USA US activist has National Security Council purged

SDA

3.4.2025 - 20:51

US President Donald Trump arrives at an event to announce new tariffs in the Rose Garden of the White House. Photo: Evan Vucci/AP/dpa
US President Donald Trump arrives at an event to announce new tariffs in the Rose Garden of the White House. Photo: Evan Vucci/AP/dpa
Keystone

An ultra-right activist with wild conspiracy theories is said to have persuaded US President Donald Trump to fire several members of his National Security Council. The activist Laura Loomer, who described the Islamist attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001 as an inside job, accused staff members of not being loyal enough to the president during a meeting with Trump, the CNN channel and other media reported.

Keystone-SDA

Remarkable meeting

The "New York Times" spoke of six dismissals, while other employees had been transferred. During a 30-minute meeting, Loomer belittled the employees in front of the President and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. Trump's Vice President JD Vance also took part in the meeting.

The "New York Times" spoke of a remarkable meeting in which a conspiracy theorist, who is considered too extreme even by many in Trump's movement, had more influence on Trump than Waltz, who heads the National Security Council. According to the reports, those dismissed also include a leading intelligence officer on the National Security Council.

Loomer had already supported Trump during the election campaign. Among other things, she wrote on Platform X, alluding to the Indian descent of presidential candidate Kamala Harris, that if the Democrat won the election, "the White House would smell like curry" and speeches in the government headquarters would be "handled by a call center". She also speculated that then-Democratic President Joe Biden was behind an assassination attempt on Trump.