Who Is Laura Loomer? The Trump BFF’s Dumbest Hits

Former President Donald Trump has been roundly criticized by both friends and foes this week for palling around with far-right online personality Laura Loomer, most notably for inviting the 9/11 conspiracy promoter as his guest to New York City and Pennsylvania memorials.

Loomer, 31, has long been a fixture of the MAGA right, especially among a group of online activist and commentary sites that share dubious conspiracy theories. After an Arizona childhood, she studied journalism at Miami’s Barry University.

That’s where her far-right exploits—with an especially Islamophobic bent—began in earnest. In 2014, she tipped a local right-wing politics blog to the fact that an imam had been invited to a 9/11 memorial on campus.

“We live in a Judeo-Christian country, and they let the imam open up the ceremony,” she said. “He was literally chanting ‘Allahu akhbar.’ That’s not cool, because that’s what the terrorists were chanting.”

The next year, she teamed up with Project Veritas, a far-right group that releases deceptively edited videos of secretly recorded undercover operations to attack political enemies, to publish recordings of her attempt to start a pro-ISIS group at the school. She was suspended and Barry officials said there was no mention of ISIS on the paperwork submitted.

In 2017, she made videos for Toronto-based Rebel Media, a right-wing publisher that, in addition to hers, helped launch the careers of “tradcath” influencer Faith Goldy, “intellectual dark web” site Quillette founder Claire Lehmann, and Lauren Southern, one of the far-right, Trump-supporting YouTubers who U.S. officials allege was unknowingly funded by a Russian spy operation.

In subsequent years, she bounced around far-right outlets, putting in time with Alex Jones’ conspiracy website InfoWars and participating in its attacks on the victims of school shootings, as well as promoting falsehoods to tens of thousands of followers on her various social media platforms.

She’s also entered Trump’s orbit: in addition to traveling with the former president this week, she’s a regular at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and, according to Loomer, they spent the day together last year in Trump’s tent at the LIV Golf tournament in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Here are a handful of Loomer’s dumbest moments, which raise the question that even Trump allies are asking: “What the hell is someone running for president doing hanging out with this person less than two months before the election?”

Loomer Accused Victims of the Parkland Massacre of Reading From Scripts

In 2018, following the Parkland High School shooting that killed 17 people in Florida, Loomer accused a group of teenage survivors of “reading a screen or notes” when they appeared on Fox News to discuss why they support gun control.

InfoWars, where Loomer reported at the time, has accused authorities of staging multiple mass shootings. A $1 billion judgment was handed out against founder Alex Jones for calling the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre a “false flag.” Loomer participated in InfoWars coverage of school shootings, as the site dispatched her to Parkland, where she aggressively confronted then-local Florida Rep. Ted Deutch after he met with constituents about gun violence and accused him of lying for calling AR-15s assault weapons.

Loomer Tried to Put a Burqa on New York City’s Fearless Girl Statue

In 2017, Loomer visited New York City’s Fearless Girl sculpture for Rebel Media and attempted to drape a burqa over the bronze figure. She first approached the statue and draped a black cloth over it, just as a child tried to pose for a photo.

Her Islamophobic stunt did nothing but annoy a long line of well-meaning tourists.

Loomer shouted, “I have a right to free speech” at a man who politely tried to step forward and remove the cloth so visitors could resume taking photos with the attraction. “You have a right to free speech, but everyone else has a right to see the statue,” he said.

Loomer Locked Herself to the Door of Twitter’s Office When She Got Banned

Loomer is so obsessed with her online social capital that when Twitter, now X, banned her in 2018 she handcuffed herself to one of the front doors of the company’s New York City office.

Her account was taken down after she called Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar “anti Jewish” and a supporter of Sharia law. Loomer yelled out “they don’t want you guys to know the truth” at bystanders and her protest wasn’t particularly effective: people could simply enter and exit using the door she wasn’t handcuffed to, video from the day shows.

Loomer eventually gave up and asked police to remove her handcuffs with bolt cutters.

Loomer Accused “Rich Jews” of “Trying to Destroy America” and Said There Was “Nothing Wrong With” a Neo-Nazi Group

Loomer, who is Jewish, has nevertheless participated in spreading far-right tropes about Jews, and even brushed aside the idea that there was anything wrong with a neo-Nazi group she attended an event with.

In a January episode of her show on the video site Rumble, she said she “was sick and tired of watching all of these Jews with large amounts of money in our country donate to fund the destruction of our nation and the communist takeover of America.”

A month later, Loomer gave a nod to more antisemitic tropes, saying Jewish charity workers should be thrown in prison for supposedly facilitating the white nationalist Great Replacement conspiracy theory by helping migrants.

What about neo-Nazis? After Loomer spoke at a 2017 “anti-sharia” rally attended by members of the since-disbanded neo-Nazi group Identity Evropa, Israeli newspaper Haaretz asked her to explain why she participated. She expressed no problem with the group.

“Oh, this is like an identitarian group,” she told the newspaper. “I’m not totally familiar, but I know they believe in preserving white European culture; there is nothing wrong with that, and they are nationalist.”

Loomer Ate Dog Food (for Money)

The advertising pool is short for right-wing grifters, as blue-chip companies that have spent years building a solid reputation would never risk alienating shareholders by placing a promo next to their harebrained ramblings.

That’s led to a cottage industry of dubious multivitamin supplements and crappy men’s products that gobble up ad slots in the space. But, earlier this month, Loomer cut an ad for purportedly “human grade” dog food, which she says she enjoyed with her two canines.

Trumpworld fixture and convicted felon Roger Stone was kind enough to say what everyone else was thinking: “Gross.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now.

Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now.