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The social media activist Laura Loomer seems to show up whenever a Trump administration official’s career is nearing its end, and she’s helped end the tenure of several mid-level aides.
But as the right-wing provocateur gets closer to President Donald Trump, Republicans are trying to figure out whether she’s delivering finishing blows or just mopping up easy targets.
Loomer operated for a decade on the political fringe. She was known for crashing a Hill hearing and losing a Florida congressional campaign where she ran as a self-described “proud Islamophobe.” But as she draws nearer to the center of power, and caused a stir among President Donald Trump’s allies by traveling with him, Loomer is now cementing a new reputation as his loyalty enforcer.
Trump fired several National Security Council officials after meeting with Loomer this spring, and the National Security Agency’s chief also lost his post. Just last week, Trump fired the Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine official after a broadside by Loomer.
Those successes made plenty of headlines for Loomer. Her failures are less frequently documented: She was unable to shield NASA hopeful Jared Isaacman from getting sacked as Trump’s relationship with Elon Musk frayed. Attorney General Pam Bondi has also (so far) survived her Loomering, in the form of fierce criticism at “Blondi” for the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case.
Behind the scenes, some Republicans are impressed with her. Others are dismissive.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., likened her to a “callus” that appears only “after the work’s done.”
“She can say whatever she wants to, to get follows or monetize her following,” said Tillis, a past member of GOP leadership’s whip team who last month fell out with Trump over his megabill and is now retiring. “She may be getting information, so that lets her get ahead of it.”
“But I doubt seriously she’s driving it,” he added. “Because there’s a lot of quality people in this administration [who] I think would have a real problem with that.”
One person close to the White House told Semafor that Loomer is “all over too many issues.”
She’s become so ubiquitous in Trump’s second term that some of her complaints have become “noise” as a result, this person added: “One thing she’s good at is just creating headaches. And there is some value in that.”
In an interview with Semafor, Loomer asked “why the f–k should I care” about Tillis’ assessment.
“The only easy target I see is Thom Tillis,” she said. “Such an easy target that he decided to announce his early retirement from the Senate on his anniversary after screwing Trump ahead of the vote on the Big Beautiful Bill instead of actually running for reelection again. He is irrelevant.”
Loomer is, however, well aware that she has detractors within the Republican Party and the administration itself. She said she still wants a job inside the Trump White House as a special government employee (the same title Musk held earlier this year), a position that would give her more access and proximity to the president.
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that there are people that clearly don’t want me around, right?” Loomer told Semafor.
At the very least, she wants a White House press pass.
“I think that my reporting is probably some of the most consequential reporting in the country right now. And yet, where’s my press pass? I applied for one,” Loomer said.
The White House did not return a request for comment on Loomer’s sway.
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Despite her critics in the party, Loomer talks to the president frequently — a fact that alone gives her sway. Her access to Trump ruffles feathers in the administration where officials are focused on the “proximity game” to the president, as another person close to Trump put it.
“When you’re trying to place four to five thousand people in an administration, you’re going to drop a stitch here and there,” the person told Semafor. “She specializes in finding those stitches.”
On Sunday, the president praised Loomer as “very nice,” reinforcing his fondness for the woman who frustrates some inside his own administration.
“I know she’s known as a ‘radical right,’ but I think Laura Loomer is a very nice person,” Trump said. “I’ve known her for a very long time, and personally I think she’s a patriot.”
One of Loomer’s most recent targets was top FDA official Vinay Prasad, who resigned last week following pressure from the White House. Loomer described him as a “progressive leftist saboteur” and publicly accused him of “undermining” the president’s agenda.
In interviews, senators close to the issue said it was not clear what prompted the ouster — whether it was Loomer’s efforts, a real difference of opinion over Prasad’s handling of Covid vaccine and other treatment policy, or some combination of the two.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a senior member of the health committee, conceded that “I don’t have any particular insight” but praised Prasad’s past advocacy for narrower use of the Covid vaccine.
Loomer said Prasad was fired both for both policy and personal loyalty reasons, arguing that he “missed three deadlines” to approve treatments.
But it’s clear that other conservatives in Congress were also nudging Trump at the same time as Loomer, about Prasad’s timeliness when it came to experimental treatments for muscular dystrophy.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said he contacted Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary about Prasad’s handling of the approval.
“I finally texted President Trump just to make sure he was aware of the situation … I think others certainly had an issue with him,” Johnson said, adding that he had no direct knowledge of the reason for the firing.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the ranking member of the chamber’s health committee, traced the attacks on Prasad to a more conventional source: “I hear he’s a Bernie Sanders acolyte. That’s what the Wall Street Journal said.”
So how does Loomer choose her quarry, and who’s next on her hit list? She described her evaluation of worthy Trump personnel as “a varying litmus test” depending on the person, focused on “campaign contributions, public statements, business associations, things like that” but also extending to conversations with colleagues of those officials.
She’s shifting her aim to David LaCerte, who Trump recently tapped to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack — among others.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” the second person close to Trump declared.
Shelby, Burgess, and David’s View
Loomer’s ascent tracks Trump’s 10-year remaking of a Republican Party that finds as much power in riding the waves of social media as it does in legislating. She’s a pure product of that social media age who is also becoming more well-known through conventional channels, now regularly quoted as a person with serious sway over, and closeness to, the president.
In the old Republican Party, social media influencers would have been laughed out of the room.
At this point, Loomer’s real pull with Trump is now well established. And that’s more important than any win-loss record on firings she claims to have orchestrated.
Loomer’s arc from what she once called a stance of “pro-white nationalism” to Trump whisperer also sums up the president’s talent for tugging the establishment closer to the fringe.
When she disrupted that hearing in 2018 with former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, she was ushered out by then-Rep. Billy Long, R-Mo., who used his former auctioneer’s pipes to finish the job.
Today, Loomer has a seat in the room with the president. And Long, well, he’s now the IRS commissioner.
Room for Disagreement
Tucker Carlson, another recent target of Loomer’s who’s also broken with Trump somewhat in recent weeks, argued last month that she’s “like a child wielding a loaded firearm called Twitter.”
Carlson said the blame for her rising influence is because of “the adults who take her seriously.”
Notable
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Loomer recently met with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as she seeks to root out anti-Trump staffers inside the Pentagon.
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Republicans have long worried about Laura Loomer’s influence over Donald Trump: On the campaign trail, some expressed worries that she’d exacerbate his weaknesses after hitting the trail with him.
