rid of these voting machines,” he told a roving CNN documentary crew during a whirlwind day of interviews and selfies in Milwaukee.
“We just came out with the most affordable mattress topper in history: $99.98 for the queen, $119.98 for the king,” he told The Washington Post later, echoing a pitch he gave dozens of times throughout the day. “They have 14,000 individual pressure supports that I put in the queen alone. If you sleep bad, you need a different input to get a different output. Kind of like our elections.”
For the past 3½ years, the mustachioed, motor-mouthed salesman hasn’t stopped talking about how the 2020 election was stolen, and it has cost him. He has been sued for defamation by two voting-machine companies; Dominion Voting System wants him to pay $1.3 billion (the equivalent of about 10.8 million mattress toppers, king-size). Those cases are ongoing, and Lindell has denied wrongdoing.
In February, a judge ordered Lindell to pay $5 million (plus interest) to a man who in 2021 accepted Lindell’s challenge to “Prove Mike Wrong” by showing that Lindell’s purported evidence did not actually indicate widespread voter manipulation in the 2020 election. (Lindell has appealed this ruling.)
And Lindell spent millions of dollars on lawyers before they dropped him as a client. And he has fallen behind on rent payments for MyPillow warehouses, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
The lawsuits? “Frivolous threats,” Lindell says.
The reports about MyPillow’s possible eviction? “Fake news,” Lindell says.
But he does admit that things are financially tight.
“I’ve got my home and a pickup truck,” he says, estimating that speaking about election security has cost MyPillow around $300 million in revenue. “But I’m not worried about it. I’ve been in the streets with no forks. I’ll survive.”
A former crack addict with a gambling problem, Lindell remains all-in on Donald Trump, behaving as if the MAGA movement is not the root cause of his current troubles but the way out of them.
“I don’t see it as a gamble at all,” Lindell says of tripling down on voter-fraud conspiracies. “If we lose our country, I won’t have a company anyway.”
Lindell calls himself the “second-most attacked man” in the country, behind only his idol, a man who just survived an actual assassination attempt. And like a mini version of Trump, Lindell maintains true celebrity status in corners of the Republican Party. As he wandered the grounds of the RNC, fans thanked him for supporting the “true president” and for providing new levels of neck support.
“Thank you for the important work you are doing,” a sheriff said, stopping to shake Lindell’s hand outside of Fiserv Forum, the basketball arena where delegates had convened to officially nominate Trump as their candidate for president.
“You are our inspiration,” a woman told Lindell, mentioning that she worked for a “grass-roots” election integrity organization.
“Your robes are amazing!” a man with an “alternate delegate” badge shouted. “And I own five of your pillows!”
Because he has been banned from Twitter and Fox News, Lindell has worked to create an alternate media reality. He has hosted conferences and helped support a network of conservative podcasts with his own money and an endless supply of MyPillow promo codes. In 2022, Stephen K. Bannon referred to Lindell as “the most significant financier in all of conservative media.” And even as Lindell is squeezed financially, his companies continue to spend money on conservative causes — helping maintain his role as a powerful figure on the right.
Bob Zeidman, the software forensics expert who debunked several false claims as part of the $5 million “Prove Mike Wrong” contest, says that leaders in Republican politics remain unwilling to speak out against Lindell, even if they privately loathe what he’s up to.
“A lot of them are really happy and congratulate me for what I’ve done,” says Zeidman, a conservative who has done work for No Labels, a group that sought an alternative candidate to both President Biden and Trump. “But they cannot say it publicly because he supports a lot of them, and he’s still in touch with Trump.”
Even after everything Lindell has been through, Zeidman says, “he still has a powerful platform.”
The centerpiece to that platform is FrankSpeech.com, Lindell’s own conservative broadcast network, which had its own booth at the RNC’s media row just outside of the Fiserv Forum. It is here that Lindell’s newest hire — a former mayor named Rudy Giuliani, who has his own financial and legal issues related to Trumpism — spent Monday evening chatting on a live stream with fellow conspiracy theorists. During breaks, a woman wiped sweat off Giuliani’s bald head.
“Sponge bath for the dog,” the former mayor said to her. “Woof woof!”
Despite the legal threats hanging over him, Lindell says he has no intention of shutting up.
“Remember, defamation is you’re doing something maliciously that you know isn’t true, right?” he said. “I know it’s true.”
Cary Joshi, a lawyer who deposed Lindell as part of Zeidman’s attempt to collect on the $5 million contest prize, says she thinks Lindell “truly believes” in what he’s selling.
“I think he has been taken for a ride as much as anyone,” she says. “The problem is it’s so dangerous it has to stop.”
Even some of Lindell’s Republican compatriots would rather he give the election denialism a rest. To get people out to vote, they need to believe that their votes will count. And yet, despite the legal threats, the financial drain and the political liabilities, Lindell appears constitutionally unable to stop talking.
“We need to get something to E-A-T, before we D-I-E,” said a member of Lindell’s entourage, after a long day of nonstop interviews with anyone who would have him.
Forty minutes later, Lindell was still not done talking.
“I asked them to sue me, remember that?” he said to video journalist who asked him whether he worried about the pending lawsuits. “Remember that? They weren’t attacking me anymore so I had to get back in the news, so I said, ‘Sue me Dominion!’ I’ve been sued for billions of dollars by all of the machine companies. … No, I’m not worried about them. I’m trying to save a country!”
Lindell’s wife, Kendra, sat on a nearby bench. She was all-in for her husband, the way he was all-in for Trump. But she was also hungry. She asked him to wrap it up.
His entourage waited for him by the exit. And when he finally walked out the door, the sky flashed with lightning, and it began to rain.
If he’d only stopped talking earlier, maybe they could have avoided the storm.
Washington
Washington Watch: CCAMPIS grant competition announced – Community College Daily
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), “on behalf of the Department of Education (ED),” on Monday released a Notice Inviting Grant Applications for the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program. Applications are due by May 29.
Last November, ED announced that it had entered into an interagency agreement with HHS to administer the CCAMPIS program. This is the first CCAMPIS competition conducted under this arrangement.
Approximately $73.5 million will go to institutions of higher education that awarded at least $250,000 in Pell grants to enrolled students in FY 2025. HHS will award about 148 grants, ranging from $150,000 to $1 million.
The terms of the grant competition are not significantly different than prior competitions. As before, there are two absolute grant priorities that every application must address – leveraging non-federal resources and utilizing a sliding-fee scale for low-income parents.
This year’s competition includes only one invitational priority that reflects the Trump administration’s general educational policy. The new priority, entitled “Expanding Education Choice in Early Learning Settings,” encourages applications that “expand access to education choice … including by empowering parents in choosing the early learning setting that best meets their family’s needs.” Flexible childcare programs that include drop-in care and care during nontraditional hours are also encouraged.
One other notable difference from prior competitions is an expanded “Terms and Conditions” section that not only requires compliance with applicable civil rights laws, but also refers to Trump administration Executive Orders and guidance on racial discrimination that clarify “the application of federal antidiscrimination laws to programs or initiatives that may involve discriminatory practices, including those labeled as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (“DEI”) programs.” This includes any “discriminatory equity ideology [as defined in Executive Order 14190] in violation of a federal antidiscrimination law.”
The exact scope of these terms is unclear because courts have not found many of the practices described in these Executive Orders and guidance documents to be violations of federal law.
Washington
A look at the roots (and routes) of immigration to Washington
The Newsfeed
This week, the team brings you stories about how communities including Filipino immigrants, Sephardic Jews and Somalis arrived in the Pacific Northwest
Each week on The Newsfeed, host Paris Jackson and a team of veteran journalists dive deep into one topic and provide impactful reporting, interviews and community insights from sources you can trust. Each day this week, this post will be updated with a new story from the team.
Group hopes to boost recognition for Seattle’s Filipinotown
By Venice Buhain
The group Filipinotown Seattle hopes to make sure that the legacy of Filipino Americans in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District isn’t forgotten.
One of the group’s current projects is pushing for a Filipinotown placemarking sign in the CID.
“Filipino Americans have had a presence here for over 100 years in Seattle,” said Filipinotown Seattle Executive Director Devin Israel Cabanilla.
He said that the signage is important to remind people that “the International District is not just Chinatown. Japantown. Filipinotown is here as well.”
The group held a poll on what signage might look like and where it might be located. It would be similar to the Chinatown sign on South Jackson Street and Fifth Avenue South, or the Wing Luke Museum
In the early 20th century, the area now known as the CID was a hub full of businesses, entertainment, social groups and housing that served Seattle’s growing immigrant population from Asia and elsewhere. The communities all intermingled throughout the CID.
“This area was a central place for Asian Pacific immigrants simply because of segregation,” Cabanilla said.
Because the Philippines was a U.S. territory from 1898 to 1946, Filipino immigrants were unaffected by laws in the 1920s that restricted immigration from Japan or China. Many Filipinos came to study at the University of Washington or to work in burgeoning industries, like lumber, farming, canneries and factories.
While the physical Filipino presence in terms of buildings and storefronts in the CID dwindled in the later 20th century with redevelopment, Seattle Filipinos and Filipino Americans continued to make impacts locally, regionally and nationally.
“It may not have been in terms of storefronts, but our presence has always existed in terms of politics, culture as well,” Cabanilla said.
The Seattle Department of Transportation said it is aware that the group is working on its signage request, but the Department of Neighborhoods has not yet received a formal request. They are also working to develop a clearer process for this and other similar neighborhood signage proposals.
Filipinotown Seattle said it hopes that the sign helps remind Seattle of the CID’s unique designation as a neighborhood shaped by many immigrants and migrants to Seattle.
“Is it Chinatown? Is it Japantown? Is it Little Saigon? It’s all those things. And I think re cultivating that this is a multicultural district, Filipinotown is helping establish: Yes, it’s more than one thing,” Cabanilla said.

Venice Buhain is a multimedia journalist at Cascade PBS. She previously was the Cascade PBS’s associate news editor and education reporter. Venice has also worked for KING 5, The Seattle Globalist and TVW News.
Venice Buhain is a multimedia journalist at Cascade PBS. She previously was the Cascade PBS’s associate news editor and education reporter. Venice has also worked for KING 5, The Seattle Globalist and TVW News.
Washington
The Church of Jesus Christ has announced its 384th temple
The state of Washington is getting a seventh temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Marysville Washington Temple was announced Sunday night during a devotional in the Marysville Washington Stake by Elder Hugo E. Martinez, a General Authority Seventy in the church’s United States West Area Presidency.
“We are pleased to announce the construction of a temple in Marysville, Washington,” the First Presidency said in a statement. “The specific location and timing of the construction will be announced later. This is a reason for all of us to rejoice and express gratitude for such a significant blessing — one that will allow more frequent access to the ordinances, covenants and power that can only be found in the house of the Lord.”
The other temples in Washington are the Columbia River, Moses Lake, Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma and Vancouver temples.
The church has 214 temples in operation. Plans for another 170 temples have been announced; many of those temples are in various stages of planning and construction.
Sunday’s temple announcement follows the new practice of the church’s First Presidency, which determines where temples will be built — and when and how they will be announced.
The First Presidency directed a General Authority Seventy to announce the first temple in Maine at a fireside there in December.
In January, church President Dallin H. Oaks said the Maine announcement set the pattern for future temple announcements.
“The best place to announce a temple is in that temple district,” he told the Deseret News.
The First Presidency will continue to decide where future temples will be built. It then will “assign someone else to make the announcement in the place where the temple will be built,” he said.
This pattern came to him as a strong impression after he assumed leadership of the church in October, following the death of his friend, President Russell M. Nelson.
This came as a strong impression to him shortly after he assumed the leadership of the church, President Oaks said.
The church remains in the midst of an aggressive temple-building era. President Nelson announced 200 new temples from 2018 to 2025. All but one were announced at general conference.
Five dozen temples are now under construction.
President Oaks now has overseen the announcement of two temples, neither at a general conference.
At the October conference he said that “with the large number of temples now in the very earliest phases of planning and construction, it is appropriate that we slow down the announcement of new temples.”
Ten new temples are scheduled to be dedicated in the next six months.
- May 3: Davao Philippines Temple.
- May 3: Lindon Utah Temple.
- May 31: Bacolod Philippines Temple.
- June 7: Yorba Linda California Temple.
- June 7: Willamette Valley Oregon Temple.
- Aug. 16: Belo Horizonte Brazil Temple.
- Aug. 16: Cleveland Ohio Temple.
- Aug. 30: Phnom Penh Cambodia Temple.
- Oct. 11: Miraflores Guatemala City Guatemala Temple.
- Oct. 18: Managua Nicaragua Temple.
Two-thirds of the 170 temples still to be built are outside the United States.
Temples are distinct from the meetinghouses where Latter-day Saints worship Jesus Christ each Sunday. Temples are closed on Sundays, but they open during the week as sanctuaries where church members go to find peace, make covenants with God and perform proxy ordinances for deceased relatives.
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