President Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate for Minnesota governor, MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, reacted angrily after being fact-checked during an interview, responding with a blunt rant at the reporter. Lindell, who gained national prominence as one of the most vocal proponents of unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, has faced multiple defamation lawsuits from voting technology companies as a result of those assertions — legal entanglements that have shadowed his entry into electoral politics.

“Lindell spoke to me from a desk with a looming lion painting in the background and statuettes of bald eagles,” MinnPost’s Matthew Blake reported on Monday. “The interview got a bit rocky, particularly after Lindell claimed that Gov. Tim Walz had never once cooperated with federal immigration officials.”

Blake noted that Walz has worked with the federal government, and that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has publicly acknowledged that cooperation.

“Walz is a very bad, evil man,” Lindell told Blake. “He has never cooperated with the Trump administration. I know that for a fact.”

Blake also challenged Lindell on another claim. “Lindell also claimed that he had won every defamation lawsuit filed against him for his stolen election claims,” Blake wrote. “Not true. An appeals court did reverse a $5 million judgment against Lindell. But in March, a federal judge in Colorado affirmed a $2.7 million jury verdict.”

Blake added that former Dominion director Eric Coomer said he suffered greatly because of Lindell’s statements about the 2020 presidential election.

“Coomer said he received continual death threats after Lindell called him out by name for supposedly rigging the 2020 presidential election,” Blake reported. “Coomer’s lawyers are trying to collect money from Lindell and his attorneys. Lindell has asked the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to review the case.”

Blake also reported that Lindell said he is doing “OK financially” despite estimating that he has spent $80 million on a nationwide barnstorming tour against electronic voting machines.

Lindell’s legal problems have drawn broad attention. In July, Law and Crime’s Matt Naham reported that “after Mike Lindell was held in civil contempt and hit with a $500-per-day fine for 103 days for refusing to pay sanctions he's owed Smartmatic for years, a federal judge has given the MyPillow CEO exactly one month to pay an ‘extra penalty’ for his defiance.”

Naham wrote, “In late June, Smartmatic asked U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols to clarify whether the voting machine conspiracy theorist would pay some of the contempt penalty to the company or if the sum was to be paid directly to the court. The judge, a Donald Trump appointee, answered that question on Monday by entering a judgment in favor of Smartmatic and giving Lindell until Aug. 21 to ‘pay the total daily contempt penalty of $51,500’ to the ‘Registry of the Court.’”

Beyond the litigation, Lindell is also facing questions about whether he is eligible to run for Minnesota governor. In July, it was reported that he was not even registered to vote in Minnesota.

“Before he can vote for himself in next month’s primary, Mike Lindell needs to register to vote in the state he wants to lead as governor,” the Minnesota Star Tribune reported. “The Minnesota Secretary of State’s office said Lindell, President Donald Trump’s preferred candidate, ‘does not have an active record,’ said Cassondra Knudson, spokesperson for the Minnesota Secretary of State, when asked if Lindell is a registered voter.”

The report continued: “A Minnesota Star Tribune review of voter records shows Lindell has an active voter registration in Texas. Lindell acknowledged last year he had been living in Texas and that he’d have to re-establish residency in Minnesota to run for governor, something he says he has now done. But Lindell has not signed up to cast a ballot for himself since his return to Minnesota, and Texas lists an active voter registration record for the MyPillow CEO.”