Trump allies, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., blasted Loomer this week over her racist tweets about Vice President Kamala Harris.
Topline
Former President Donald Trump defended far-right conspiracist Laura Loomer Friday in the wake of growing criticism from Republicans about their alliance and the potentially negative impact she could have on his campaign as it enters the home stretch and Vice President Kamala Harris is slightly favored to win.Key Facts
Trump defended Loomer as a “strong person” with “strong opinions” when asked Friday during a press conference about growing calls from some Republicans for Trump to distance himself from Loomer, adding “she speaks very positively of the campaign . . . I can’t tell Laura what to do.”
Loomer, who doesn’t have any official role in the Trump campaign and is best known for her incendiary right-wing—and sometimes racist—rhetoric on social media, traveled with Trump on his plane to the debate in Philadelphia Tuesday and attended the Sept. 11 memorial services alongside him in New York and Pennsylvania the following day, despite her previous suggestions 9/11 was an “inside job.”
She is also among the right-wing figures who helped spread the baseless conspiracy that Haitian migrants living in Springfield, Ohio, are abducting and eating residents’ pets—a claim Trump repeated during Tuesday’s debate, though local officials have said they haven’t received any credible reports of such incidents.
One unnamed adviser also blamed Loomer for introducing to Trump the false narrative that Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t always identify as Black, telling CNN “he wasn’t the one who came up with that talking point,” referring to the claim Trump first made at the National Association of Black Journalists convention and has since repeated several times on the campaign trail.
