The Company He Keeps

Right wing nut job and conspiracy peddler Laura Loomer has entered the chat.

Photos: AFP via Getty Images

If you aren’t a member of the terminally online troll armies, you might not recognize Laura Loomer. And honestly, I wish I didn’t have to talk about her at all. 

But Loomer has been in the news recently because she’s been palling around with Donald Trump. She was on his private plane to Philadelphia before the debate. She attended 9/11 memorial services with him despite being a 9/11 conspiracy pusher. And Trump has been quite handsy with Loomer in public, with his wife Melania nowhere in sight.

We’ve reached what I think of as late stage Trumpism, where none of the adults remain in the room and the worst of the MAGA villains have now attached themselves to Dear Leader and have a fast hold upon his feeble mind. Just think about who was on that plane with a coveted seat near Trump: Rep. Matt Gaetz (F-FL), Tulsi Gabbard, and Laura Loomer.

Today I’ll start with a quick primer on who Loomer is. Then I’ll discuss some of her wild conspiracy theories, especially those that seem to have made their way recently to the ex-president’s miraculously healed ear. Finally, and because it’s Schadenfriday, I’ll walk through how MAGA is feuding over her close proximity to Trump, and how the Overton window on crazy has moved even farther to the right.

Looney Laura 

Loomer is a two-time failed Congressional candidate, having run as a die-hard Trump loyalist for a House seat in Florida, including once within Trump’s home district where Mar-a-Lago sits. She earned Trump’s approval after heckling Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during the presidential primary race with a bullhorn while spreading baseless online claims about his wife’s cancer diagnosis.

Loomer is known for being a far-right, racist provocateur. By way of example, as Semafor reported, “After Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a prominent member of the Congressional Black Caucus, died of cancer in July, Loomer posted online that she was a ‘ghetto bitch’ and suggested she was ‘going to hell.’”

Until recently, the Trump campaign has managed to keep Loomer at a distance, and for good reason. As The Bulwark noted,

Last year, Trump offered her a job on the campaign, but her internal critics ultimately persuaded him to withdraw the offer. At issue was the controversy that surrounds her. Loomer has called Kamala Harris “a drug using prostitute.” As for why Harris doesn’t have biological children, she once said: “I’m willing to bet she’s had so many abortions that she damaged her uterus.” 

Loomer’s openly Islamaphobic rhetoric also earned her a ban from Twitter (at least before Musk bought it, rebranded it as X, then reinstated her account). To protest her initial ban, Loomer handcuffed herself to Twitter’s New York office building while wearing a yellow Jewish star, comparing her treatment to the victims of the Holocaust.

Loomer practices stochastic terrorism regularly. She openly promoted the notion that the Biden Administration’s policies are “pushing people to the point of no return,” that “someone is going to snap,” and we would see “more shootings take place.” She added, “I’m not going to care when that happens.”

She is also a MAGA fascist. She once toasted with white nationalist Nick Fuentes to celebrate “the hostile takeover of the Republican Party.” On right-wing podcaster Tim Pool’s show, she doubled down on her call to execute as “traitors” any “treasonous” people engaging in “unconstitutional witch-hunts” against Donald Trump.

To top things off, Loomer is also a protégé of Roger Stone, the architect of the Stop the Steal campaign. It would surprise no one if Stone’s mentorship of Loomer led to her rise within the conspiracy-laden right-wing disinformation ecosystem.

The conspiracy-monger

Loomer promotes wild internet conspiracies and publishes baseless accusations, and people like Trump lap them up then often amplify them to far greater audiences.

It was particularly galling to witness Loomer attend a 9/11 memorial service on Wednesday by Trump’s side. Loomer has openly promoted conspiracies around the attack, including whether the U.S. government was to blame or had advance warnings of the terrorist plot that it intentionally ignored. As CNN reported,

Of all the days to count Loomer as a travel companion, September 11 was notable. Last year, she posted a video on social media claiming that the attack on the World Trade Center towers was an “inside job,” an illogical but pervasive conspiracy theory that continues to haunt the families of victims and survivors.

Remember when Trump infamously suggested that Harris was not actually Black during an interview before the National Association of Black Journalists? It was a gaffe that may have cost him significant support among minorities, but according to one Trump advisor, this wild idea may have originated with Loomer, who had falsely accused Harris of hiding her Black heritage.

“He wasn’t the one who came up with that talking point,” the adviser said to CNN, referring to Loomer. In response to this charge, Loomer argued, “I don’t think it’s racist to mock the fact that Kamala Harris panders to every single group of people who she encounters in an effort to try to convince them that she shares their same identity.” She did not comment to CNN on whether she had in fact influenced Trump on the question of Harris’s racial identity.

Then there was the false Haitian immigrants story. As Axios reported, Loomer openly promoted on social media the untrue claim that immigrants were eating the pet dogs and cats of residents in Springfield, Ohio. This claim was then repeated, to much amazement and widespread derision, by Donald Trump himself at the presidential debate before an audience of 67 million.

The MAGAs are fighting

Loomer took things recently to a whole new low by launching a racist attack against Vice President Harris, saying the White House would “smell like curry” and use a “call center” for speeches and customer inquiries should Harris become its next occupant. 

This was so blatantly racist even very Trumpy South Asian bros were offended.

Loomer’s tweet prompted rebukes from (checks notes) Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Q-Moscow) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), “warning that her presence could trip up the ex-president’s election chances,” according to The Bulwark. Greene also said she went so far as to raise the issue with Trump on a phone call.

This, by the way, is the precise moment irony choked on a pet and died on the Capitol steps, as Greene voiced concerns about Loomer’s “rhetoric and hateful tone.”

In response, Loomer attacked Greene for being a racist herself who uses the N word.

Then she laid into Graham for being a closet homosexual.

Graham didn’t take the bait, however, instead refocusing on the election and calling Loomer a “stain on society” and reiterating how her presence “could affect the campaign and our country.”

Every moment MAGA fights among themselves is a lost opportunity for them to attack Harris/Walz. And with Loomer so tightly knit to Trump, the 50 plus days remaining until the election could easily descend into further attacks, chaos, conspiracies and madness. 

Late stage Trumpism is truly a dumpster fire.