by Donald Trump’s close ally Laura Loomer told a white nationalist conference in 2022 that she considered herself a “white advocate”, according to a recording of the speech obtained by the Guardian.
Loomer has come under scrutiny in recent days after appearing with Trump on a flight to Tuesday’s presidential debate, followed by a series of racist tweets directed at Kamala Harris.
Related: ‘They’ve ruined the place’: Trump repeats racist, anti-immigrant lies
That caused a political storm after Trump’s disastrous performance in the debate, with Harris emerging as the clear winner. In particular, the rise of Trump’s false claims of Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating pets has sparked outrage and ridicule.
Some observers blamed Trump’s performance in part on his recent closeness to Loomer, including being pictured standing with him at this week’s 9/11 anniversary.
The revelation of Loomer’s comments about being an advocate for white people is likely to fuel the controversy over Trump’s relationship with Loomer, especially since they are just the latest in a long line of extreme statements from the self-described podcaster and journalist.
Her attendance at the American Renaissance conference was reported at the time by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), but the content of her speech has so far not been scrutinized.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the conference is an American Renaissance, where “racist intellectuals” clash with Klansmen, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists”.
Loomer spoke to the congress in November 2022, after losing the Republican primary in the conservative Florida district that August 11th. To applause from the audience, Loomer said: “I consider myself a white advocate and I openly campaigned for the United States Congress as a white advocate.”
Aside from her claim to be a “white advocate,” Loomer’s speech focused on her grievances with traditional companies and social media and the Republican party, all of which she blamed for her loss.
She claimed during her campaign, “local TV stations wouldn’t let me have a congressional debate even though every other congressional candidate could have a televised debate in their district, because they called me a white supremacist”.
Loomer continued: “And they said I was, you know, too nationalist and too far to the right, because I openly ran my campaign on the right side of the GOP.”
She said: “I’ve been a Republican all my life, but unfortunately we live in a two-party system, which really feels like unity, but I’m here to tell you today that the Republican party is no longer okay . for me.”
Then she struck a hopeful note about a third party. “So maybe they will be another option in the future some day.”
Loomer then turned his sights on “Kevin McCarthy and the Congressional Leadership Fund and the Republican party”, saying that they had “made such an effort this year to spend hundreds of millions of dollars … to push the Hispanic vote to get the Black vote” and “also used millions of dollars, by their own admission, to campaign against America First nationalist candidates”.
Loomer told the gathered white nationalists that “the three biggest issues I’ve focused on in my campaign are election integrity, combating mass high-tech social media censorship and election interference, and a 10-year minimum immigration moratorium.”
She said: “I was one of the first candidates to campaign in favor of mass deportations in an immigration moratorium and I was the first candidate to campaign to break big tech.”
Loomer’s anti-immigrant rhetoric to the congressman reflects Trump’s policy positions. In recent days the former president has repeated his promises of mass deportations, and during the debate he falsely accused Haitian immigrants of eating pets.
Loomer told the conference crowd that her positions were “demonized – as I mentioned – as extremist even by my own Republican party”.
But the statements at the conference hardly stand alone.
Weeks earlier, while recording a podcast before the conference, Loomer thanked Jared Taylor, the podcast host and conference organizer, for being his “white advocate and being a white advocate and pioneering the intellectual discussion, on across the race and demographics of this country”.
In March, during a podcast appearance before the primary, Loomer told Taylor that “my district is also the whitest district in the entire state of Florida”, and that she was looking for “issues [critical race theory] and anti-white racism and anti-white hatred”, and opposing “the anti-white Christian attitude that the Democrats are pushing”.
Loomer assured Taylor that the Democrats “wanted to persecute white people. They want to persecute Christians, the most persecuted people in the world.”
Loomer added: “I’m looking forward to being their advocate when I win my race and, you know, be elected as the next wife.”
Loomer later lost to Congressman Daniel Webster.
Loomer emerged as an anti-Muslim, pro-Trump activist during Trump’s first run at the White House in 2016. She has a long history of controversy, including protesting a performance of Julius Caesar that she saw as anti-Trump. , handcuffing himself to Twitter’s. headquarters to protest her deregistration there, and now attacking immigrants and Kamala Harris after Trump’s debate performance, which is widely seen as disastrous for his campaign.
The Guardian has contacted Loomer for comment.
