WASHINGTON – The White House rebuked former US president Donald Trump on Sept 13 for his association with far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who has been travelling this week with the Republican presidential candidate.
Ms Loomer says she does not work for Trump. However, she has mentioned speaking to him about political matters and frequents his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida. Her incendiary posts on X, where she has 1.2 million followers, at times seem to provide grist for Trump’s next lines of attack.
Ahead of Trump’s debate with Democratic US Vice-President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Sept 10, Ms Loomer said that if Ms Harris, who is of Indian descent, won the Nov 5 election, “the White House will smell like curry and White House speeches will be facilitated via a call centre”.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said on Sept 12: “It is repugnant, these types of comments. It is un-American to say these types of things, exactly the kind of hateful and divisive rhetoric that we should denounce.”
“No leader should ever associate with someone who spreads this kind of ugliness, this kind of racist poison,” Ms Jean-Pierre said.
Ms Loomer flew with Trump to his debate in Pennsylvania on Sept 10 and was in New York with him and his team the next day for a commemoration of the Sept 11 attacks, according to video and photo footage.
Ms Loomer has previously suggested the Sept 11 attacks were an insider job by sharing a video in 2023 on Twitter, which was renamed as X in 2023, that promoted that conspiracy theory. She has since changed her position and told CNN in an interview published on Sept 12 that the attacks were carried out by “Islamic terrorists”.
Trump’s campaign, when asked about the White House criticism of his ties to Ms Loomer, did not directly address their relations but said he sought bipartisan unity in the ceremony marking the Sept 11 attacks.
In an online post, Ms Loomer dismissed the White House criticism, denying she was a racist and suggesting that Ms Jean-Pierre, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, was critical because she did not like Ms Loomer’s social media post on Sept 12 about a false claim that Haitian immigrants are eating pets. REUTERS
