Lindsey Graham has urged Donald Trump to ditch “toxic” far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer following her racist comments and his poor debate performance against Kamala Harris.
The Republican senator, one of Trump’s close allies, admitted he agrees with Maga Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has also called for the former president to distance himself from Loomer after she wrote a racist post denigrating Harris’s Indian heritage.
“Marjorie Taylor Greene is right. I don’t say that a lot,” Graham told Huffpost. “We have policy disagreements but the history of this person is just really toxic. I mean, she actually called for Kellyanne Conway’s daughter to hang herself. I don’t know how this all happened, but, no, I don’t think it’s helpful. I don’t think it’s helpful at all.”
Greene called Loomer out on Wednesday for a racist post about Harris. “It does not represent who we are as Republicans or MAGA. This does not represent President Trump. This type of behavior should not be tolerated ever,” she said on social media platform X.
Her reprimand sparked a public feud between the pair on the social media platform.
In an unusual move, Graham said he agreed with Greene, slamming Loomer’s remarks about Harris as “abhorrent.”
“But it’s deeper than that,” the South Carolina senator continued. “I mean, you know, some of the things she’s said about Republicans and others is disturbing. I mean, to call for someone’s daughter to hang themselves. Yeah, no, I think that the president would serve himself well to make sure this doesn’t become a bigger story.”
Before the debate, Graham warned Trump may lose the election if he does not shift his strategy and end the personal attacks on Harris.
Other Republicans are concerned Loomer is influencing Trump and worry she may have had something to do with his poor debate performance, after accompanying him on his plane to Philadelphia on Tuesday ahead of the clash with Harris.
She was also seen in the spin room after the debate and was with Trump in New York as he attended the memorial of the 9/11 anniversary.
One person close to the president’s campaign said they’re now afraid the far-right activist may be making Trump’s “weaknesses” worse, Semafor reports.
“Trump lost the debate because of his performance or lack thereof,” Dennis Lennox, a Republican consultant, told the outlet. “That’s what happens when you wing it, live in the Fox News-X bubble, and rely upon Matt Gaetz, let alone Laura Loomer.”
Loomer has become well known for her incendiary behavior, once protesting her Twitter ban by handcuffing herself to the New York offices of the social media company while wearing a yellow Jewish star as she compared her treatment to the Holocaust.
The divisive far-right activist has also said that she’s supportive of white nationalism and insisted the US is a “white Judeo-Christian ethnostate” that is being ruined by diversity.