Donald Trump is facing a wave of backlash for spending time with Laura Loomer, a Jewish far-right provocateur who was once banned from several social media platforms for hate speech.
What makes this backlash different is that it’s coming from another far-right figure who has herself been accused of hate speech: Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Loomer, who once was the Republican nominee for a Florida congressional seat, fashions herself an investigative journalist and has been spending more time with Trump, traveling on his plane to Philadelphia to join him at this week’s debate. Trump endorsed her 2020 run for Congress and nearly hired her as a campaign aide a year ago but was dissuaded by his aides from doing so.
Now, Greene, also a vocal Trump supporter, is publicly slamming Loomer. The trigger for her speaking out was a post on X from Loomer that denigrated Vice President Kamala Harris’ Indian heritage.
“If Kamala Harris wins, the White House will smell like curry; White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center and the American people will only be able to convey their feedback through a customer satisfaction survey at the end of the call that nobody will understand,” said Loomer, invoking at least three racist stereotypes about Indian people.
Greene said she was appalled by the post — part of a broader shift among Republicans who have urged their compatriots to focus their attacks not on Harris’ race but her policies. (Trump himself has taken shots at Harris’ background, falsely claiming that she “became a Black person” in the middle of her life.)
“This is appalling and extremely racist,” Greene said about Loomer’s comments in a post on X. “It does not represent who we are as Republicans or MAGA. This does not represent President Trump. This type of behavior should not be tolerated ever. @LauraLoomer should take this down.”
On Thursday, Greene told reporters in an impromptu press conference at the U.S. Capitol that Trump’s Make America Great Again movement was one that welcomed people of all ethnicities.
“Someone had sent me that post about Kamala Harris and it bothered me so much,” she said. “We’re a party for all Americans, and I think that’s so important. And I think that we need to be focused on our policies, the inflation, the economy and the border, and not attacking people for their race, not attacking them because they may not have children and they love their pets, and I don’t want to have anything to do with that.”
Loomer has her own history of bigotry. She once called herself a “proud Islamophobe” on Twitter and was banned from that platform, as well as Facebook, Lyft and Uber, for her anti-Muslim comments. She was allowed back on Twitter, now X, in 2022 after Elon Musk purchased the site.
Loomer then attacked Greene, who has been criticized by Jewish groups for diminishing the significance of the Holocaust and for peddling the false conspiracy theory that the Rothschild family was burning forests with space lasers.
“It’s really funny how @mtgreenee (a raging anti semite who said Jews use space lasers to control the world) wants to pretend like I’m a ‘racist’ because I made a funny joke about Kamala Harris,” Loomer said in one of a barrage of tweets attacking Greene.
As Greene noted on X, things weren’t always so fraught between the two. Loomer and Greene backed each other in their bids to be elected to Congress in 2020. (Greene won, Loomer — running against Jewish Democratic Rep. Lois Frankel in a heavily Jewish district — did not.)
Greene is not the only Trump ally bashing Loomer. She’s joined by South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who said Loomer could cost Trump the presidential election.
“Ms. Loomer is a stain on society,” his office told NBC. “Senator Graham shares Rep. Greene’s concern about how this could affect the campaign and our country.”
And Greene has also found herself agreeing with someone she has generally considered an arch-nemesis: President Joe Biden. On Thursday, Biden’s spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre bashed Loomer along the same lines as Greene had.
“No leader should ever associate with someone who spreads this kind of ugliness, this kind of racist poison,” Jean-Pierre said at a press briefing, according to NBC.
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