What A Day - Laura Loomer's Rise To The Top

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Say what you will about President Donald Trump’s first administration, but at least some of the people given top jobs had a morsel of experience doing those jobs. Now, the Trump administration is chock full of the weirdest people the MAGA world has to offer, united by their personal allegiance to one man – Donald J. Trump. From Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, whose qualifications are “co-hosted the weekend edition of Fox and Friends” to Paul Ingrassia, the former podcaster nominated to run the Office of Special Counsel, who thinks the descendents of slaves should pay the descendants of slave-OWNERS reparations….to Laura Loomer, a Jewish, white nationalist, 9/11 truther, who made headlines in 2018 when she chained herself to the doors of Twitter’s office to protest getting banned from the platform.It’s a cavalcade of the worst people ever to be given a high-speed internet connection. Especially when they now have real power. So we spoke to Will Sommer, senior reporter at The Bulwark, to help us understand how the craziest people in America rose to the very top of the federal government.And in headlines: Trump goes to the Museum of the Bible to talk about how much he loves religion, Pete Hegseth hypes up the troops in Puerto Rico, and Democrats release a very NSFW birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein, allegedly signed by Trump himself.Show Notes:Check out Will's work – substack.com/@willsommerCall Congress – 202-224-3121Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Tuesday, September 9th, I'm Jane Koston, and this is What Today? The show congratulating Lachlan Murdoch on winning control of the Murdoch Empire, which includes Fox News, the New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal. I'm sure he will enjoy being loathed by one of this country's two main political factions for the rest of his life. And honestly, it could be either faction at any time. On today's show, President Donald Trump goes to the Museum of the Bible to say we need religion to have a great nation. And Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsev goes to Puerto Rico to hype up our troops. But let's start with, hmm, weirdos.

Say what you will about Trump's first administration, and believe me, I have. But at least some of the people given top jobs had a morsel of actual experience doing those actual jobs. Former National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster, for example, was a lieutenant general in the United States Army, and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Millie, previously served as a chief of staff of the Army. But that was then. Now, the Trump administration is chockful of the weirdest people

the MAGA world has to offer, united by their personal allegiance to one man, Donald J. Trump. From Secretary of Defense, or is it Secretary of War now, Pete Heggseth, whose qualifications are, co-hosted the Weekend Edition of Fox and Friends, to Pauline Grascia, the former podcaster nominated to run the Office of Special Counsel who loves Andrew Tate and thinks the descendants of slaves should pay the descendants of slave owners reparations. It's a cavalcade of the worst people to ever be given a high-speed

internet connection, especially when they now have real power. And then there's Laura Lumer, a MAGA influencer who has an almost manic obsession with Trump. She's a Jewish white nationalist 9-11 Truther, who made headlines in 2018 when she changed herself to the doors of Twitter's New York City office to protest getting banned from the platform for Islamophobia. And somehow, that's all just the tip of the Laura Lumer iceberg. And you know what's actually terrifying? Lumer has Trump's ear on hiring, firing, and even who gets to enter the United States in the first place? Fantastic. No one knows the world of MAGA better than Will Summer, a senior reporter with the bulwark. So we absolutely had to talk to Will about the world of MAGA and how the most

bananas pants people in America rose to the very top of the federal government. Well, Summer, welcome back to Waddy. Hey, thanks for having me. I'm so happy that you're here, because if anyone can explain what is going on in the world of right-wing influencers who have way too much influence over this administration, it's you. So I thought we could start with just an overview of some of the main players in this sphere. If you had to draw like a family tree of mega personalities that have real influence on the White House right now, who would be in it? I mean, I think at the top I'd put Laura Lumer. You know, she's someone who has managed to really take heads, knocking specific people out of organizations. I mean, she got the general counsel at the NSA out. I mean, she perched

the National Security Council. She got the head of, you know, vaccine treatments approval ousted at the FDA. I mean, the list goes on. So I think she would definitely be at the top of the list, among others. So we have Laura Lumer at the top of the food chain. Who else is in this, do you think? Like the important people, you know, kind of your Jack's Posobic, for example. Yeah, sure. I mean, let's just jump off with Jack Posobic there. I mean, this is a guy who, he was originally like a Game of Thrones fan fiction writer. That didn't really work out. I mean, this is the deep lore. He was one of the first Pizza Gate guys. He went to Comet ping pong and was live streaming. It was sort of like, maybe I'll get eaten. I don't know.

And so then from there, he became a right-wing pundit, and now we see him. He pals around with Pete Hegseth. He goes on these foreign trips. He's one of these people who's invited to these sort of cozy, bizarreo press briefings, you might call them, where they're stocked with all of these real pro-Trump reporters. Or, you know, you could also look at someone like Charlie Kirk, the head of Turning Point USA, who's a podcaster, but also has so much influence on the right that we know when the Jeffrey Epstein saga was really at its height. that Donald Trump reportedly called him personally and said, hey, lay off. Stop talking about Epstein.

I want to drill down into the completely baffling assent of Laura Lumer because she's climbed the ladder above everyone else and has a direct line to the president and yet has changed absolutely nothing about how she talks about her beliefs or just how she behaves in general. Like, I think that a lot of people were really thrown off last year when she was flying with then candidate Trump to the 9-11 memorial while she is also a 9-11 truther. And I think that a lot of people, it seems, are terrified of her because she has gotten a lot of people fired, as you've mentioned. And I just want to know, how did we go from someone who I knew, because I'm terminally online as the person who chained herself to the door of Twitter's headquarters to being the top

Trump whisper? How did this happen? I mean, it just sort of shows you, I think, how much Donald Trump values this kind of like almost, you know, incredibly intense loyalty towards him. I mean, this is someone, as you said, who sick-offency, I think would be the way to put it. Yeah, I mean, she said basically, I've given up having a family, having kids, I've devoted my life to Donald Trump. So she's, for her, Trump is everything. And as you said, she was doing stuff, you know, seven, eight years ago that even these other right-wing influencers were like, you know, I don't want to be seen with her. You know, she got banned from Twitter. She called me up, and said, you know, my life has been ruined, you know, she seemed to be, it got to the point

I was like, do I even want to write about her? I mean, she basically has no influence. And yet, through this kind of really, like, diehard, kamikaze devotion to Donald Trump, and she's willing to attack people, like, for really crazy reasons. I mean, she went after this, I believe, a Medal of Honor recipient who was, who had badly hurt his leg by tackling a suicide bomber, you know, a hero by any measure. And she said, well, this guy spoke with the Democratic Convention. The Pentagon shouldn't be honoring this guy. I mean, for her really, it just seems like Donald Trump is the only thing that matters. I mean, most recently, or maybe most strikingly, she managed to get the U.S. to block medical visas for injured gossans, children who had limbs blown off who were visiting the country

for medical treatment. She started saying, you know, who knows what these gossens are going to get up to in America. This was an issue that didn't even exist for conservatives before she posted about it. And then within 48 hours, she manages to get all these children and adults blocked from receiving medical treatment. I mean, that is how much influence she has. And I, and I think. I think obviously that she's often using it for really, you know, sinister ends. And what is her end goal? Like, she's talked about how, as you've mentioned, like she doesn't care about having a family or really having a life outside of Donald Trump.

But she has run for office before. Didn't go well. She was allegedly up for potentially the White House press secretary job. Did not get that. But what's in it for her besides her deep and abiding love for Donald Trump? Yeah. So this is interesting. On one hand, I do think she really is just very obsessed with Donald Trump. And, you know, I've talked to her a good amount. And, you know, that's her life. You know, you watch

these videos where journalists visit her in her apartment and it's very Trump-themed. We got kind of a glimpse into this in the summer of 2024 when people were saying, you know, what's up with Trump and Lumer? Why are they hanging out? Bill Maher sort of insinuated on his show that they were sleeping together. And so she's suing him over that. And this deposition revealed all these embarrassing things about her. one of the things they said was, well, you know, what did Bill Moore really do that hurt you so much? And she said, well, you know, I could have, you know, I'd like to be a White House press secretary. I'd like to be in the administration. And then from there, you know, who knows, I could have my own foundation. People work at the White House and get cable news gigs. I could have had this, you know, paraphrasing here, I could have had this sort of very lucrative career after the Trump administration.

So I want to ask, what is Laura Lumer's process? Like, how was she finding all of this information? about people who are like, you know, some undersecretariat, the national security administration or something like that. Like, how is she doing this? Well, you know, I think what she would say is just that, you know, she works really hard and she Googles people a lot and goes through campaign finance filings. I believe that to some extent. But I also think it's pretty fair to assume that there are people within the administration who are leaking things to her. I mean, she knew details about Hunter Biden's security detail

when he was abroad. I mean, things that you obviously couldn't just look up online. And also, I think she's sort of being used, and I'm sure she doesn't mind it, by various factions. If they want to take someone out, if they want to take some policy role for their own group, that they'll leak against someone, some unflattering information or, you know, a tweet that this person sent against Trump. Or, you know, factions within the administration are also outside of it. I mean, she really went on a campaign against some of RFK juniors people at HHS and the FDA in a way that prompted allegations that she was in league with big pharma. Again, we don't really have concrete proof of that, but she does really seem to champion these causes in suspicious ways. Now, here's another

question for you. You and I both know that among MAGA people and especially among Republicans who are MAGA adjacent and are kind of putting up with a lot of this, none of them like Laura Lumer. They all very much dislike her. Why do you think that those people have had so little success in separating Trump from Lumer. Yeah, I mean, certainly, you know, the Marjorie Taylor Green, who's like an arch enemy of Laura Lomers, people like that have leaked unflattering things about Lumer in an attempt to sort of keep Trump from hiring her. At the same time, you know, she gets back in somehow. And I think it is Trump seems to really like her. And she's really effective.

I mean, she can sort of take out his enemies or people she deems disloyal. And so I think as long as she keeps the hits coming, I mean, she'll be with the administration. And often how these big right-wing media personalities bump up against each other and turn on each other, the sad reality is that often does affect our policies and sort of the future of this country. I mean, I think that that goes to my big wrap-up question for you, which is, what does all of this say about the Trump administration? I mean, I don't think it says anything good. I mean, I think truly these people who we recognized as in the past in the first administration is sort of very unsavory or unhinged characters, that now are regularly visiting the White House and, you know, calling the shots to some extent.

I mean, obviously, it's alarming, among many alarming things with this administration. Will, thank you so much, as always, for joining me. Thanks for having me. That was my conversation with Will Summer, a senior reporter with the bulwark, where he covers right-wing media. We'll get to more than news in a moment. But if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcast, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends.

More to come after some ads. What a day is brought to you by Zubiotics. Let's face it, after a night with drinks, I don't bounce back the next day like I used to. I have to make a choice. I can either have a great night or a great next day. That is, until I found pre-alcohol. Zibiotics pre-alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by Ph.D. scientists to tackle.

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To have a great nation, you have to have religion. I believe that so strongly. There has to be something after we go through all. of this, and that something is God. Inspiring. That's Trump speaking to his Religious Liberty Commission at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. He announced new guidance from the Department of Education on prayer in public schools, but didn't say what the guidance would actually entail. He spoke for nearly an hour on religion and a host of unrelated topics. First, he alleged that schoolchildren are being, quote, indoctrinated with anti-religious propaganda. Then he called former President

Joe Biden a, quote, mean guy. And then he brought up crime in the District of Columbia, suggesting that domestic violence shouldn't count as a crime because it undermines the perceived success of his crackdown on the city. Things that take place in the home, they call crime. You know, they'll do anything they can to find something. If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say this was a crime, see? So now I can't claim 100%.

Domestic violence is a crime. Trump also announced that he would donate his own family Bible because that apparently exists and has been opened, to the Bible museum. Unclear if it's the same Bible he brought to his infamous photo op in Lafayette Square in 2020. Or perhaps it's one of his branded, God bless the USA Bibles,

which can be yours for just $100. A new list of convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein's associates that is currently being compiled by survivors of his abuse has around 30 to 50 names on it. That's according to one of Epstein's, survivors, Lisa Phillips, who spoke exclusively to crooked media's Matt Berg.

Last week, survivors of Epstein made headlines by announcing a plan to draft their own list of people associated with him. Phillips tells Berg that not all of the people listed are accused of wrongdoing. Her comments come as the Epstein Trump controversy continues to balloon. Lawyers for Epstein's estate gave Congress a copy of the now infamous birthday book. Remember that book? The one the Wall Street Journal reported in July that contains letters from Epstein's social circle, including one signed by none other than Donald Trump, well, now you can see the letter for yourself. That's because Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released it on Monday.

Here's ranking member California Representative Robert Garcia. This note Donald Trump has said does not exist. Well, once again, he is lying to the American public and is leading a White House cover. Now, I'm going to show you the note that we've now acquired. It's a little crude. So I do apologize if you don't want to see it. But this is the actual note. You see the president's signature there.

You can read some of the words that he is sharing with his friend, Jeffrey Epstein. Head to our YouTube to see the letter in fault. Trump has denied writing the letter and sued the journal for its reporting. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt also continued to deny the legitimacy of the letter Monday, saying that litigation will continue. What is happening here in the city of Los Angeles is wrong and violates people's constitutional rights, and I think they will get the unmistakable picture that we will present to them, and we will get the victory. Immigrants' rights attorneys and advocates rallied Monday, hitting back at the Supreme Court.

It comes after the justices handed Trump a win in his crackdown on immigration, allowing immigration and customs enforcement to continue its so-called roving raids around Los Angeles. When armed ICE officers, wearing masks, singled people out at car washes and Home Depot parking lots based on loose criteria such as speaking Spanish. The court didn't explain its decision. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court's first Hispanic justice, responded in a fiery dissent, which was joined by the other liberal justices. Quote, we should not have to live in a country where the government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low-wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost,

I dissent. How we doing, warriors? I think this might be the single most beautiful picture I have ever seen in my entire life. Now, that's a man who likes to hear himself speak. Make no mistake about it.

What you're doing right now, it's not training. This is the real world exercise on behalf of the vital national interests of the United States of America to end the poisoning of the American people. Secretary of Defense, excuse me, war, Pete Higsef gave in absolutely rousing and not at all concerning speech to troops aboard the USS Iwojima on Monday. Higseth traveled to Puerto Rico alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Air Force General Dan Cain, as the U.S. steps up its military operations against drug cartels in the

Caribbean. Just over a week ago, hundreds of U.S. Marines deployed to Puerto Rico for a training exercise, a move that some on the island have criticized. Heggseth also rallied troops on the ground, hyping up Trump's executive order to rename the Department of Defense. The reason I like the name War Department so much is not because I love war. I don't, and neither do you. it's because I seek and love peace. No, I think Pete Higsef loves war a whole lot. This all comes on the heels of a U.S. strike carried out in the Southern Caribbean against a vessel that had left Venezuela and was suspected of carrying drugs.

Eleven people were killed in the rare U.S. military operation there. Trump and his subservient administration said the vessel was operated by the Venezuelan gang, Trenda Aragua, but provided no evidence. Venezuela's government on Monday insisted that the U.S. falsely accusing it of playing a crucial role in the global drug trade. And that's the news. Before we go, I'm excited to officially announce that I will be at CrookedCon. And I want to share a preview of our lineup, which includes Dan Pfeiffer, Ben Rhodes, Alyssa Mastr Monaco,

Aaron Ryan, Sarah Longwell, Hassan Piker, Fas Shakir, Brian Tyler Cohen, Jessica Tarlov, Senator Rubin Gallego, Governor Andy Bashir, Representative Sarah McBride, Representative Janelle Bynum, and Ben Wickler, all with a strict scrutiny live pod to close out the day. CrookedCon is your chance to join some of the smartest organizers and least-annowing politicians in America to strategize debate and commiserate about where the pro-democratic movement goes from here, hopefully up. We will all be in Washington, D.C. on November 7th for a full day of exciting conversations, panels, workshops, and live pods. And by popular demand, we just added more tickets. See the full lineup and get your tickets before they sell out at crookedcon.com.

That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, celebrate great minds like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, threatening to punch a top Trump housing official quote, in the fucking face at a private party last Wednesday and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, and not just about how this is possibly the third time Bessent has threatened to punch another official in the face just in the last six months? Like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston and Scott Bessent. Stop threatening to punch people in the face unless you're willing to punch someone in the face. Also, stop doing everything else you're doing.

What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Ford. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Megan Larson, Gina Pollock, and Jonah Eatman. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adrian Hill. We had helped today from the Associated Press. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. POMAYOR.

Thank you.