Donald Trump now has the notion in his head that he could return to the White House in August. But the twice-impeached former president isn’t getting that idea from constitutional scholars or his attorneys. Instead, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell apparently inspired him.
“If Trump is saying August, that is probably because he heard me say it publicly,” Lindell told The Daily Beast on Wednesday.
In the past few weeks, two people close to Trump told The Daily Beast, the ex-president had begun increasingly quizzing confidants about a potential August return to power. What’s more, he claimed that a lot of “highly respected” people—who Trump did not name—have been saying it’s possible. Both of these sources said they decided not to tell the former president what they were thinking, which was that it’s not going to happen.
It’s unclear, exactly, who these “highly respected” individuals are, and who first got the August chatter in Trump’s ear. But the August deadline tracks with comments made by Lindell, one of the ex-president’s most ardent supporters and personal friends.
“Donald Trump, I believe, will be back in by the end of August,” Lindell said in a late-May appearance on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, claiming that even liberals like MSNBC host Rachel Maddow would admit the election was stolen. (So far, Maddow has not.)
Other top Trump allies have claimed that Trump could soon return to office. “He can simply be reinstated, but a new inauguration date is set, and Biden is told to move out of the White House, and President Trump should be moved back in,” pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell told a QAnon conference last weekend.
But the August deadline seems to be unique to Lindell. “The August part is me,” Lindell told Bannon in another podcast appearance in March.
He’s getting worse.