It’s not totally clear what Laura Loomer, the 32-year-old conspiracy monger and right-wing media personality, means to President Donald Trump. She really, really doesn’t like it when people call her an influencer or an adviser to the president, and, technically, she’s not a lobbyist—although that’s becoming increasingly complicated within Trumpworld. Loomer is also not officially employed by the White House or the federal government.
Whatever she is, Trump’s advisers have officially grown tired of her. And they hope that Trump may soon too.
But on a sunny California day in May, Loomer had just cemented herself as the influencer in Trump 2.0, with the ultimate feather in her cap to prove it.
Just shy of a month after Loomer met with Trump in the Oval Office and successfully advocated for the firings of six National Security Council officials, Loomer had finally gotten what she really wanted: Mike Waltz was removed from his post as national security adviser. At the meeting, she had also urged Trump to fire the National Security Agency (NSA) director and head of the US Cyber Command, four-star General Timothy Haugh—which the president did, not long after the NSC purge. (Waltz, Hough, and the NSC officials did not reply to requests for comment.)
Loomer had already told the president that she thought the officials and Waltz were allegedly disloyal. In a phone call with WIRED, Loomer was adamant that Waltz’s appearance in a 2016 ad about veterans opposing Trump was grounds for his departure. Both in private and in front of her more than 1.6 million followers on X, Loomer had been waging a holy war against Waltz for hiring, she alleged, “individuals who have a history of anti-Trump remarks and anti-Trump associations.” Though it took a few extra weeks after her meeting with Trump for it to finally happen, Loomer said she had successfully convinced the president—who considers her “terrific” and “very special,” in his own words—to cut loose one of the most important officials in geopolitics.
Flying Close to the Sun
A number of Trump’s advisers tell WIRED that while they have seen a certain utility in Loomer, even if they find her tiresome and off-putting, their mutually beneficial arrangements may be coming to an end. With her role in the Waltz departure and her recent critiques of the Qatari government’s mega jet gift, senior Republicans who interact with Trump tell WIRED, she’s flying awfully close to the sun. As much as these sources, who requested anonymity to avoid incurring Loomer’s wrath, believe that Loomer is reaching the end of her rope as far as her influence with the president goes, they’re still aware that she possesses enough power to potentially destroy their careers with a single tweet or blog post.
Until recently, Loomer had established a role as something of a digital directed-energy weapon. The White House would keep her at a distance, but also let her rip when it was convenient for certain factions within the West Wing. Internal discontent with Waltz, in this case, was one of those instances. “She overestimates and overstates her influence,” an administration source with knowledge of the Waltz discussions told WIRED at the time of the firing, “but that doesn’t mean her takes aren’t ever appreciated from time to time.” (The White House did not answer questions from WIRED about Loomer’s role in personnel decisions. A source close to Trump tells WIRED that “Laura Loomer plays no role in the administration.”)
The Trump superfan and MAGA version of a gonzo content creator had gone from gadfly status to something approaching a real player in just under two years, but her ascent was particularly rapid upon Trump’s return to office. Loomer, whether Trump’s advisers liked it or not, couldn’t be squelched. The MAGA embodiment of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “I’ll be back,” Loomer had frustrated campaign advisers to such an extent that they tried, and mostly failed, to keep her at arm’s length during both the 2024 GOP primary and general elections, and she wasn’t officially hired by the campaign despite repeated requests. (When asked by WIRED what those roles were, Loomer said that the jobs were in opposition research, vetting personnel, and “assisting with Panama.”)
Loomer has emerged as one of the most important voices in Trump’s ear, meeting him at his Mar-a-Lago club and speaking to him on the phone with some degree of frequency, after years spent on the fringes of the far-right conspiracy internet. Loomer rose to prominence by openly embracing anti-Muslim rhetoric and other extreme positions, like sharing a video on X about how 9/11 was “an inside job,” leading even the likes of GOP congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to urge Trump in mid-2023 not to hire her. Her influence has only grown since.
“Hold on, one sec. My phone is blowing up,” Loomer told WIRED minutes after the news about Waltz broke on May 1. The pings eventually subsided, and she cut to the chase about why claiming the firings as a “SCALP,” in her words, was so important. “It’s not about who your friends are, whether something is morally right or morally wrong,” she said. “It has to be done. Hopefully the administration is serious about administering loyalty tests.” She’s obsessed with these so-called loyalty checks: “They’re not doing loyalty checks,” she tells WIRED. “You need to have loyalty to the commander in chief … You need to be loyal to President Trump.”
A Harping Hand
With an almost dystopian fervor for Trump loyalty as her guide, no target has been too small for the Trumpworld Terminator. She’s gone after big fish like Treasury secretary Scott Bessent, but also takes broadsides at the spouses of lower-level nominees. In a May 4 post on her “Loomered” website titled “EXCLUSIVE: BLM-Linked Wife of Trump DOJ Nominee Raises Vetting Concerns,” Loomer attacked pro bono attorney Kristin McGough over alleged ��“progressive signaling, including listing her pronouns in her official legal biography.” (McGough declined to comment.)
Her Loomerisms continue to physically make it into Trump’s hands, as well. Natalie Harp, often referred to within Trumpworld as “the human printer” (derogatory), is one of Loomer’s portals into Trump’s decisionmaking. Harp, another of Trump’s favorite young women in his inner circle, sits directly outside the door to the Oval Office. She earned her nickname during the 2024 campaign by delivering Trump a steady stream of printed articles, social media posts, and other digital-turned-paper materials praising him. Harp continues to do so in her role at the White House as an executive assistant to the president.
And Loomer’s attacks on administration officials deemed insufficiently loyal continue to make their way into the stacks.
“Natalie is going to ship everything that’s sent to her to the president, if she thinks it warrants his attention,” the administration source tells WIRED. “Which is most times.”
Trump’s other staffers, sources tell WIRED, haven’t figured out a way to stem the flow of dubious information from Harp to the president, or from Loomer to Harp.
“Natalie Harp is a trusted and valued member of President Trump’s team,” Stephen Cheung, the White House communications director, tells WIRED. “And she is certainly a big reason why his operation has been as successful as it has ever been. Her work ethic and dedication to helping President Trump achieve his historic victory is second to none.” (Harp did not respond to a request for comment WIRED put to the White House.)
Cut and Dry
Still, despite Loomer’s claims that she was almost hired by Trump on four separate occasions, an administration role remains elusive for her. Trumpworld sources are more skeptical than ever about Loomer making it onto the payroll. “You have to ask yourself: If Trump wanted her in, do you think his staff had some ability to prevent that, apparently?” says the administration source. “Like, what?”
“One of Laura’s challenges and the reason she really can’t have an administration job is she thinks everything is cut-and-dry,” they continued, “and that’s just not how running the country works. If only it were all cut-and-dry.”
Their question now is what, if anything, Trump’s inner circle could do to get rid of Loomer after this. And how much farther can Loomer push into this uncharted territory of the influencer as lobbyist—or vice versa—without winding up on the receiving end of Trump’s own ire.
Inside the White House and among Trump’s outside advisers, the weeks following Waltz’s ouster would trend toward Loomer “jumping the shark,” as one of the sources put it.
Just over a week ago, when Qatar gifted Trump the jet poised to one day become the new Air Force One, an emboldened Loomer began shifting her fire from faceless federal employees to subjects suddenly a little too close to home: the Qataris who had been so generous to the president. Loomer candidly told Politico, “I’m hoping that it’s not true,” when presented with details of the gift, and that she finds the reports of the jet deal, if true, to be “concerning.”
Her critiques of the jet gift earned cascading media coverage that continued to irk Trumpworld as it bled into the conservative media ecosystem. One Fox News subheadline summed up the dynamic. “As far as Team Trump goes: if you’ve lost Loomer, you’ve lost the plot.”
Two weeks later, that same source who gave Loomer partial credit for Waltz’s ouster had a different assessment of Loomer’s standing with the president. “Oh, I think she’s on ice,” the Republican with direct knowledge of the situation tells WIRED. “With the president.”
High Stakes
After months of tolerating her antics, other Trump advisers began losing their patience. “Trump likes Laura, and she obviously has some influence, but she runs the risk of overestimating her influence and blowing herself up if she’s not more careful,” a source close to the White House tells WIRED. “It’s one thing to attack random government employees who Trump doesn’t give a shit about, but when she’s attacking him and his policies directly, that could end badly for her.”
In the early stages of the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump’s top advisers privately harbored concerns about Loomer’s influence on their boss. Back then, the issues seemed relatively quaint. Campaign officials once discussed how to convey the need for Loomer to dial back her amplification of attacks on the then chair of the Florida Republican Party and his wife, or how to handle the optics of her flying on Trump’s personal plane around the anniversary ceremony at the 9/11 memorial when she had previously reposted about the attack being “an inside job.”
Now, the stakes are far higher.
“I think she jumped the shark by going out and taking credit for stabbing the national security adviser and a number of people, as if it happened in a vacuum, as if there weren’t deep considerations and conversations about all of this,” the administration official adds. “Because this is serious shit here. It’s all fun and games to fuck around online when you’re not responsible for anything. And I’m not defending Mike … But my point is, people like Laura don’t have the burden of any actual responsibility, national security, or difficult decisions.”
Despite Loomer’s proclamations of loyalty-at-all-costs, Trump’s inner circle has become increasingly suspicious that Loomer is in it for herself. The alarm has grown even further amid a noticeable change in the issues she’s begun to highlight on her MAGA version of a tabloid blog called Loomered. (Headlines range from “EXCLUSIVE: 100 Beagles Rescued From Labs This Week as Groups Urge Trump Administration to Retire NIH Lab Animals” to a much discussed story behind the scenes in Trumpworld that marked a notable pivot: “Chevron’s Venezuela Exit Hands China a Strategic Victory and Threatens U.S. Energy Security.)
“Everybody sort of knows that now, or at least we internally,” the administration source said of increasing outside interest in Loomer as a hybrid pseudo-lobbyist-influencer. “And then the Qatari stuff, that’s probably ideological, but she’s fighting a battle she has no fucking idea about, and the mainstream media is picking it up.”
Nearly three weeks after Waltz’s departure, Loomer—who did not comment any further on her role in it, nor on Republican critiques shown to her by WIRED before publication—was making a strategic retreat.
“I am sorry if my comments made anyone feel betrayed or were used by the media as ammunition to sow division during an important trip for the President,” she continued. I want to apologize to President Trump @realDonaldTrump more than anyone because I am a loyal person, I love President Trump, and I know I could have probably just had a private conversation about the plane instead.”
Loomer may have taken some damage when she fired at the highest levels of the US national security apparatus.
But the odds have always seemed to be in this Trumpworld Terminator’s favor—she’ll be back.
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