On Saturday, Laura Loomer took to X to celebrate a campaign win.
“Today I saved so many American citizens from being killed by pro-HAMAS jihadis,” she claimed. “God only knows how many lives I personally saved today by blowing the whistle on rogue actors at State Department giving visas to Gazan families.”
The U.S. State Department had just announced a pause on any visitor visas for individuals from Gaza while the agency reviews its internal processes for offering visas. The State Department did not say why it had decided to conduct the review, but this did not stop Loomer from taking credit, having on Friday posted a series of videos on X of children from Gaza arriving in San Francisco and Houston for medical treatment, and calling it a “national security threat.”
“This is fantastic news,” she wrote of the State Department’s decision.
This is just one of many times Loomer has taken a victory lap round the White House perimeter in recent months. Despite not holding a government or administration role, Loomer appears to be influencing the government from beyond and experts say this is increasing.
Heath Brown, an associate professor of public policy at City University of New York, told Newsweek: “It does seem like Laura Loomer has the ear of the president and his closest White House advisors. It’s hard to think of someone in recent history that seems to have such influence over key presidential decisions that doesn’t hold an official position in the White House or federal government.”
Newsweek contacted the White House and Loomer by email to comment on this story.
Loomer, an independent investigative journalist known in part for her anti-Muslim rhetoric and for sharing conspiracy theories, became increasingly dominant in right-wing circles last year. She accompanied Trump—who has frequently praised her at rallies and on social media—to a number of events during his presidential campaign and has visited his Mar-a-Lago home.
“I think she’s a patriot, and she gets excited because of the fact that she’s a patriot,” Trump told reporters in August. “And she doesn’t like things going on that she thinks are bad for the country. I like her.”
She has also built a following of over 1.7 million on X. Among the most significant include White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
But what is cementing her influence is not praise from Trump or a bulging little black book. Instead, it is the number of Trump administration figures she is linked to culling through her social media generated assassinations.
In March, she called for Adam Schleifer, an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles to be fired for previously criticizing Trump and running in a Democratic primary. An hour later, he was dismissed.
She has also been tied to Trump’s decision to fire National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and other aides, although the president has denied that she was the reason for the sackings.
In July, after she criticized Jen Easterly, a recent hire by the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll directed the academy to remove her. She was also linked to the firing of Dr. Vinay Prasad from the Food and Drug Administration, though he was later rehired.
In the same month, she accused Monte Hawkins, a senior national security advisor at the Customs and Border Protection of being “anti-Trump.” He was placed on administrative leave two days later, ABC reported.
She is also ruffling feathers in Trump’s inner circle. Last week, she claimed that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was using his deputy chief of staff Stefanie Spear to lay the groundwork for a 2028 presidential run. This forced a response from RFK who took to X to defend Spear and rule out a 2028 run.
Thomas Gift, an associate professor of political science and the director of the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, told Newsweek: “There’s little doubt that Laura Loomer has the president’s ear—and that he’s listening. Outside of policy adviser Stephen Miller, she may now be the single most influential voice in the White House. That should give Republicans pause because her far-right views have the potential to lead the president astray on everything from immigration and foreign policy to public health and national security.”
Despite her ascendancy, Loomer is not universally exalted in Republican circles.
Her history of anti-Islam posts and 9/11 conspiracy theories have caused some to keep her at a distance.
“Laura Loomer is a crazy conspiracy theorist who regularly utters disgusting garbage intended to divide Republicans,” North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis wrote on X.
She has also clashed with Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene.
“Many people need to wake up about her reporting,” Greene said of Loomer on X recently. “Researching facts and then spinning them into lies to serve her agenda doesn’t make her good or trustworthy. It makes her a liar and it makes her dangerous.”
Meanwhile, William F. Hall, adjunct professor of political science and business at Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri, said Loomer’s influence was “not either particularly unique or surprising.”
“In today’s highly partisan political environment it is not at all surprising that many politicians, including President Donald J. Trump, would seek to identify, highlight and attempt to take full and complete advantage of any and all potential opportunities to find support, from any and all sources, for his both own and his administration’s, political positions and policies,” he told Newsweek.
He added: “Political operatives in today’s current, highly volatile political environment, increasingly, are basically being utilized to achieve publicity and greater support for self-serving perspectives focused primarily on self-promotion and survival. For the most part, these operatives are also both highly expendable…and fleeting.”
Regardless, for however long Loomer can make waves in Washington, she will continue her crusade.
“I will only be intensifying and growing my operation to expose corruption as 2026 approaches,” she wrote on X on Monday, later teasing her followers: “Holy s*** you are going to freak out when I show you who else is still working at the State Department.”
The post Laura Loomer’s Influence Is Growing appeared first on Newsweek.
