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Loomer says she does not work for Trump. However, she has
mentioned speaking to him about political matters and frequents
his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida. Her incendiary posts on X, where
she has 1.2 million followers, at times seem to provide grist
for Trump's next lines of attack.
Ahead of Trump's debate with Democratic Vice President and
presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Tuesday, Loomer said
that if Harris, who is of Indian descent, won the Nov. 5
election, "the White House will smell like curry & White House
speeches will be facilitated via a call center."
"It is, repugnant, these types of comments, it is un-American to
say these types of things, exactly the kind of hateful and
divisive rhetoric that we should denounce," White House
spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said on Thursday.
"No leader should ever associate with someone who spreads this
kind of ugliness, this kind of racist poison," Jean-Pierre said.
Loomer flew with Trump to his Tuesday debate in Pennsylvania and
was in New York with him and his team on Wednesday for a
commemoration of the Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks, according
to video and photo footage.
Loomer has previously suggested the Sept. 11 attacks were an
insider job by sharing a video last year on Twitter that
promoted that conspiracy theory. She has since changed her
position and told CNN in an interview published on Thursday that
the attacks were carried out by "Islamic terrorists."
Trump's campaign, when asked about the White House criticism of
his ties to Loomer, did not directly address their relations but
said he sought bipartisan unity in the Wednesday ceremony
marking the Sept. 11 attacks.
In an online post, Loomer dismissed the White House criticism,
denying she was a racist and suggesting that Jean-Pierre, the
daughter of Haitian immigrants, was critical because she didn't
like Loomer's social media post on Thursday about a false claim
that Haitian immigrants are eating pets.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh, Gabriella Borter, Alexandra Ulmer
and Helen Coster, editing by Ross Colvin and Howard Goller)
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