Inside Laura Loomer's rise: ‘Obsessive' research, persistence and drive, Oval Office visits

NZ Herald

13 hours ago

Her posts on social media have preceded other high-profile decisions, including the order ending Hunter Biden's Secret Service detail, which came after Loomer reported that he was being accompanied by agents on a trip to South Africa this spring.
Loomer has remained close with Trump despite what she describes as 'contempt' for her by a number of White House staff and Trump advisers.
While those close to the President caution that her influence with Trump only goes so far – something Loomer acknowledges – they say it's undeniable that her persistence and loyalty have paid off.
'I know she's known as a 'radical right,' but I think Laura Loomer is a very nice person,' Trump said early this week, answering questions from reporters.
'I think she's a patriot, and she gets excited because of the fact she's a patriot, and she doesn't like things going on that she thinks are bad for the country. I like her.'
In her own telling, corroborated by people around Trump, Loomer's ability to capture the President's attention and sometimes influence his actions is hardly mysterious.
She uncovers information she believes will be of interest to him, passes it along to Trump officials, then pushes it out publicly in lengthy posts on X, on her website or on her weekly streaming show, 'Loomer Unleashed'.
She is confident the reports will get to the President, given her reputation as a trusted ally.
Where some Maga commentators rely on days or weeks of sustained outrage from online followers to be sure their message is relayed to Trump, people around Trump are quick to ensure he sees what Loomer reports.
'Most of the time, when my information goes viral, the President hears about it, sees about it in some fashion – one of the Cabinet members tells him, or one of his golf buddies tells him, and he ends up asking me about it,' Loomer said in an interview with the Washington Post.
'That's how it goes down. It's really that simple. People just – they don't seem to be able to fathom that. That's how it works.'
Key to Loomer's success is one central personality trait, according to those who have dealt with her.
'She is persistent,' said a person close to Trump, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the President's personal interactions.
The White House, seen last week. Photo / Tom Brenner, For The Washington Post
'She's obsessive. She's the most obsessive mind you will ever meet,' said Shane Cory, who helped Loomer set up fundraising for her work after she was banned from social media platforms in 2018 because of anti-Islamic posts.
'The thing that stands out the most with me with Laura is she has no life outside this,' Cory said.
'This is it. From the minute she wakes up in the morning to the minute she goes to sleep, this is all she does, aside from hitting the gym.'
A person close to Trump insisted that the President and Loomer speak less than weekly, and 'there were times recently he was very frustrated with her and not speaking to her'.
Some of her recommendations have resulted in Trump taking action. Some haven't, the person noted.
The President was particularly irked by her criticism of his acceptance of a jet from the Qatari royal family, the person said.
Loomer said at the time that after blasting what she called a 'gift from jihadists in suits', she spoke to Trump and apologised for criticising him in public.
Trump's willingness to make himself accessible to Loomer should come as no surprise, the person close to Trump said, noting the President's tendency to regularly pick up the phone for callers, including reporters, who contact him directly, outside of standard White House channels.
Loomer's relationship with Trump developed as he became delighted by her heckling of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis when he ran against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination.
She protested against him in person and published a barrage of negative pieces about him.
The day DeSantis dropped out of the race, Trump called her with congratulations, she said, adding that she told Trump he was the one who had won so handily.
'He said, 'Yeah, but I couldn't have done it without you,'' Loomer recalled. In the months that followed, when Trump would see her in person at his golf clubs, he would warmly say to those around him that she had helped him defeat DeSantis.
In a call, Trump invited Loomer for meeting
Loomer's latest Oval Office meeting illustrates both her influence and its limits.
The meeting grew out of a telephone call between Trump and Loomer in which the President 'expressed interest' in a topic she had been reporting on 'about a personnel issue', Loomer said.
She declined to say which one of her exposés about Administration officials had prompted the meeting.
Days before the call, however, she had drawn attention to Philip Droege, the longtime director of the White House's Office of Records Management.
In a July 14 post on X, Loomer suggested that Droege was partially responsible for Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club being raided, citing a 2022 Washington Post story.
Trump invited Loomer to join him for lunch, but when she arrived at the White House that day, she learned that staff had scheduled her visit to be a regular meeting, and she did not dine with the President.
Loomer said that one thing was clear.
'I know for a fact that the President has expressed concern about Philip Droege being in his Administration,' Loomer said.
'I don't work for the President, but I do know that when this report came out, and when the President himself saw it, he expressed concern.'
The day after her White House meeting, she published a longer story on her website about Droege's employment.
He remains employed. The White House did not respond to questions about allegations Loomer has raised, but in a statement, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump 'has put together the best cabinet and staff in history, and the historic achievements over the past six months prove it'.
Her access to Trump is counterbalanced by efforts from people around him to keep her at a distance, Loomer said.
Trump has offered her jobs 'on four separate occasions', she said, adding that the jobs were 'snatched away in acts of professional jealousy'. She has never officially been a part of Trump's campaign or White House teams.
Loomer applied for a press pass to cover the Trump White House and considered moving to Washington, where she employs one correspondent.
But neither of their applications have been approved, despite repeatedly asking about the status of receiving credentials, she said.
From activist seeking traction to Trump influencer
For years, Loomer has been a thorn in the side of Republicans and Democrats alike, ferociously going after people she believed weren't sufficiently aligned with the Maga movement and casting herself as an internet underdog who was 'silenced in America' and became the 'most banned woman in the world'.
In her early 20s, she worked for Project Veritas, the far-right activist group that gained fame for making surreptitious videos to discredit mainstream media figures and other ideological opponents.
In 2017, she was banned from Uber and Lyft for a viral rant against 'Islamic immigrant' drivers; a year later, she was kicked off Twitter for a post calling Representative Ilhan Omar (Democrat-Minnesota) anti-Semitic.
After Elon Musk bought Twitter, he reinstated Loomer and many other right-wing influencers, giving her a kind of semi-celebrity status on the Maga internet.
Her return helped expand Loomer's sphere of influence in right-wing social media circles, where the self-proclaimed 'pro-white nationalism' activist and 'proud Islamophobe' is known for her rapid-fire pace and anything-goes attack style.
Loomer's follower count on Twitter, now X, exploded from about 270,000 in late 2022 to 1.3 million followers in November, when Trump was elected again, a Washington Post analysis of platform data shows. She has gained 400,000 followers in the months since.
Loomer has tapped into a symbiosis where 'a conservative influencer makes something a scandal, and if it picks up enough traction, then it becomes policy', said Nina Jankowicz, a researcher who briefly served in the Biden Administration as the executive director of a newly created Disinformation Governance Board before intense criticism from right-wing influencers forced it to shut down.
At this point, Trump doesn't even need to see posts from Loomer for them to have an impact, Jankowicz said. Her relationship with the President is well known, and 'the underlings in the Administration need to act quickly to prove their fealty'.
'Couldn't get a job at McDonald's'
Loomer is '100% self-made, through her ferocious personality', said Cory, who has known her since her Project Veritas days.
'She creates the echo chamber,' he said.
After she was banned from social media, she told Cory, 'I couldn't get a job at McDonald's', he recalled in an interview.
Cory worked with her to build up a donor base, recalling her being 'the fastest-rising one' of his clients who started from scratch.
Loomer clarified that she did not actually apply for a job at the fast-food restaurant, but couldn't get hired anywhere because of 'smears' against her after facing bans.
Raheem Kassam, the editor of the conservative National Pulse and co-owner of Butterworth's, a Capitol Hill restaurant that welcomes the Maga crowd, said he has known Loomer for years. It isn't uncommon for her to call at midnight to talk about something she's working on, he said.
'It's this sense of drive that she has that you cannot find in many other people,' Kassam said.
'She really puts her task and purpose above everything, above her personal life. She believes in a certain set of things, and she's willing to throw herself in front of traffic for them.'
She recently unveiled an online tip line for government officials who need to 'be exposed for their misdeeds', using the same website where she sells her book Loomered and 'Donald Trump Did Nothing Wrong!' T-shirts.
But she has also attempted to retain her outsider status, often needling Administration officials as unfit for the task of protecting the President.
As with other influencers, Loomer has sought to use her elevated status on the right-wing web as a revenue stream.
On the crowdfunding site Buy Me a Coffee, where Loomer directs X followers seeking to support her work, she has raised nearly US$50,000 to help cover her 'research and travel expenses' and other costs associated with her 'investigative reports'.
On the alternative video site Rumble, Loomer has posted more than 300 videos since late 2021, many of them recordings of live broadcasts from 'Loomer Unleashed,' where she often talks for three hours at a time.
During one recent stream, Loomer took a brief pause from warning about how 'Communists and jihadist Muslims' were waging war to 'carry out the ultimate destruction of Western civilisation' to thank her sponsor, the Colorado-based gold merchant Kirk Elliott Precious Metals, and air a commercial in which she contentedly ate popcorn as a violent mob raged outside her window.
She was relaxed, she said, because she had stockpiled silver and gold.
Loomer said Trump has 'an eye for spotting talent', and that she is grateful for him 'recognising the value in my work during the primary and for inviting me to Mar-a-Lago for a meeting, and for commencing a friendship with me'.
'It's a friendship that I cherish,' Loomer said, 'and it's hard for a lot of people to come to terms with'.