Conspiracy theorist said to have been key promoter of false rumour about immigrants ex-president repeated in debate
Republicans are blaming the influence of Laura Loomer, a rightwing conspiracy theorist, for this week’s botched debate performance by Donald Trump, which included the former president repeating a bizarre and unfounded claim that pet cats and dogs were being eaten by Haitian immigrants.
Loomer flew with Trump on his private plane to Tuesday’s debate in Philadelphia and has been identified as a key promoter of the pets rumour, which has been dismissed as false by authorities in Springfield, Ohio, where the practice was alleged to have been taking place.
…
Loomer, who styles herself as an “investigative journalist”, last year promoted a conspiracy theory alleging that 9/11 was an”inside job”. On Wednesday she posted an unfounded allegation that Harris had worn earphones disguised as earrings during the debate.
There’s a leopard-ate-my-face quality to this. Acting surprised when crazy conspiracy theorists are invited into the campaign.
It’s rich that it’s MTG pushing back though, the infamous peddler of Jewish space lasers theories.
That’s the problem with infinitely escalating insanity in a party, there’s always a newer more insane level of insanity. MTG is a moderate now.
BUT HE HEARD IT ON THE TV!
I love that that was his excuse while he was simultaneously on tv being told by someone else on tv that it wasn’t true lol.
Not to mention that this is the guy who popularized, in his 2016 campaign, the term “fake news”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news#Donald_Trump’s_misuse_of_term
Trump has claimed that the mainstream American media (which he calls the “lying press”) regularly reports “fake news” or “hoax news”, despite the fact that he generated considerable false and inaccurate or misleading statements himself.
Trump has often attacked mainstream news reporting publications, deeming them “fake news” and the “enemy of the people”.[255][256][257][258][259] Every few days, Trump would issue a threat against the press due to his claims of “fake news”.
In September 2018, National Public Radio noted that Trump has expanded his use of the terms fake and phony to “an increasingly wide variety of things he doesn’t like”: “The range of things Trump is declaring fake is growing too. Last month he tweeted about “fake books,” “the fake dossier,” “fake CNN,” and he added a new claim—that Google search results are “RIGGED” to mostly show only negative stories about him.” They graphed his expanding use in columns labeled: “Fake news”, "Fake (other) and “Phony”.
I mean, I’m not gonna say that he’s the person in the world who could least-reasonablly make the assertion that anything on TV must be true with any degree of self-consistency, but he has got to be pretty high on the list.
EDIT: See, that would be the kind of thing that I think that it’d be fun to have Jon Stewart doing one of his “past politician vs current politician” things on.
That comment was almost even better than the “they’re eating pets” one. How absolutely insane that someone running for Commander in Chief would think “I saw it on TV” is a good defense on a fact check.
And the way he said it, all whiny, like it isn’t his fault if the racist lie he repeated isn’t true because his source of information is both unimpeachable and not his responsibility.
Trump knew it was bullshit. He just forgot that his audience wasn’t his brainwashed supporters.
Either that or he actually believed it was real. And I don’t know which one is worse.
I think he absolutely believed it. The “But I saw it on TV!” seemed 100% genuine.
The way he responded about the official statement reveals how he views all public servants as well. Paraphrasing the response to the official statement: “yeah, well that’s a nice thing for an official to say. But I saw it on TV what they were saying!”
His initial reaction is essentially “of course the official is lying, that’s what you do.”
Plus, he had “concept of a plan” in his front pocket. He had that think ready. If nothing else, his debate prep got that in his head.
What he believes is irrelevant except as mens rea, but at the same time he has given constant indication that he fully believes whatever is most convenient at the time. This is an individual who after over a decade involved in politics has embraced the card says moops with a consistency and commitment that surely must be pathological
Ah good, they found a woman to blame
Okay, and?
Trump still said that shit. If Walz went to Harris and said, “The radical right is injecting holy water in babies’ eyes so they can see the lord” and she just said that shit without checking, I’d be looking at her sideways too. He went to a national debate and sputtered out nonsense that he didn’t verify or even question. That shit’s on him.
And it’s not Walz to compare that to. It’s more like if Natalie Wynn or another bread tuber did it. There’s a level of assumed trust between vp candidate and presidential candidate that this completely lacks (and this still would violate it). This lady is just some low level pundit calling herself a journalist
