Who is far-right activist Laura Loomer?
President Donald Trump is spending time with Laura Loomer, a far-right activist, but who is she?
WASHINGTON – Far-right activist and social media influencer Laura Loomer has long been an incendiary figure in conservative media circles.
She now seems to have the ear of President Donald Trump, who this week fired senior national security officials after Loomer showed him research on the officials she suspects had not been sufficiently loyal to the commander-in-chief.
Loomer visited the White House on Wednesday and said in a subsequent post on X that she presented him with “research findings” and promised to continue to push for “strong vetting.”
At least four senior officials were fired after that meeting, including three with ties to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Trump told reporters he considered Loomer “a very good patriot” and a “very strong person.” He said that during her White House visit, she’d made job recommendations, though he said she was not involved with the National Security Council firings.
Loomer spent time with Trump on the campaign trail promoting claims, such as a conspiracy theory about Haitian immigrants eating dogs and cats in Ohio, which Trump mentioned at a presidential debate.
Here’s what you need to know about the far-right provocateur and her access to Trump.
How she got her start
Loomer first grabbed headlines a decade ago as a college student at Barry University in Miami, when she alerted a far-right website, Gateway Pundit, that an imam was participating in a memorial on campus to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.
She went on to promote bigoted takes on Muslims and Islam. She was suspended after she filmed a video, picked up by the far-right group Project Veritas, asking the university to let her start a pro-ISIS student group. She worked with Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe for years afterward.
Loomer quickly became a social media influencer in right-wing circles, where she repeated Islamophobic claims and conspiracy theories. She has called herself a “proud Islamophobe” and called Islam a “cancer on society.”
In 2017, she left Project Veritas and joined far-right Canadian media outlet Rebel Media. Her media credentials were revoked in 2018 when she confronted the widow and domestic violence survivor of the Pulse nightclub shooter, who was on trial for aiding her former husband. The widow was acquitted of all charges.
Loomer was banned from Twitter in 2018 for violating its rules against hate speech, though her account was reinstated when Elon Musk purchased the platform, now known as X.
An unsuccessful political career
Loomer has run for Congress in Florida twice. In 2019, she ran for Florida’s 21st Congressional District, a Democratic seat that includes Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Incumbent Democratic Rep. Lois Frankel defeated her by 20 points.
In 2022, she ran for a different congressional seat against Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Fla., on a platform of severely limiting immigration. Webster defeated her in the primary by seven points.
She has supported Trump since he started his political career and actively opposed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ challenge against him in the presidential primary.
Trump said this week that, “she’ll always have something to say. Usually very constructive.”
Campaign trail controversies
Loomer spent time in Trump’s entourage on the campaign trail last year, including a visit to a 9/11 memorial event at Ground Zero in New York, despite the fact that she had previously incorrectly alleged U.S. involvement in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that killed 2,996 people.
She also made a joke about Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ Indian heritage, which fellow Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., at the time said was “racist” and “does not represent who we are as Republicans or MAGA.”
Loomer also tweeted out a discredited claim that “disturbing reports came out this weekend about Haitian immigrants eating people’s pets in Ohio” the day before the debate between Trump and former President Joe Biden, which Trump then echoed at the debate.
Asked repeatedly last year about his relationship with Loomer, Trump distanced himself from her comments while expressing appreciation for her long-term support.
“I don’t control Laura,” he said in September. “Laura has to say what she wants. She’s a free spirit.”
Francesca Chambers, Josh Meyer and David Jackson contributed.