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- MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell told CNN's Drew Griffin he had proof that China hacked the 2020 election.
- Cybersecurity experts told CNN that Lindell's alleged evidence of voter fraud didn't show anything.
- Griffin said Lindell was destroying confidence in the election. Lindell accused him of lying, and offered him a hug.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell was fact-checked by a CNN reporter over his baseless voter-fraud claims – and he wasn't happy about it.
Lindell said the reporter, CNN's Drew Griffin, was wrong, accused him of lying, and even offered him a hug.
Lindell has repeatedly challenged the integrity of the 2020 election. In an interview with Griffin Thursday, Lindell said he had proof that "100%" showed China hacked the election and changed votes from former President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden.
Lindell said he would reveal his proof at a so-called "cyber symposium" due to take place in South Dakota next week.
He had sent CNN a snippet of the data a few days before his interview. Griffin said CNN had shown the data – which consisted of six screenshots – to nine cybersecurity experts, who all said it was proof of nothing.
Lindell said the experts were wrong.
-Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) August 6, 2021
Griffin said CNN had also spoken to election officials in the 15 counties whose votes Lindell claims were hacked. The election officials all said they used paper ballots counted by systems not connected to the internet, per Griffin, and that they had no evidence the votes were hacked.
"I don't think you really understand how votes are cast, collected, and tabulated in the country," Griffin said to Lindell.
"You know what, I do," Lindell said. "What you don't understand is after they're tabulated they can get hacked after the fact, which they were, because Donald Trump was going to win anyway."
Griffin said that the paper ballots were audited against the machine count. "No they weren't!" Lindell said. "Who told you that?"
When Griffin said it was the county officials, Lindell replied: "Well they're going to have some answering to do."
Griffin asked whether the county officials were lying.
"I don't know," Lindell said. "They might be misconstrued ... they don't realize what happened."
Later in the interview, Griffin told Lindell that he could "possibly be the victim of a scam" over his support for voter-fraud conspiracy theories.
"Well then why don't you come to the symposium and make $5 million?" Lindell replied, referring to the cash prize he said he would give to anyone who debunks his alleged voter-fraud data at the event. "Are you worried about me? We should have a hug. Are you worried about old Mike? Oh, God bless you."
Griffin replied that he was "worried that what you are doing is mistakenly or deliberately destroying the confidence in the legitimate, elected president of the United States and fostering what could be real damage to this country."
Lindell claimed he'd "never said anything bad about Biden or the Democrats. Ever! Never." He said Griffin was "wrong ... You're lying."
Lindell, who said in April that he still spoke to Trump about once a month, has poured time and money into spreading his voter-fraud theories.
He launched a website, Frank, to spread misinformation about the election, made a two-hour voter-fraud film, and held a rally at South Dakota's Corn Palace in May with guest speakers including Ben Carson, Trump's secretary of housing and urban development, and the conservative podcaster Eric Metaxas.