Inside Laura Loomer's hunt for disloyalty in Trump's government — and where she's looking next

CNN

04-08-2025

Laura Loomer, the controversial far-right activist with a direct line to President Donald Trump, has taken credit for a slew of recent high-profile administration firings. But she sounds more exasperated than triumphant.
In an interview with CNN last week, the Trump confidante touted her role in ousting the country's chief vaccine regulator, a senior national security lawyer and a decorated cybersecurity expert tapped for a post at West Point. It was a remarkable display of influence for someone with no formal government experience and whose online antics once resulted in a ban by social media companies.
She said it's not nearly enough — and she's grown frustrated with White House officials ignoring her offers to help vet candidates.
'If I have to do it on the outside because of internal resistance, then so be it,' Loomer said in a phone call.
Armed with more than 1.7 million followers on X and Trump's cell phone number, Loomer has taken on the self-appointed role of 'loyalty enforcer,' scrutinizing the backgrounds of various administration officials for any inkling they once harbored doubts about the president. She then amplifies her findings online, keeping up the drumbeat until White House officials — many of whom see her overtures as doing more harm than good — can no longer ignore it.
'She's a loose cannon,' said one Trump adviser who shares that view and was granted anonymity to speak candidly. 'But she has a following. It is what it is.'
Inside the administration, recent episodes have only reinforced the growing perception that Loomer, despite aides' best efforts to limit her access within the White House, is nevertheless finding increasing success in influencing its decision-making from the outside. Her influence underscores the persistent personnel challenges, internal conflicts and frequent dismissals that have come to define the Trump administration since he first stepped foot in the White House.
Trump, who values loyalty above all else, publicly praised Loomer's efforts on Sunday, describing her as a 'patriot.'
Loomer sees disloyal operatives scattered throughout the administration, Cabinet officials misleading the MAGA faithful and a president who has yet to deliver on promises of retribution from his campaign.
'I'm not blaming Trump, but people will probably start to blame Trump if he doesn't use these opportunities to fire some Cabinet members,' she said.
In a statement to CNN, White House spokesman Kush Desai did not engage on Loomer specifically, but asserted Trump 'has assembled the best and brightest talent to put Americans and America First.'
'It is not only appropriate, but critical for the Administration to recruit the most qualified and experienced staffers who are totally aligned with President Trump's agenda to Make America Great Again,' Desai said.
Attorney General Pam Bondi may sit at the top of her blacklist — Loomer has publicly called for her firing several times — but she's not alone. Loomer also has doubts about Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, blaming her for Trump's softer tone of late toward undocumented farm workers. And Loomer has turned her sizable megaphone against people now working at the Department of Health and Human Services under Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a former Democrat whose alliance with Trump remains a source of her skepticism.
Neither Bondi, Rollins nor Kennedy appear in immediate danger of becoming Loomer's next victims; Trump has expressed support for all three. Loomer said they have not reached out to her about her concerns, despite her ongoing efforts to dig up dirt on their hires.
But one embattled Cabinet head has: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Loomer said she recently spoke with Hegseth, whom she's known for a decade, about her work finding disloyal employees within the Pentagon. Defense Department spokesman Sean Parnell confirmed the two spoke, telling CNN in a statement that Hegseth 'appreciates Laura Loomer's outside advocacy.'
'Personnel is policy, and Laura has taken that motto to heart,' Parnell said, adding: 'Qualified individuals who love our country and support the Administration's priorities will continue to be integral to our efforts.'
Loomer has presented three more targets to her audience: Miami Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez, whom she sparred with online, US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, due to his sprawling overseas businesses; and Trump's nominee to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, David LaCerte, over his legal work for big banks.
The recent ouster of a top public health official served as a window into how she pushes to oust Trump administration officials — what has become known in Washington as getting 'Loomered.'
On July 20, Loomer began a relentless campaign against Vinay Prasad, the head of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the US Food and Drug Administration, over his handling of key drug approvals and a series of years-old tweets expressing support for Democratic politicians and policies, claiming it was proof he was a 'leftist saboteur.'
Within hours of posting her research online, Loomer sent it to the White House, she told CNN. A week later, Loomer unearthed audio of Prasad from a 2021 podcast where he joked he had stabbed a voodoo doll of Trump, along with other disparaging remarks about the president. Loomer said she sent the clip to Sergio Gor, the director of White House personnel. Prasad has not disputed the authenticity of the audio.
Loomer's posts ricocheted quickly among Trump allies and heightened scrutiny of Prasad inside the administration. On day 10 of her crusade, the White House decided it'd had enough.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles told FDA Commissioner Marty Makary on Tuesday that he needed to let go of Prasad, his chief science officer and close confidant, putting an abrupt end to his tenure after less than three months, two people familiar with the matter said.
Wiles and other top aides had determined that the Loomer-led campaign risked mushrooming into yet another distraction for the White House, those two people said. The sense was they needed to contain it before Trump faced the press after returning from a trip to Scotland.
'They knew that [Trump] was going to have to deal with this,' said one of the people familiar with the matter. 'So they made the decision to take him out.'
The departure came over the objections of Makary and Kennedy, who had vehemently defended Prasad — a controversial figure in health circles handpicked for his willingness to overhaul the nation's vaccine protocols — to White House officials, lawmakers and other Trump allies in recent days, the two people familiar and a third person briefed on the matter said.
The decision so significantly dismayed Kennedy and Makary that, even after Prasad's departure, they discussed enlisting Medicare and Medicaid chief Mehmet Oz — a longtime friend of Trump — to corner the president at a Wednesday health event and press him to reverse course, one of the people familiar with the matter said. But that plan was rendered moot once Prasad's ouster went public the night before.
'I understand the paranoia and the desire to root out bad people even if it involves taking out some good people,' one of the people familiar with the matter said. 'But it's just true: Laura Loomer fired the head drug regulator for the United States.'
HHS spokesman Rich Danker said in a statement to CNN that 'the FDA informed the White House on Tuesday that Dr. Prasad had stepped down.' He did not respond to several questions seeking to verify the above details. Prasad could not be reached for comment.
Other supporters of Prasad used their own online platforms to accuse Loomer of working in concert with the pharmaceutical industry and others who objected to FDA decisions he'd overseen on rare drugs.
Loomer denied to CNN that she was working with Prasad's other detractors. She said her concerns about Prasad grew out of the FDA's decision earlier this year to approve a new Covid-19 vaccine manufactured by Novavax. (It later emerged that Prasad had objected to the FDA's decision and had overridden the agency's experts to recommend against the broad use of two other Covid-19 vaccines.)
Loomer's inflammatory rhetoric toward Muslims and promotion of conspiracy theories have made her a controversial figure in Trump's orbit for years, and his advisers have long attempted to minimize her interactions with the president. She has said aides repeatedly step in to block her when Trump has attempted to hire her over the years. A self-described investigative journalist, Loomer has also pushed for a White House press credential, to no avail.
Loomer, who runs a small team of researchers, argued she would be more effective if the White House let her oversee hiring from the inside. She said that lately she's become inundated with tips, including from within the administration, about certain staffers. She said she vets them all.
'Aren't they supposed to know these people are a problem before Susie has to waste her time dealing with this lack of vetting?' Loomer said.
Prasad is just the latest of a growing collection of government officials to get 'Loomered.' In the administration's first six months, Loomer has claimed credit for helping spur the removal of several staffers at the White House and elsewhere in government, including a string of firings at the National Security Agency and on the National Security Council in early April that followed a phone call and an Oval Office meeting with Trump. Amid the fallout, national security adviser Michael Waltz, a regular target of Loomer's attacks, was pushed out of that position as well.
Just days before Prasad's ouster, the NSA removed another top official, general counsel April Falcon Doss, after Loomer amplified a report criticizing Doss for previously working for the Senate Intelligence Committee's Democratic staff.
On Wednesday, she celebrated after Trump's Army secretary ordered the US Military Academy at West Point to rescind its appointment of Biden-era cyber defense official Jen Easterly as a distinguished chair. Loomer had recently taken aim at Easterly on X, singling her out in a post that alleged without evidence that 'there are some serious moles' at the Department of Defense.
Very few have demonstrated such unflinching loyalty to Trump as Loomer. With thousands of jobs to fill across Trump's administration, she concedes that some appointees will inevitably have what she considers checkered records, including past criticism of the president. Some of the most prominent figures in Trump's administration — Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, for example — were once harsh Trump detractors.
She said the concerns she is raising about certain hires go beyond ideological disagreements. Rubio and Vance, she noted, have publicly made amends and earned back favor with Trump and his supporters.
Still, that doesn't mean they're immune from future scrutiny.
'I don't trust anybody. I'm not friends with anybody,' Loomer said. 'That's why I have four dogs.'