As Donald Trump got off the plane for the Presidential debate earlier this week, a figure who exited after him sparked deep concern among some of his supporters.
Laura Loomer smiled as she disembarked in Philadelphia in a sign that she has found her way firmly into the former President’s inner circle.
Ms Loomer has extreme views – she has called herself a “proud Islamophobe” and said she supports “pro-white nationalism”.
In a sickening post last week, she said that if Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris wins November’s election, then “the White House will smell like curry” in a crude reference to the Vice-President’s Indian heritage.
She also appeared with the former Trump at a 9/11 remembrance ceremony, having previously described the twin tower attacks as an “inside job”.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre condemned Loomer’s comments, saying: “No leader should ever associate with someone who spreads this kind of ugliness… this kind of racist poison.”
Ms Loomer, a former Republican Congressional candidate, has been banned from social media sites but was allowed back on X by Elon Musk and has more than one million followers.
She has espoused numerous conspiracy theories, most recently the idea that the earrings Vice-President Harris’ wore during the debate were audio receivers.
Loomer also boosted the baseless idea promoted by Trump during the debate that migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing pets and eating them.
Over the summer, Trump appeared in a video with Ms Loomer, calling her “really, really special”.
He is said to have wanted to hire her for his campaign but was blocked, a move that appears to have done nothing to stop her ascendancy in Trump’s orbit. At the 9/11 ceremony, Ms Loomer told Associated Press she was attending “as a guest“.
Her presence has also sparked ire among Republicans, with a spokesperson for Senator Lindsey Graham describing her as a “stain on society” in a statement to NBC News.
Laura Loomer has been contacted for comment.
Trump’s interest in figures like Ms Loomer comes as no surprise to David Cay Johnston, the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist who has covered Trump for 36 years and wrote three books about him.
He said that Trump was “appallingly ignorant” and noted that during the debate, he said the migrant story must be true because he had seen it on TV.
Mr Cay Johnston said: “Donald doesn’t pay attention, so when he picks something up that’s appealing, he runs with it.
“That’s the depth of Donald’s knowledge and thinking.
“Donald creates his own reality. If he says something, that makes it true, even if he contradicts himself 90 seconds later.
“If you question what he said, you’re spreading ‘fake news’.”
According to Mr Cay Johnston, Trump is always looking for something that will “advance his cons”.
From claiming that former President Barack Obama was not born in the US to disparaging Senator Ted Cruz by falsely claiming his father was involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, each bizarre statement helps Trump – or at least, in his mind, it does – the author said.
“The key thing a con artist does is get people to buy into something and suspend scepticism at the point when it should be at a high level,” Mr Cay Johnston said.
“Trump knows the number one issue in this election is the Southern border, so he’s going to push that in a way that has a visceral appeal.”
Trump has in the past dined with white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, a move that sparked a row and forced him to distance himself from Mr Fuentes.
Trump has suggested that President Bill Clinton was involved in a plot to kill Jeffrey Epstein, the late paedophile financier, and suggested the killing of Osama bin Laden was staged using a body double.
But while they are undoubtedly outlandish, do these conspiracy theories harm Trump with voters?
John Conway, director of strategy for Republican Voters Against Trump, said that voters in swing states were “definitely turned off” by such things being brought up.
The day after the debate, his group – which makes no secret of its feelings towards the Republican candidate – polled Trump voters from 2016 who backed Joe Biden in 2020 and found they were “shocked how insane [Trump] looked”.
Mr Conway said that one of those polled told them that they “literally did a spit take” when Trump talked about dogs and cats being eaten by migrants.
Voters like this person had a bit of “Trump amnesia”, Mr Conway said, and had forgotten why they had turned their backs on him.
“Now they’ve seen the unfiltered Donald Trump, he’s rambling and talking about conspiracy theories, January 6th. The view from our focus group was: ‘Woah, this is the guy I’d forgotten about a bit, he’s completely unacceptable’.”
Republican strategist Amy Koch echoed those thoughts and said that Trump’s comments about the dogs were “said in such a crazy, old coot way”.
But they could have a serious consequence should Trump refuse to accept the results of the election again, just as he did in 2020.
In December of that year, Trump held a meeting in White House with fringe lawyers and advisers, where they discussed using the military to seize voting machines. No such plans were put into effect.
Ms Koch said that should the election be contested, Trump’s looseness with the truth may take on a far different emphasis.
She said: “When you have someone who is such a narcissist and they’re surrounded by people who crave power, they are willing to do anything. It’s a very bad combination.
“The same person who would go on a national stage and say something that is false is true might take someone’s word when they say we found a bunch of election discrepancies in Michigan and we need to go to war on this.
“That’s where something you laughed at becomes more dangerous.”