The Right-Wing Provocateur Who Has Trump’s Ear

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Right-Wing Provocateur Who Has Trump’s Ear

Podcast: The Daily (The New York Times)
Air Date: August 21, 2025
Host(s): Natalie Kitroeff
Journalist: Ken Bensinger
Main Subject: Laura Loomer — social media provocateur and influential Trump advisor

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Overview

This episode explores the rise of Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and "social media provocateur" who has become an extraordinarily influential outside advisor to President Donald Trump during his second term. The discussion traces Loomer’s personal history, political awakening, controversial tactics, and the outsize impact she’s had on Trump’s administration, including real-world policy and staffing changes. Reporter Ken Bensinger recounts his in-depth reporting and direct experiences with Loomer, illuminating her motivations, methods, and the fear she inspires across Washington.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Laura Loomer: From Troubled Beginnings to Political Provocateur

• Early Life and Background

  • Grew up in Tucson, Arizona, in a turbulent home; struggled with a violent, mentally ill brother and experienced family breakdown ([05:44–06:22]).
  • Sent to boarding school at 12 for safety ([06:39]).
  • Parents’ political beliefs did not align with her eventual views ([07:02]).

• Early Signs of Extremism

  • Developed intense anti-Islam views by high school, confronting Muslim classmates, though her father denies influence ([07:29–08:09]).

  • First taste of attention in college, blasting her Catholic school for inviting a Muslim imam to a 9/11 memorial ([08:25–09:01]):

    “I found it so disrespectful for them to have an imam on 9/11. And I stormed out of the chapel.” (Laura Loomer, [08:38])

  • Viral Facebook post catapults her into right-wing media, leading to work with James O'Keefe at Project Veritas ([09:09–10:00]).

2. Rise to Internet Infamy and Political Alignment with Trump

• Path to Notoriety

  • Embraced “gotcha” journalism and social media confrontation ([10:40]).
  • Early and unwavering Trump supporter:

    “…she liked the way that he spoke, the way that he said what was on his mind...what she would now call America First values…” (Ken Bensinger, [11:12])

• Escalating Outrage and Deplatforming

  • Targeted politicians (most notably Rep. Ilhan Omar); made Islamophobic, offensive, false claims ([12:15–13:02]).

  • Celebrated the death of Syrian refugees ([12:38–12:50]).

  • Deplatformed from Uber, Lyft, Twitter, and more:

    “How do you get banned from UberEats just by being and existing as a conservative in this country?” (Laura Loomer, [13:08])

  • Impact of being banned described as deeply scarring, “one of the most painful events of her life” ([14:08]).

3. Parallel Trajectories: Loomer and Trump

• Political Crossover
  • Both deplatformed in the same period; “out in the wilderness together,” until Elon Musk reinstated their Twitter accounts ([15:10–15:49]).
  • Loomer immediately refocused her efforts on promoting Trump’s re-election, targeting Ron DeSantis ([15:54–16:26]).

4. Loomer Gets Trump's Ear

• From Protest to Presidential Hotline

  • Created a viral moment at a DeSantis event, which caught Trump’s attention ([16:23–17:20]).
  • Trump personally called Loomer to praise her and invited her to Mar-a-Lago ([17:33–18:41]):

    “I answer it and it's like, ‘hello.’ I was very annoyed…it's like, ‘Hello, Laura, it's your favorite president, Donald Trump.’” (Laura Loomer, [17:56])

• Oval Office Access

  • In Mar-a-Lago, gave Trump opposition research, slamming other Republicans. Trump was impressed, asked her to run for Congress, but she pledged loyalty to him alone ([19:00–20:17]):

    “There's no point of anyone being in Congress if you're not the president. … I want to put you first.” (Laura Loomer, [20:03])

• Nearly Joins Campaign

  • Began the hiring process for the Trump campaign but was blocked, devastating her:

    “Nobody called me … I was so depressed. I cried so much. I locked myself in my apartment for, like, a month. And I lost, like, 15 pounds.” (Laura Loomer, [21:26–21:38])

5. Campaign “Extreme Vetting”: Loomer as Enforcer

• New Mission: Purge the Disloyal

  • Shifted focus to rooting out individuals in Trumpworld she viewed as insufficiently loyal ([22:57–24:21]):

    “I really enjoy, and I take great pleasure in humiliating people who suck at their job. I do. Especially when people steal opportunities from me.” (Laura Loomer, [24:50])

  • Details her “vetting” process, including researching targets’ families for potential disloyalty ([25:05–25:52]).

• Case Example: “Signalgate” and National Security Purge

  • Outed Deputy NSA Alex Wong for ties to Mitt Romney and a spouse who worked under Biden ([27:17–27:36]).
  • Trump summoned Loomer to the Oval Office to present a list; six of twelve targets were fired the same day ([29:15–29:31]):

    “Trump ends the meeting by saying, ‘We have to get rid of these people.’ And indeed, within hours, Trump has fired six of the 12 people that she put on a list in front of him.” (Ken Bensinger, [29:17])

• Escalating Campaign

  • Took credit for a string of firings: National Security Advisor, U.N. Ambassador, Hunter Biden’s Secret Service detail, and more ([30:00–30:28]).
  • “She calls them scalps. … and it’s an incredible run, one that sends terror throughout the entire Republican Party.” (Ken Bensinger, [30:57])

6. Loomer’s Policy Impact and Washington’s Response

• Influence on Policy

  • Helped push for the blocking of medical visas for Gazan children after public complaints about “importing terrorists,” resulting in immediate government action ([31:18–32:44]).

• Atmosphere of Fear

  • Republicans described as being “in abject terror” of her power; congressional aides and officials fear sudden career destruction ([33:31]):

    “Whenever a Republican congressman would see Loomer, their eyes would get big and it looked like they are trying to battle with their fight or flight reflexes.” (Ken Bensinger, [33:31])

7. Is She a Ticking Time Bomb?

• Unique Among Influencers

  • Loomer is not part of the West Palm Beach scene or social set; “singular mission” to defend and serve Trump ([35:14–35:35]).
  • Resisted by some inside the administration who see her as too volatile and dangerous ([34:49]).

• Singular Loyalty

  • Loomer’s only goal is to serve Trump at any cost ([35:58–36:11]):

    “At the end of the day, the only person that really matters is Donald Trump.” (Laura Loomer, [36:11]) “She is his perfect, blunt instrument that can do the jobs that no one else will get done.” (Ken Bensinger, [36:15])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “But she disappeared from my radar when she got deplatformed…and she came back with a vengeance.”
  — Ken Bensinger ([01:53])

• “I have been defamed, okay? My life has been destroyed.”
  — Laura Loomer ([13:39])

• “There's something about rejection that motivates you to become even more efficient.”
  — Laura Loomer ([22:57])

• “I want you to come to the White House, and I want you to let me know who else is problematic.”
  — Paraphrased Trump request to Loomer ([28:13])

• “She has a singular mission that is truly, I think, unique in this sphere, and it sets her apart...it is the thing that makes people wake up in the middle of the night with a cold sweat.”
  — Ken Bensinger ([35:39])

• “At the end of the day, the only person that really matters is Donald Trump.”
  — Laura Loomer ([36:11])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Laura Loomer’s Early Life: [05:44–07:02]
• First Viral Outrage & Media Career: [08:25–10:00]
• Trump’s Entrance & Initial Support: [11:06–11:32]
• Targeting Ilhan Omar/Platform Bans: [12:15–14:08]
• Deplatformed, Trump Parallels/Emergence Together: [15:10–15:49]
• DeSantis Protest & Trump’s Call: [16:23–18:41]
• Mar-a-Lago Meeting: [19:00–20:17]
• Job Rejection & Aftermath: [21:12–22:57]
• Extreme Vetting Ramps Up: [24:21–25:52]
• Signalgate & Real-World Impact: [27:17–29:31]
• A String of “Scalps”: [30:00–30:57]
• Blocking Gaza Child Visas: [31:18–32:44]
• Washington’s Fear/Ticking Time Bomb: [33:31–34:49]
• Loomer’s Singular Loyalty: [36:11]

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Tone and Language

The discussion balances direct quotations from Loomer showcasing her brash, combative tone, with the analytical, sober reporting of Bensinger and Kitroeff. The conversations are candid and paint a complex portrait of Loomer as both relentless and deeply aggrieved, while conveying the larger implications for the Trump administration and national politics.

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Perfect for listeners looking to understand how right-wing media figures can gain real-world power, this episode offers a clear narrative with behind-the-scenes details and firsthand testimony on the shadowy mechanisms of influence in contemporary American politics.

Transcript

[Susan Burton]

This is Susan Burton, host of the podcast the Retrievals.

[Ken Bensinger]

Cutting someone's body open and then operating when they can feel it. That is not supposed to happen.

[Susan Burton]

That's something from history or from war.

[Ken Bensinger]

It can't be happening to 100,000 women a year, can it?

[Susan Burton]

From Serial Productions and the New York Times, it's the Retrievals season two, the C sections. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Foreign.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

From the New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitro F. This is the Daily During Trump's second term, one person has emerged as the most influential outside advisor to the president.

[Ken Bensinger]

This morning, a major shakeup at the.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

National Security Agency, telling Trump who to fire.

[Michael Simon Johnson]

The director of the National Security Agency.

[Ken Bensinger]

And the deputy director were fired and.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Shaping major policy decisions because today the US State Department is halting medical humanitarian visas for people from Gaza.

[Ken Bensinger]

The State Department's policy shift comes after far right activist Laura Loomer criticized the.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Three Gazan children for coming to the US for medical treatment. Today, my colleague Ken Bensinger on the story of Laura Loomer.

[Ken Bensinger]

Laura Loomer is a very good patriot.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

She is the social media provocateur who has become Trump's favorite favorite blunt instrument.

[Susan Burton]

I guess President Trump just likes me.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

You have a friendship?

[Susan Burton]

Yeah, I would say it's a friendship.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

It's Thursday, August 21st. Ken, welcome to the show.

[Ken Bensinger]

Thanks for having me, Natalie.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

So tell me, when and how did Laura Loomer first come onto your radar?

[Ken Bensinger]

Well, I cover media and politics and have been interested in right wing influencers and the way they shape political discourse in the country. So I've been aware of Laura Loomer as a figure in that world, you know, going back to 2016, 17 as a noisemaker and troublemaker on social media. But she disappeared from my radar for a while when she got deplatformed and was not on any of these places. Then she came back and she came back with a vengeance. And this time around, instead of just making noise, she was making an impact. This is a person who we've now seen can get people fired and has done that multiple times this year since President Trump was inaugurated. This is someone who now can actually influence policy and get different federal agencies to change their rules and regulations based on what she wants them to do. And there seems to be no one who can stop her from weighing in. And at least one really important person in the current administration who's all ears.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

I think I know who you're hinting at.

[Ken Bensinger]

Yes, it's President Donald Trump. He is someone who listens to Laura Loomer, calls her on the phone, invites her to spend time with him at Mar a Lago, at his golf courses, even in the Oval Office. Someone who gives her more credence than pretty much anyone else in the country and happens to be very powerful and willing to take action on the things that she thinks are important. And I realized that this woman had now sort of become one of the most influential people in the country who wasn't actually in the White House. And to me, the fact that a regular citizen without any kind of government office, without, you know, any special giant army behind her, that that person is able to do all this is deeply intriguing. And it just became a real riddle. Where did this person come from? Where do they get all this power? And what makes her tick?

[Natalie Kitroeff]

How do you go about unpacking that mystery? How do you figure out who this person is, how she got here? And, as you said, what makes her tick?

[Ken Bensinger]

Well, a lot's been written and said about Laura Loomer, and I thought that if I wanted to really get to the bottom of it, I had to not only meet her, but spend time with her and really get to know her as a person to help unravel a bit the mystery of what this person is all about. And to do that, I had to get on the road. Coffee around here somewhere. Would you want one? I met her for coffee in Beverly Hills.

[Susan Burton]

Well, we're gonna be heading out soon, so I'm just wondering, like, if you want to ask questions.

[Ken Bensinger]

I once went to Panama to spend time with her. Wow.

[Susan Burton]

Here, if we see anyone just move to the side a little, because I know they want to get photos and.

[Ken Bensinger]

Everything, I will move out.

[Susan Burton]

You know what I'm saying?

[Ken Bensinger]

And I roamed the halls of Congress with her, so.

[Susan Burton]

And I. I was. I wanted to find a place that had a really big yard because she. I like rescuing dogs. Yeah.

[Ken Bensinger]

And I also came to her house in the Gulf coast of Florida, where I got to meet her rescue dogs.

[Susan Burton]

Are you feeling bad today? No.

[Ken Bensinger]

I just spent hours and hours with her in person and many more hours on the telephone with her and texting with her to get a sense of who this person really is. And what emerged from all that, for me, was a portrait of a person with a lot of scars from her youth, a person with very deep grievances and someone who has mastered the art of drawing attention to herself and turned that into her career.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Tell me where that story begins for her, that origin story.

[Susan Burton]

All right. I think everybody's on the Phone.

[Ken Bensinger]

Great. So I wanted to take this opportunity to just be able to. So Laura Loomer grew up in Arizona. She's the child of a doctor and grew up in what would seem like a pretty normal middle class home in Tucson, Arizona.

[Susan Burton]

I mean, I grew up in a pretty fucked up house. That's pretty.

[Ken Bensinger]

But she had a difficult childhood because in great part, her younger brother was deeply mentally ill from a very young age.

[Susan Burton]

I grew up in a very violent house. I grew up in a house with mental illness. I grew up in a house.

[Ken Bensinger]

He told me stories about him threatening to hurt her or even kill her, of kicking down her door.

[Susan Burton]

And so when you're a kid and you're, you know, having your hair pulled or someone's like threatening to stab you with a knife or hurt you, you have to defend your.

[Ken Bensinger]

When she was not even a teenager, her parents split up and her mother more or less disappeared from her life for many, many years.

[Susan Burton]

My dad did, I think, did the best that he could do.

[Ken Bensinger]

But her father, faced with overwhelming task of raising this difficult brother and another sibling as well as Laura, ultimately was asked by the state authorities to come up with some solution. And the answer was to send Laura away to boarding school.

[Susan Burton]

Boarding school, because, you know, yeah, it sucks, like the idea of sending your children away, but what's better, having your k be in a safe environment or having your children be in a violent situation because of a brother?

[Ken Bensinger]

So she basically says she had to learn to be an adult at the age of 12.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

And what about the political dynamics at home or for Laura as she's growing up?

[Ken Bensinger]

Loomer told me stories of watching the evening news with her dad as a kid, but other than that, said, it wasn't a very political household. And in fact, to this day, if you ask him, which I have, about where their politics align, they don't seem to align a lot. He will openly say he disagrees with her on a number of her political views and doesn't really know where they come from.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

How do those more extreme views start to form if that's not what she's being raised in? Where does it come from?

[Ken Bensinger]

It's a bit of a mystery. She says that September 11th made a big impression on her, but she also was eight years old at the time, and so it's hard to say what kind of impact that would have on a person who was eight. But the first sign of her political awakening was her feelings about Islam and about Muslims. And when she's in high school, she's telling her classmates Some of whom were Muslim, that she's beginning to question their religion and say things that they even back then found kind of stunning and offensive. Her parents deny. Her father anyway denies having those feelings, but they developed, she came up with them. And when she goes off to college she continues with her feelings about Islam. In fact, it becomes a bit of a guiding light to her. She told me and my colleague Robert Draper about this in detail over dinner at a seafood restaurant in Florida.

[Susan Burton]

I don't drink, just the water please.

[Ken Bensinger]

And kind of a breakthrough moment happens because of an event the school held commemorate 9 11. And one of the speakers was a Muslim imam.

[Susan Burton]

And they had invited Imam any mom to my university to speak at the 911 memorial service. And this imam, even though it's a Catholic school and I'm Jewish, but I.

[Ken Bensinger]

Joke she founds this outrageous.

[Susan Burton]

I was so disrespectful for them to have any mom on 911. And I stormed out, I literally stormed out of the chapel and I like ripped up the paper.

[Ken Bensinger]

And she writes a Facebook post that says that she finds that bringing him on was an insult and a sort of an incitement by the school and offensive to the victims of 911 and that Islam was about hate and violence and was calling out the school for doing it.

[Susan Burton]

And I woke up the next morning and my post was on Breitbart, it was on Sean Hannity, Pamela Geller had picked it up.

[Ken Bensinger]

This post blows up and goes viral and gets her national attention. And after that she gets invited to to a symposium where lots of people in the right wing media sphere and right wing politics are present. And at the event she gets the chance to meet a guy named James o' Keefe who ran a place called Project Veritas, a right wing gotcha oriented journalism outfit. And she runs him down. And she says, you don't know who I am, but you should because I'm going to make a big difference and I'm going to be really important. And he kind of laughs it off but has her number. And a few months later he gives her a call and invites her to come up to New York and sort of prove what she can do. And so she flies up there, grabs a hidden camera that was supplied to her by James o' Keefe and she ends up meeting the daughter of Eric Garner. Now Eric Garner was this person who died in a chokehold from the New York City police, right? And Loomer gets Eric Garner's daughter to make disparaging comments about Al Sharpton, the prominent Preacher and activist for the Black Community Project Veritas, loves this, shops it and gets the New York Post to pick it up and puts it on the front page of the New York Post. So Laura Loomer, college senior, not even graduated yet, has now gone completely viral.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Yeah, I mean, it does seem like this kind of knack, maybe even instinct for attention seeking and viral moments. She has it, you know, even in her college years.

[Ken Bensinger]

Yeah, I mean, she has a real gut for it. You know, she's studying broadcast journalism. She imagines herself one day being sort of an on air talent for Fox News or something. But she really has a gut for the Gotcha moment and for catching people on tape. And when the opportunity strikes, she always seems to go for it. And it's around that same time, soon after she graduates from college, that Donald Trump goes down the golden escalator in the Trump Tower and announces his candidacy for president.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

And what does she tell you about that moment, about Trump's kind of entrance onto the political scene?

[Ken Bensinger]

So as she tells it, she's in for Trump to be president from the beginning. She's not interested in the other people who were running at the time, like Jeb Bush. She said that she liked the way that he spoke, the way that he said what was on his mind. And she says that she liked his values, what she would now call America first values in a way that she didn't think the other candidates were.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

So Trump obviously wins in 2016. What's her relationship to him then?

[Ken Bensinger]

She doesn't have any kind of relationship with him at that period. She doesn't know him at all. So instead, at that time, she's working hard on the kind of work she does, which is undercover journalism, catching people saying things on video they shouldn't say and blasting it out as loud as possible. She's developing a huge following on social media, and less than two years out of college, she's now famous and also infamous at the same time, because part and parcel of all this is being outrageous and saying things that most people won't say. One particular target of hers is Ilhan Omar, the Somali immigrant congresswoman from Minnesota.

[Susan Burton]

Ilhan, why did you marry your brother? Why did you commit immigration fraud? You know that's a crime here in the United States. Why do you hate Jewish people so much?

[Ken Bensinger]

She's been after her for years and has alleged that she married her own brother and violated immigration rules. None of which is true.

[Susan Burton]

I would say her entire loyalty and her entire focus is to Islam and that scene in the way she once.

[Ken Bensinger]

Really, in a very ghoulish moment, celebrated the death of 2,000 Syrian migrants who drowned in the Mediterranean trying to flee the war there. And in 2017, said, that was great and there should be 2,000 more.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Whoa.

[Ken Bensinger]

There's kind of no bottom to the pretty despicable, nasty things she's willing to say, at least in a public forum, march against Syria. She has even called herself a hashtag, proudislamophobe.

[Susan Burton]

There's no judgment as an Islamic feminist.

[Ken Bensinger]

And that kind of stuff starts getting her into trouble.

[Susan Burton]

Well, how do you get banned from Uber? How do you get banned from Lyft? How do you get banned from UberEats just by being and existing as a conservative in this country.

[Ken Bensinger]

She, in 2017, gets kicked off of Uber and Lyft because she made comments about them having Islamic drivers and her not wanting to ride in a car with a Muslim. And the following year, she gets kicked off Twitter because she has been abusive, particularly towards Ilhan Omar, the congresswoman. Just going after her relentlessly on the platform. She gets kicked off that site.

[Susan Burton]

I have been defamed, okay? My life has been destroyed.

[Ken Bensinger]

And pretty soon it cascades, and she's getting kicked off almost every social media platform.

[Susan Burton]

I literally can't make a living anymore, even though I have a degree. I was valedictorian.

[Ken Bensinger]

And that's an interesting thing because it becomes an effective muzzle to her in a lot of ways. Yeah.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Being deplatformed for this person, it does undermine her livelihood at this point. Right. I mean, her professional success depends on her being able to spread her message.

[Ken Bensinger]

That's right. And if you read her book, which I have, you will hear in her words that this is one of the most scarring and painful events of her entire life. Getting kicked off the platforms affects her in a way that I don't think it would affect most people. And she's desperate to find a way to get her voice back and trying to figure out some other way to be relevant now that she can't speak to millions of people on social media.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

So what does she do?

[Ken Bensinger]

So she runs for Congress, obviously. Clearly, in 2020, she runs for Congress, and though she wins the Republican primary, she loses in the general election, and she runs again in 2022. And in that case, she loses in the primary. So that second run fizzles out as well.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

You know, it strikes me that around that time, Trump had also been experiencing some of this. He had also just lost an election. He was deplatformed from social media in the aftermath of January. Their trajectories are kind of aligning.

[Ken Bensinger]

Yeah, it's a really good point. She's off Twitter. Now he's off Twitter. Her voice can't be heard and his voice can't be heard in the same way. And they're suddenly sort of out in the wilderness, in a sense, together. And then for both of them, a life raft comes to them in the form of Elon Musk, of all people. Elon Musk buys Twitter in the fall of 2022. And one of the very first things he does is reinstate Donald Trump's account. And also importantly for this story, Laura Loomer's account, she gets reactivated in December 2022 and immediately pivots to her next big plan, which is to get Donald Trump reelected and back in the White House.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

And what does that look like, that plan, going all in on getting Trump re elected?

[Ken Bensinger]

Well, it starts with focusing on the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis. And while lots of people on the right were embracing DeSantis and excited about him, Laura Loomer saw him as an obstacle and decided to focus essentially all of her energies, making it as hard for him as possible to win the Republican nomination. And right into the beginning of 2023, before he's even declared that he's going to run for president, she stages a protest outside of a book signing event that he's hosting at a bookstore in Florida.

[Susan Burton]

We're simply supporting President Trump.

[Ken Bensinger]

She's wearing Trump gear, carrying Trump flags. And then while the cameras are rolling, something happens.

[Michael Simon Johnson]

Destances people are in there saying, let.

[Ken Bensinger]

Me come out to tell you guys not to be here.

[Michael Simon Johnson]

Why he's here.

[Susan Burton]

I thought that Governor DeSantis was like, he always talks about how he's in favor of free speech. Like, we have a First Amendment right to be here to rally and support a president.

[Ken Bensinger]

Security hired by Ron DeSantis goes out and tells her that she has to leave. I need you guys to leave, please.

[Susan Burton]

Okay?

[Ken Bensinger]

We don't want DeSantis to run for president.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Okay, that's fine.

[Ken Bensinger]

And that turns out to be a viral moment. Laura Loomer puts that out everywhere.

[Susan Burton]

Yeah.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

I mean, what. What a bad political move by the desantis camp, right? Like, that just plays right into Laura Loomer's hands. This is her playbook. And. And he's just following it, basically.

[Ken Bensinger]

I mean, total red meat for Laura Loomer. She jumps on it, makes a slice of bologna into a giant ham sandwich and goes crazy with it. And she also catches the attention of the one person she's most interested in seeing this, which is Donald Trump himself.

[Susan Burton]

And all of a sudden, I get an unknown phone call, and I like, oh, God. I don't like taking it, but something told me to take it. Right. I don't know what did, but I.

[Ken Bensinger]

Did have been a telemarketer.

[Susan Burton]

Yeah.

[Ken Bensinger]

The same night.

[Susan Burton]

Same night, same day. Yeah, same day. Hours, like, three hours after Ron Santis had just called the cops on me.

[Ken Bensinger]

She loves to tell this story that her phone rings and it's an unlisted number.

[Susan Burton]

I answer it and it's like, hello. I like, who's this? Right. I was very annoyed. It's like, hello, Martin, it's your favorite president, Donald Trump. And I thought it was a prank call. And I was like. I was like, no, really, honestly, who is this? Don't waste my time.

[Ken Bensinger]

And she doesn't believe it's him at first, but it is. And he convinces her. But it's Donald Trump.

[Susan Burton]

I just love what you did today. That was sanctimonious. And it was really, honestly President Trump. And I just couldn't believe it. And we had a phone call for, like, 15 minutes, and he was telling me how much he loved me, and he thought I was amazing.

[Ken Bensinger]

And she cannot believe this is happening to her. This is the culmination of all this work and dreaming she's had that Donald Trump is calling her, and to make it even better, he says to her he wants her to come to Mar A Lago and meet him in person.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Wow.

[Ken Bensinger]

And that is major huge for Laura Loomer, and she could not be more excited. She gets her nails done, she gets her hairs done, she buys a new outfit, and she goes to Mar A Lago and is ushered into his office. And there he is with Susie Wiles, who was going to be running his campaign.

[Susan Burton]

And I was so nervous. I sat in his office and we started talking. It was just supposed to be like a thank you, you know, like, oh, Laura Loomer's your biggest fan. You can meet her. And I gave him a signed copy of my book, And I said, Mr. President, you're my hero.

[Ken Bensinger]

So they're there together in Mar A Lago, and Trump asks her what she's seeing in the political space.

[Susan Burton]

We started talking, and he started asking me opinions about people, and I was just rattling off opposition research. That person sucks. This person sucks. This person.

[Ken Bensinger]

And she launches into lots of attacks on lots of Republicans that she says aren't really loyal to the MAGA movement, that aren't loyal to Trump that she thinks are not worthy of his attention.

[Susan Burton]

He's just staring at me. He goes, wow. He's like, you really know what you're talking about.

[Ken Bensinger]

She's making a huge impression on Trump. You know, this is her opportunity and she's not going to squander it. And it clearly works because towards the end of the meeting, Trump tells her she should run for Congress again.

[Susan Burton]

So he said, suzy, let's find a district for her. And I just looked at the president and I said, you know, Mr. President, I don't want to run for Congress. I want you to win. I said, there's no point of anyone being in Congress if you're not the president. And so he loved what I said. I said, I want to put you first.

[Ken Bensinger]

And she says, I don't want to run for Congress. The only thing I want to do is to make sure you get elected. Well, of course, that kind of public but open show of loyalty is exactly what Trump wants to hear, and he loves it. And it has a big smile on his face and says, susie, we should hire this woman.

[Susan Burton]

Susie said that she was going to get me set up with paperwork and whatever, and she wanted me to come down to the campaign headquarter office to meet with her.

[Ken Bensinger]

And so this begins the application process for a job within the Trump campaign. And Bloomer expecting to start, I think, on April 1st or somewhere around that 2023 for the campaign, she submits her tax forms. She does all the things you need to begin that job, and she's thinking she's going to be probably working on comms communications for the campaign, and that her political career and her dream of working for Donald Trump is about to take off.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

And what happens?

[Ken Bensinger]

The job never materializes. It never happens. She learns, in fact, from a story in this newspaper that after discussions inside the campaign about hiring her, there's been a decision not to hire her.

[Susan Burton]

And nobody called me. I never got a phone call from anybody on the campaign telling me after that, by the way, you know, we're really sorry about this, or never got a phone call saying, hey.

[Ken Bensinger]

She is absolutely devastated.

[Susan Burton]

Well, like I said, it's always been about Trump for me. So I was upset. I was so depressed. I cried so much. I locked myself in my apartment for, like a month. And I lost, like, 15 pounds. I was so depressed. I was crying every day. I was so upset.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

And do we know why?

[Ken Bensinger]

Well, we have reporting that people inside the campaign were quite worried about hiring Laura Loomer. Didn't think it would be an asset to the campaign to have her there, fears that she was too loose of a cannon, that she was too hard to manage, and that she could be a liability to the campaign. And even though Donald Trump had asked for it, there was just such strong pressure not to that those in power beneath Trump made sure it didn't occur. And if you follow her social media or you talk to her, she brings this up more than almost any other topic. This almost getting hired and then not getting hired is another foundational moment in her life, and one she's very upset up. And. And so she takes the feelings of this rejection and channels them through her grievance into a new and arguably more important mission to rid his campaign and his administration of anyone she considers an enemy.

[Susan Burton]

There's. There's something about rejection that motivates you to become even more efficient.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

We'll be right back.

[Ken Bensinger]

Hi.

[Michael Simon Johnson]

You're a regular listener of the Daily. You like knowing what's going on in the world. Well, you could know way more if you subscribe to the New York Times. I'm Michael Simon Johnson. I'm one of the producers that makes the Daily. What we can cover on the show is really just a sliver of the incredible reporting that's being published every day in the New York Times. Unexpected, insightful articles you might never otherwise come across. For me, that's this piece about how states legally classify butterflies. It has to do with whether they're considered wildlife. That's hard to explain, but it's fascinating, and you should just read it. The Times obviously delivers the vital, essential news of the day, much of which we cover on the Daily, but there is so much beyond that to explore. And, yes, you support all of this journalism when you become a subscriber to the New York Times, but you also get to experience it. You get your curiosity fed. You get to know cool stuff, and you get to be informed about what's going on in the world. You can [e-mail] subscribe.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

So tell me about this new mission that Loomer pours herself into after she's turned away by Team Trump.

[Ken Bensinger]

So the thing that Loomer starts to think about is that the enemies are everywhere and that the campaign and the incoming administration and the entire Republican Party is riddled with people who are not sufficiently loyal to Trump. And so her project develops as what she calls vetting, or sometimes she calls it extreme vetting, which is finding people who don't love Trump the way she does, who don't love MAGA the way she does, and to publicly out them. And hopefully, she frequently says to end their careers.

[Susan Burton]

I really enjoy, and I take great pleasure in humiliating people who suck at their job. I do. Especially when people steal opportunities from me. I really like rubbing it in their face by showing them that I can do a job way better than they can can.

[Ken Bensinger]

So she walked me through her process, actually, in a conversation we had about this. She looks for names for people on the list of people being appointed or nominated or considered for nomination or in the party or have jobs in packs and fundraising committees and things like that. And then she begins to pick them apart.

[Susan Burton]

If there's, like, a judge that rules against Trump, I start looking into the judge.

[Ken Bensinger]

You Google his name?

[Susan Burton]

I Google his name. And then I start looking at the. Their LinkedIn, their residence, like, looking up, you know, their mortgage.

[Ken Bensinger]

That's your normal process. And look for anything she can find on the Internet, on public filings, on campaign contributions, anything she can find that suggests to her that they might not be 100% in line with what her vision of MAGA is.

[Susan Burton]

I mean, I go through finances. I go through, like, marital relationships, spouses, kids.

[Ken Bensinger]

She told me that if she can't find anything in the first pass, then she looks at their spouse. And if she can't find anything in the spouse, she looks at their children. And if she can't find anything in their children, she looks for their siblings. She can't find anything in their siblings for their parents. She looks for any link in the family that might not be sufficiently MAGA for her criteria. And she weaponizes that.

[Susan Burton]

It just happens to be the case that there's always a conflict, like, especially with the spouses. It gets every time.

[Ken Bensinger]

And so if she finds out that someone's uncle, you know, was a Democratic councilman from some city or their grandfather owned a business in another country, she will bring that forward as evidence that that person shouldn't be there, is dangerous, and is a threat to the administration.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Can you just give me some examples of her targets?

[Ken Bensinger]

Yeah. Well, perhaps one of the most prominent ones is a group of people who worked for International Security Council, who she, en masse, tried to get fired in early April and was fairly successful.

[Susan Burton]

I was doing all my own vetting at this time, and then signal gate happened.

[Ken Bensinger]

She got interested in these people because of what we now call Signalgate, which was this incident in which Mike Waltz, the National Security Advisor, created a group chat with all kinds of people in it to discuss plans to attack Houthi rebels in Yemen. And accidentally, a journalist was admitted in the chat. Who got to observe this happening. And Laura Loomer noticed that one of the people in the chat was a guy named Alex Wong, who was a deputy to Mike Waltz, the national Security advisor.

[Susan Burton]

I started doing my own deep dive on Alex Wong and his wife.

[Ken Bensinger]

And she discovered that he worked on the 2012 campaign of Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president and a fierce critic of Donald Trump. Then she discovered that Wong's wife worked in the Justice Department under Joe Biden.

[Susan Burton]

As I said, wait, so how does somebody become the deputy national Security advisor? And their wife was involved in prosecuting J6ers. It was very shocking stuff.

[Ken Bensinger]

That was, to her mind, a red flag, even though, of course, the woman worked previously in the first Trump Justice Department. So she starts going on X like crazy and saying that Alex Wong is unfit for office, shouldn't have a job, he's a threat, he might even be deep state or some kind of subversive element.

[Susan Burton]

And then I got a phone call from the White House, and it was President Trump.

[Ken Bensinger]

Donald Trump gets wind of this, and.

[Susan Burton]

He goes, wow, So I have your report here on Wong and tell me about this report. And he's asking me about my report, and I'm telling him. And he said, oh, I. I want you to come to the White House, and I want you to let me know who else is problematic. I mean, those aren't the exact words that I used. Right, but that was the sentiment. Right. Obviously, I don't.

[Ken Bensinger]

And invites her to come to the White House. It's her first ever Oval Office visit, first ever White House visit. And she walks in with a sheaf of papers, about 12 different people that she thinks should be fired, including Alex Wonk.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

And what does Trump do? What does he say?

[Ken Bensinger]

So he listens to this presentation, and it's a pretty incredible scene.

[Susan Burton]

I brought my list and presented it, and then Michael Waltz was freaking out when he found out I was there, and he stormed into the Oval Office while I was there.

[Ken Bensinger]

And in the middle of this conversation, Mike Waltz himself walks into the office and has to listen to Laura Loomer besmirch him and the people who work for him. And according to various accounts, including Laura Loomers, but others as well, the President.

[Susan Burton]

Said he wanted all of the people fired.

[Ken Bensinger]

Trump ends the meeting by saying, we have to get rid of these people. We have to fire these people. And indeed, within hours, Trump has fired six of the 12 people that she put on a list in front of him.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Wow. So basically, Trump sides with Loomer over Waltz, his own National Security Advisor.

[Ken Bensinger]

Yeah, that's right. And it's worth noting that Wong never did lose his job, but Mike Waltz did. He was pushed out of the National Security Advisor job and sent over to be the ambassador to the United Nations.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Okay. That's her first big success, and I do remember it. It made a lot of waves. What else does she do? How does this progress?

[Ken Bensinger]

Well, she realizes she's hit on something big and she goes on what could more or less be thought of as a rampage, trying everything she can to get more people fired and finding success doing it. She calls them scalps. And she's racking up one after the other throughout the spring and into the summer.

[Susan Burton]

Michael Waltz, General Hogg, also Hunter Biden, like, I got his Secret Service details completely revoked. So that's great.

[Ken Bensinger]

She gets Hunter Biden's Secret Service detail taken away from him.

[Susan Burton]

The Surgeon General, Jeanette Neuschwat, so that. That's great, too.

[Ken Bensinger]

She gets people who are going to be nominated to be important jobs, like the Surgeon General gets their nomination pulled. She gets a assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles fired.

[Susan Burton]

Like some of the vetting I do, while all of it is always intended to support the President, I do go out of my way a lot of the time to highlight very specific cases of actual incompetence when I know people don't have those jobs because they deserve those jobs and they're not just doing a good job.

[Ken Bensinger]

And it's an incredible run and one that sends terror throughout the entire Republican Party.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

And just to gut check us for a minute, obviously it's in Loomer's interest to claim what she calls scalps. But how can we be sure that she's behind it?

[Ken Bensinger]

It's a good question. The administration has generally stopped short of saying, laura Loomer got this person fired. They haven't disabused people of the idea either, but she's claimed it. And certainly the fact that she is going there in person, saying this stuff and seeing results almost instantly is a very strong indication that if she's not the only factor, she's a big factor. We've seen several instances where she, out of the blue, has posted about someone being nominated for a job or in a job that she thinks they shouldn't have. And within 12 hours or even less sometimes that person is gone. And she discovers pretty quickly that she can weigh in not just on who gets hired or fired, but what the government decides to do. And one of the things she starts getting into is policy and one example of that happened recently. She learned that a charity was bringing in children from Gaza who had been injured in the conflict there and was bringing them to the US for important, often life changing, surgeries. These are often kids who had legs blown off and arms blown off. Some of them were emaciated. And Loomer went online and said that this was importing terrorists and it must stop. And after a day of posting about this online, she picked up the phone and called Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, and told him that he needed to pay attention to this. Well, the next morning, Marco Rubio announced that he was pausing all visas from Palestine for further review and was checking for ties to terrorist organizations for this charity.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

I mean, it's just remarkable when you think of how many foreign leaders in this world would love to be able to pivot up the phone and get Marco Rubio's ear right now.

[Ken Bensinger]

Yeah, it's truly, it's incredible. I mean, the access she has is amazing and I think it's an interesting thing to contrast with the fact that if you ask her, she still thinks that she doesn't have the access she deserves and still is fostered by resentment because she didn't get invited to go to the summit in Alaska the way that another right wing influencer did. I was texting with her recently and she complained that it's so unfair and no one respects her.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

It's really hard to get rid of a chip on your shoulder. I have to ask, we know Trump is loving it. How's the rest of Washington reacting to her outsize role?

[Ken Bensinger]

I think the word you would probably associate with how most Republicans feel when they see Laura Loomer is abject terror. When I spent time with her in the halls of Congress on Capitol Hill, whenever a Republican congressman would see Loomer, their eyes would get big and it looked like they have trying to battle with their fight or flight reflexes. They didn't know whether to get away from her or to, to come up to her. And ultimately what most of them choose to do is go up to her in a very guarded and careful way. And I think their fear of her is quite palpable and frankly understandable given the influence she has.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

You know, we've seen the Trump administration empower many influencers, not just Laura Loomer, people in non traditional media, you know, bringing those folks into the White House press briefing room, they've kind of fed that beast in many ways and it's worked well for them a lot of the time. But there have been these moments at which those influencers have kind of turned against them. Epstein being the starkest, most recent example of that. And I wonder whether you think there's a world where embracing people like Loomer who are willing to cross all of these lines might come back to bite the White House.

[Ken Bensinger]

There are a lot of people in the administration who think of her as a ticking time bomb, as something that is extremely dangerous and should be kept as far away as possible.

[Susan Burton]

So the other day, there was a hit piece about me. They obviously talked to some people at the White House, and it said Trump's staff are getting tired of Laura Loomer.

[Ken Bensinger]

Yeah.

[Susan Burton]

And literally the next day, I'm at the White house before with J.D. van. Right. So this article was.

[Ken Bensinger]

But grouping her in the same bucket as other influencers or other social media trolls or anything like that was kind of a mistake, because she isn't like them. She doesn't go to their parties. She doesn't live in a mansion. She lives in a little rental house in the Gulf coast of Florida, and she spends all day on the phone trying to find dirt on people and trying to make noise.

[Susan Burton]

Why would I give a about what they think about me when I play for nothing?

[Ken Bensinger]

She has a singular mission that is truly, I think, unique in this sphere, and it sets her apart. And it is the mission that motivates her and keeps her going every day. And it is the thing that makes people wake up in the middle of the night with a cold sweat.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

And just to be clear, that mission is defending Trump at all costs.

[Ken Bensinger]

That's it. That's the one goal she has in mind. And it is all she knows how to do. And I don't think she's capable of imagining anything else that she'd want to do, nor is there anything she would really trade it for. I think at this point, at the.

[Susan Burton]

End of the day, the only person that really matters is Donald Trump.

[Ken Bensinger]

She is his perfect, blunt instrument that can do the jobs that no one else will get done in exchange. What she gets out of this is the approval and acceptance of Donald J. Trump.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Ken, thank you so much.

[Ken Bensinger]

Thank you, Natalie.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Wednesday, Israel approved new settlements in the west bank, fragmenting land that had been envisioned as. As part of a Palestinian state. Under the plan, 3,400 additional housing units would be built in one of the most sensitive areas of the west bank, near Jerusalem. At the same time, the Israeli military moved ahead with plans to take over Gaza City, saying its troops had advanced to the city's outskirts. Tents were being moved into southern Gaza for people who would be displaced from their homes. Together, the moves raised questions about whether a new ceasefire proposal for the war in Gaza had any chance of moving forward. And on Wednesday, after weeks of partisan fighting, the Texas House passed a new congressional map that delivered President Trump the gerrymandering he'd asked for. The goal was to clinch five new Republican seats in the House next year. The state Senate is expected to vote on the map as soon as Thursday evening and would then send it to Governor Greg Abbott for his promised signature. Today's episode was produced by Rob Zipko, Caitlin o' Keefe and Astha Chattervedi. It was edited by Rachel Quester and was engineered by Chris Wood. Special thanks to Ashley Calloway Blatch and Daniel Dana Green. That's it for the Daily I'm Natalie Kitrowev. See you tomorrow.