Anderson Cooper Destroys The MyPillow Guy's Take On COVID-19 Drug

There have been no studies on the effectiveness of oleandrin as a therapeutic for coronavirus

Anderson Cooper is not one to shy away from pressing his guests if they don’t pass the smell test and his interview with the “MyPillow Guy” Mike Lindell was no exception. Lindell tried pushing a new “miracle cure” for coronavirus — one which has gone through zero testing or peer review — and Anderson lit him up like a sad, rarely watered Christmas tree.

Anderson invited Lindell onto his CNN show after he claimed to have been told about a new cure that he immediately told the Trump administration to check out. Trump in turn, has been promoting the use of oleandrin, an extract from the highly toxic plant Nerium oleander as a treatment for the coronavirus. Now is probably a good time to mention Lindell is on the board of drug developer Phoenix Biotechnology.

“How do you sleep at night?” Cooper pointedly asked Lindell, who used quite a bit of his interview to praise the amazing work Trump has done as president. “You really are a snake oil salesman. I mean, you could be in the Old West standing on a box telling people to drink your amazing elixir that there’s no proof [of],” Cooper said.

Lindell insisted that “there have been human studies, absolutely have been human studies,” but did not say where, when, or by whom they were performed, only that, “he’d seen them.” “So this guy called me on Easter Sunday and said he had an answer to the virus,” Lindell explained, saying someone from Phoenix Biotechnology reached out after Lindell publicly asked for a cure for the virus.

“It’s the miracle of all time,” Lindell shouted, “the media’s trying to take away this amazing cure.”

According to Lindell, he met with Trump last month to discuss oleandrin despite there being zero scientific proof of the drug’s potential in fighting COVID-19.

“You have no medical background, you’re not a scientist. A guy called you in April, said he had this product. You are now on the board and going to make money from the sale of this product,” Cooper said.

Lindell responded, “I have no monetary gain here.” Cooper, who took a beat to roll his eyes and sigh loudly, responded, “That’s not true. You’re gonna make money off this. You’re on the board of this company.”

Lindell also claimed he would never tout the effectiveness had he not seen evidence that it worked in fighting COVID-19 (again offering no proof of said evidence), because it would ruin his reputation. “You don’t have a great reputation, sir,” Cooper said, pointing out MyPillow’s F rating from the Better Business Bureau. Ouch.

Earlier this week, when a reporter asked Trump if oleandrin was a potential drug he would support in fighting the virus, the president responded: “Is it something that people are talking about very strongly? We’ll look at it…. We’re looking at a lot of different things,” according to Newsweek.

To date, no peer-reviewed studies have been published in any scientific journal that speaks to the impact oleandrin has as a COVID-19 therapeutic. It has not been approved by the FDA for this purpose.

“I do what Jesus has me do,” Lindell told Cooper towards the end of the interview. Cooper responded: “You think Jesus wants you out here promoting remedies that … [have] never been tested?”

God bless Anderson Cooper.