Laura Loomer: The far-right conspiracy theorist seen with Donald Trump
Laura Loomer, a right-wing conspiracy theorist who believes 9/11 was an inside job, has joined Donald Trump on the campaign trail in recent days, a move that has raised eyebrows among his Republican supporters.
Ms Loomer, 31, is banned on nearly every social media platform, from Instagram and Twitter, and claims even Uber and Chase bank have shut down her accounts.
She joined the former president during campaign appearances this week, including at Ground Zero for a 9/11 memorial.
This angered many, given she has promoted the false notion the terror attack was somehow related to then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announcing $2.3 trillion in “lost” government funds on 10 September 2001.
“23 years later, and there’s still a lot of unanswered questions… The American people deserve to know the entire truth. Not just what our lying government chose to tell us,” Loomer posted on Friday, alongside a video of Trump in 2001 questioning whether airplanes could cause explosions like the ones that happened at the Twin Towers.
Pic: AP
Her stepped-up presence among Trump’s entourage has come as he made a number of staff changes, including bringing back veterans of his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.
A senior official from the 2020 campaign team said that helps explain why Loomer is no longer being kept at arm’s length.
“The people that have the authority to stop it are hanging on to their jobs,” the former official said. “So, are you going to pick that fight with him?”
Who is Laura Loomer?
Born in Arizona in 1993, Loomer has styled herself as an investigative journalist and activist. She worked for Project Veritas (a far-right activist group that produces deceptively edited videos of its undercover operations) and Alex Jones’s Infowars.
She ran for Congress in Florida in 2020, with Trump’s support, and celebrated her primary win at a party with the founder of the far-right extremist group the Proud Boys. She would later lose the House race to Democrat Lois Frankel.
She also ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2022.
![Republican congressional candidate Laura Loomer celebrates with Milo Yiannopoulos (left) and campaign director Karen Giorno (right) at an election night event at the airport Hilton in West Palm Beach, August 18, 2020. Loomer is one of five GOP candidates hoping to secure the nomination in the primary on Aug. 18. The winner will challenge the winner of Democratic primary between incumbent U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel and Guido Weiss in the November general election. [ALLEN EYESTONE/palmbeachpost.com]](https://e3.365dm.com/24/09/768x432/skynews-looner-loomer-laura_6684665.jpg?20240914115248)
Loomer ran for congress – unsuccessfully – twice. Pic: AP
She has been a long-time Trump supporter and promoted a string of political conspiracy theories, including that Kamala Harris is not black.
She has also repeated the baseless claims that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio – something Trump himself would go on to repeat during his election debate with Ms Harris.
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Earlier in the year she travelled on Trump’s private plane to an event in Iowa where he praised her on stage.
“You want her on your side,” Trump said. He has also shared several of her videos on his own social media platform, Truth Social.
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But on Friday, appearing to distance himself somewhat, he said: “I don’t control Laura. Laura – she’s a, she’s a free spirit. Well, I don’t know. I mean, look, I can’t tell Laura what to do.”
And she has divided even the right of the political spectrum.
Tommy Robinson declared he was a “big fan” of Ms Loomer when she appeared on his podcast in August last year.
Pic: AP
But Marjorie Taylor Greene, another outspoken Trump supporter has taken issue with Ms Loomer after she wrote the White House “will smell like curry” if Ms Harris is elected.
Greene said Ms Loomer’s comments were “appalling and extremely racist” and did “not represent who we are as Republicans or MAGA”.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
A farmer who fell from a greenhouse roof during an anti-immigrant raid at a licensed cannabis facility in California this week has died of his injuries.
Jaime Alanis, 57, is the first person to die as a result of Donald Trump’s Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) raids.
His niece, Yesenia Duran, posted on the fundraising site GoFundMe to say her uncle was his family’s only provider and he had been sending his earnings back to his wife and daughter in Mexico.
The United Food Workers said Mr Alanis had worked on the farm for 10 years.
“These violent and cruel federal actions terrorise American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,” the union said in a recent statement on X.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it executed criminal search warrants at Glass House Farms facilities on Thursday.
Mr Alanis called family to say he was hiding and possibly fleeing agents before he fell around 30ft (9m) from the roof and broke his neck, according to information from family, hospital and government sources.
Agents arrested 200 people suspected of being in the country illegally and identified at least 10 immigrant children on the sites, the DHS said in a statement.
Mr Alanis was not among them, the agency said.
“This man was not in and has not been in CBP (Customs and Border Protection) or ICE custody,” DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.
“Although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a greenhouse and fell 30ft. CBP immediately called a medivac to the scene to get him care as quickly as possible.”
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Four US citizens were arrested during the incident for allegedly “assaulting or resisting officers”, the DHS said, and authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents.
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In a statement, Glass House, a licensed Cannabis grower, said immigration agents had valid warrants. It said workers were detained and it is helping provide them with legal representation.
“Glass House has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors,” it added.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
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