Who is Laura Loomer? Trump wing woman uses her Jewishness to attack
Laura Loomer stands across from the Women’s March in New York City on Jan. 19, 2019 Photo by (Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images
By Lauren Markoe September 14, 2024
Laura Loomer, a self-described Islamophobe, conspiracy-theory promoter and “feisty Jewess,” got a little too feisty this week even for some of her conservative Republican allies. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who shares much of Loomer’s far-right ideology, advised Trump to cut ties with Loomer after she posted a tweet mocking Vice President Kamala Harris’ Indian heritage.
Loomer, in turn, called Greene an antisemite, reminding the Twitterverse of Greene’s 2018 suggestion that space lasers developed by the Rothschilds started the California wildfires.
It’s not the first time Loomer, 31, has leaned into her Jewishness to attack critics, though that usually means Democrats, the media and the many schools, social media platforms and other companies that have suspended her. She’s also been called out by the Anti-Defamation League, for associating with white supremacists and exploiting the Holocaust for political gain.
Loomer, 31, was raised in Tucson, Arizona and ran unsuccessfully for a Florida House seat in 2020 and 2022. She has worked for far-right groups including Project Veritas and InfoWars, and famously marched on stage during a production of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” to protest its criticism of Trump.
Here are some ways that Loomer has previously leveraged her heritage to lash out at others, including other Jews.
Attacking Muslims
Loomer has called herself a “proud Islamophobe” and justified it by saying that she, as a Jew, has a right to be fearful of Muslims, who she stereotypes as murderously anti-Jewish.
“When you look at the word phobia as an irrational fear, is it irrational for a Jewish woman to be skeptical or critical or fearful of a political ideology that calls for me to be you know, to be to be killed?” she said to a Florida reporter during her run for Congress in 2020.
She has described Islam as a “cancer on humanity” and said Muslims shouldn’t be allowed to hold political office. Such statements have gotten her banned from social media platforms as well as Uber and Lyft. (She said she does not want to support Muslim drivers.)
Using Holocaust imagery and weaponizing Yiddish
As the GOP nominee for a Congressional district in Palm Beach County — the district with the highest percentage of Jewish voters in the nation — Loomer ran an ad in 2020 with photos of concentration camp victims to attack her opponent, veteran Rep. Lois Frankel, who is also Jewish. Loomer suggested that Frankel’s sympathy with the Black Lives Matter movement would lead to disaster for Jews.
The Anti-Defamation League called the ad “disgusting.”
The ad also used Yiddish terms: meshugus, which means craziness, and “gornisht Lois,” or “nothing Lois.” It ended with a voiceover plea to “Vote for a real mensch. Vote Laura Loomer.”
Then-President Donald Trump, whose Mar-a-Lago club is in the district, endorsed Loomer. Frankel beat her 59% to 39%.
Two years earlier, in 2018, when Loomer protested Twitter’s ban on her account by chaining herself to its New York headquarters, she wore a yellow star resembling the ones Nazis forced Jews to wear during the Holocaust. (Elon Musk restored Loomer’s account after he bought the platform in 2022 and renamed it X.)
Denigrating Jewish Democrats
Loomer, like Trump, has questioned the mental health of Jews who vote for Democrats. (Which most Jews do — 77% supported President Joe Biden in 2020, for example.)
“It’s either a genetic malfunction or a mental illness,” she said on The John Frederick’s Show, a popular right-wing radio broadcast, in April. “I’m not trying to sound derogatory when I say this. I’m Jewish myself.
“The Jewish people have a record of making poor decisions for themselves,” she continued. “They act in ways that are suicidal and detrimental to the survival of their own people.”
She also compared “modern Democrat Jews” to “kapo Jews,” which she defined as “Jews during the times of the Holocaust who assisted the Nazis because they thought that they were gonna be the last to go.”
She added: “You might as well just go put yourself in a gas chamber yourself if this is how you’re gonna behave.”
Peace on Passover?
This week was not the first time Loomer and Greene have tussled publicly over the possibility that Trump would hire Loomer onto his campaign.
It happened in April 2023, when The New York Times reported that Trump had instructed his aides to hire Loomer. Greene tweeted that he should do no such thing, calling Loomer a liar and “mentally unstable.”
Loomer, in what one news outlet described as an “uncharacteristically tame” response, invoked the season’s religious holidays: “During this period of Passover and Holy Week, I think Americans should be taking the time to come together, not tear each other apart,” she said.
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