From political fundraisers to the presidential debate to a September 11 commemoration, far-right influencer Laura Loomer has become a staple in former president Donald Trump’s political entourage. WIRED’s David Gilbert and Tim Marchman join Leah to discuss Loomer’s history of conspiracies, Islamophobia, and how she ended up in Trump’s orbit.
Leah Feiger is @LeahFeiger. David Gilbert is @DaithaiGilbert. Tim Marchman is @timmarchman. Write to us at [email protected]. Be sure to subscribe to the WIRED Politics Lab newsletter here.
Mentioned this week:
Laura Loomer Is MAGA at Its Most Extreme—and She’s Closer to Donald Trump Than Ever by David Gilbert
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Transcript
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Leah Feiger: In New York’s Central Park in 2017, a crowd was enjoying a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar when a woman stormed onto the stage. She was upset that the theater company decided to recreate Caesar as a Donald Trump-like figure who was then bloodily stabbed to death. She disrupted the show shouting, “Do you want Trump to be assassinated? Stop the normalization of political violence against the right.” The woman was escorted off stage and arrested. Later, she appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show to talk about the experience.
Laura Loomer [Archival audio]: Yeah, look, this is assassination porn, right? So, the left is taking pleasure in watching an assassination attempt on President Trump. Shakespeare once said that violent delights lead to violent ends, right? And so when you’re going to delight in the assassination of our president, it’s going to have a violent end.
Leah Feiger: That woman would later ingratiate herself with the real Donald Trump and go on to become a megastar of the far right. Her name was Laura Loomer. This is WIRED Politics Lab, a show about how tech is changing politics. I’m Leah Feiger, the senior politics editor at WIRED. You might’ve heard Loomer’s name over the last few weeks. She’s become a fixture in Trump’s entourage. She flew with him to Philadelphia for the presidential debate. Then, he ranted about one of her favorite recent conspiracy theories on Springfield, Ohio.
Donald Trump [Archival audio]: They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that lived there.
Leah Feiger: Loomer was also at Trump’s side during a September 11th memorial, even though she has claimed that 9/11 was an inside job. And after the second attempted assassination on Trump on Sunday, Loomer raced to West Palm Beach to cover it and has been posting conspiracies about it on X ever since. So, who is Laura Loomer? And how much influence does she have over Trump? Is Loomer a mirror for Trump’s worst tendencies or is she fueling them? We at WIRED have been following Laura Loomer for a very long time now, especially WIRED senior reporter, David Gilbert, who is joining me from Cork Ireland. Hey, David.