Who is MAGA Republican Laura Loomer, the woman who reportedly educated Donald Trump on "pet-eating Haitians" in Springfield, Ohio? A day after the presidential debate facilitated by ABC News, a relatively unknown woman (at least in our part o…
Who is MAGA Republican Laura Loomer, the woman who reportedly educated Donald Trump on "pet-eating Haitians" in Springfield, Ohio?
A day after the presidential debate facilitated by ABC News, a relatively unknown woman (at least in our part of the world, so distant from American politics) was seen in the company of Donald Trump at 9/11 commemorative ceremonies in New York City and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Wearing a monochrome blazer of uneven vertical stripes and black, unapologetically auntie leggings(!), as well as signature sunglasses (massive), she was seen around the president, as an aide would be. She claimed that he had invited her. That would hardly be surprising since she is now believed to be part of his "elite inner circle". It was reported that earlier, she flew with Mr Trump on his plane to go to Philadelphia for the debate. But it was Ms Loomer's attendance of the 8/11 events that was shocking and so smacked of deep hypocrisy that even the now-Donald-Trump-supporting Nikki Haley can't measure up. Ms Loomer is a known 9/11 denier who once vehemently claimed through her socials that the attacks of that horrific day were "an inside job" without saying where she got the mind-boggling information from.
Ms Loomer is not shy of her voracious consumption and ardent spread of conspiracy theories. But, perhaps, more associated with her is her anti-Muslim stance (which she later denied to CNN in a seeming attempt to appear "mainstream"). Calling herself a "proud Islamaphobe", she once fumed on Twitter, after the 2017 truck bombing in New York City that killed eight people was labelled a terrorist attack: "I'm late to the NYPD press conference because I couldn't find a non Muslim cab or @Uber @lyft driver for over 30 min!" This came after another Tweet of frustration: "Someone needs to create a non-Islamic form of @uber or @lyft because I never want to support another Islamic immigrant driver." But those were not the craziest of the crazies. They were just posts. She didn't act them out! On election day in 2016, she reportedly turned up at one polling station, dressed in a burqa and asked for a ballot using the name of one of Anna Wintour's favourite political aides, Huma Abedin!
Laura Loomer at the 9/11 commemoration. Screen shot: cnn.com
The outrageous anti-Islam antics and provocative stunts were no less pronounced than her shockingly clear racism that would humble even her fellow Republican, just-as-Trump-adoring Marjorie Taylor Greene. Just two days before the fated debate, commenting on what would happen if the VP triumphs in November, she wrote, again on X, "If Kamala Harris wins, the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center and the American people will only be able to convey their feedback through a customer satisfaction survey at the end of the call that nobody will understand." Ethnic stereotypes are really quite her thing. Surprisingly, Ms Greene—no stranger to controversies and provocation, and racist comments—responded: "This is appalling and extremely racist. It does not represent who we are as Republicans or MAGA." Does it really not?
So shocking her proclamations on social media have been that in 2018, all the major platforms banned Ms Loomer from their platforms, not to mention both ride-hailing services Lyft and Uber a year earlier. The serial bans continued into 2019 to include those from PayPal, GoFundMe, and Venmo. But since becoming X, the platform has given her back her contentious page, courtesy of Elon Musk. She has since acquired 1.2 million followers. So unfiltered she has continued to be on X, especially, that she is considered a "social media agitator", as if her form of agitation is social good. On all her socials, the conservative commentator pitches herself as "investigative journalist" or, with three more syllables, "successful investigative journalist". She is her own field reporter, fond of conducting ambush interviews and filming her subjects using her own smartphone, as she posed potentially embarrassing questions to them. She created from this her own unfunny version of Punk'd—"Loomered". It is even the name of her website. Ms Loomer, who has a degree in broadcast journalism, has for a while not been affiliated to any news site or agency, but she did have short stints at conservative media outlets, including Canada's Rebel News and Alex Jones's InfoWars. Her press credentials, as far as we are aware, have been revoked, at least twice.
The first time that happened was in 2018. An Orlando courthouse revoked her press credentials when it was learned that Ms Loomer confronted the family of the widow of the shooter behind the tragic, ISIS-inspired Pulse nightclub gun attack in 2016 that resulted in the death of 49 guests. The widow, although on trial for aiding her husband, was eventually acquitted of all charges. It is not clear why Ms Loomer had to make the move that she did. And then, there was the episode at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Ms Loomer apparently displayed her usual not-exemplary behaviour that included, as described by watchdog organization Right Wing Watch, going "into the conference area displaying a credentialed media badge and has used her access to badger a reporter from CNN. She has also targeted reporters at HuffPost and The Daily Beast, at whom she flung accusatory questions." No one should have been surprised by the Loomering, but even conservative CPAC did not have to tolerate it. Ms Loomer ranted that she was kicked out by her own party. Much of this is now forgotten, which could have so smoothly springboarded her into Mr Trump's callous, cantankerous clique.
Laura Loomer was born in Tucson, Arizona, just 100 km north of the Mexico–United States border, in 1993 to Joanna Elizabeth Hill, an immigrant from the UK, and rheumatologist Jeffrey Brian Loomer. Almost nothing is known about her childhood or teenage years, accept that she was raised by her Jewish father after he parents divorced (whether the upbringing included her two brothers is not clear). She said she grew up with strong religious and cultural values even when she had describe her family as "dysfunctional". But these values did not appear to have placed her in good stead, at least not in her pursuit of further studies. She went to Mount Holyoke College, a private woman's liberal arts tertiary institution in Massachusetts that she told the Daily Mail in 2020 was a "lesbian factory". She left just after one semester (about five months) because, as she told the daily publication of the "Jewish independent non-profit" Forward, she thought her conservative views were targeted. She also revealed that as a child, she was frequently teased for her weight and her "Jewish nose". She did not say how she dealt with the insults.
Laura Loomer wearing one of her many T-shirts emblazoned with pro-Trump messages. Here, she appeared outside a US federal courthouse, where Donald Trump was to be arraigned in June 2023. Photo: Getty Images
After leaving Mount Holyoke College, she transferred to Miami's Barry University, also alma mater of Shaquille O'Neal, to read journalism, some 2,285 kilometres away from her first choice of school. She graduated with a BA in 2015. It was during this time and in the college that her budding career in far-right provocation and confrontational activism were seeded. According to news reports, she "first grabbed headlines" in 2014 by snitching on her school and informing the far-right website Gateway Pundit that an imam was coming to a memorial on campus for the 9/11 attacks. A year later, she surreptitiously—sleazily, to be more precise—deployed a video camera to record what transpired between school officials and herself when she told them she wanted to set up a humanitarian club called "Sympathetic Students in Support of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria." She was apparently advised to use "Students in Support of the Middle East" instead.
That seemingly innocuous recording of a casual chat was then passed to the conservative media site Project Veritas, synonymous with publishing videos captured with hidden cameras. What was especially disturbing was that it was shared as evidence that the university was amenable to supporting a known terrorist group. Was it surprising that the censure and backlash she received was intense and swift? So livid the university was that it supposedly suspended her, but for how long, it was not made known. The experience, however negative, did not seem to have deterred Ms Loomer. She found a way to draw attention, if not to her causes, certainly to herself, and so that Donald Trump would notice her. While stunts—her detractors even call them "set-ups"—are very much a part of what Ms Loomer does as an "investigative journalist", there is a stark lack of methodical and rational exposure of what she seems to be true.
Pals in arms. Photo: lauraloomer/X
Ms Loomer probably caught Donald Trump's attention with her stunts and rants. But it was likely her entry into politics that really got him to pay attention. She ran for a Republican congressional seat, representing Florida, not once but twice and with both bids, lost. Mr Trump was supportive throughout her campaigning. How she quickly became "a favourite" is not so clear, although she has been vocal about supporting him and desiring to work with him. Speaking in public events, Mr Trump had singled her out, once even saying, "Laura, how are you? You look so beautiful, as always." Then turning to the audience, he added, "That's a woman with courage. You don't want to be Loomer-ed. If you are Loomer-ed, you are in deep trouble." Mr Trump clearly did not remember his own advice when he ranted at the debate about pet-eating Haitian immigrants. It is now reported that Ms Loomer had indeed Loomer-ed her admirer.
What she shared about the now-infamous consumption of pet cats and dogs was not some recondite fact, it was another far-right conspiracy theory, and it was already debunked by the Springfield authorities that behind the declarations were "no credible reports". Although the veracity of Mr Trump's parroting was challenged by one of the debate moderators, the fake news won't die down. Ms Loomer later shared on X, "Like I said, Donald Trump is right and people are not going to tolerate their animals being eaten by Kamala's invaders." Four days after the debate, she still has not let up, writing on X in two separate posts and sounding raving mad: "They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people who live there. It's true. It's everywhere now" and, relentlessly, "Nobody wants to be replaced. Nobody wants their beloved pet to die. Pets are family, not food."
Surrounded by a Lara and a Laura—and, no doubt, one Kimberly Guilfoyle, Mr Trump is enjoying a triumvirate of high-profile surrogates that could be the envy of his testosterone-charged party. Despite the talents of the other two, including singing, Ms Loomer's flair for amplifying the unlikely and the plain ridiculous, and showing off the art of the stunt, stood out, catching Mr Trump's now-not-so-perfect ear. His surrogates tend to look somewhat alike, even with similarly shaped brows, eye make-up, re-shaped chins, and dress sense. Ms Loomer, who bears an uncanny resemblance to another American media personality, Dylan Mulvaney, loves wearing T-shirts that show zealous support for Donald Trump—one of them, when she appeared at the Florida governor Ron deSantis's office to protest his running for the presidency against Mr Trump earlier, showed the ex-president's face and under that, the phrase "Never Surrender". Laura Loomer was promoting herself, too.
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