President Donald Trump fired multiple National Security Council officials after far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer urged him to in a Wednesday meeting, according to multiple reports.
Loomer, an influential MAGA media figure, had excoriated several top aides whom she deemed disloyal to Trump during the Oval Office discussion while National Security Advisor Mike Waltz looked on, The New York Times reported.
The meeting came after last week’s Signal leak fiasco, in which Waltz accidentally added a prominent journalist to a group chat in which Trump’s top aides were discussing an upcoming strike on terrorists in Yemen on the commercial messaging app.
While Waltz took “full responsibility” for the flub, Loomer has pushed tenuous links between Waltz’s aides and Trump’s adversaries over the last week on her X account, including former President Joe Biden and the Chinese Communist Party. She has suggested that the aides could have been responsible for adding Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor in chief, to the Signal group chat.
Loomer’s face-to-face with Trump seems to have been convincing.
CNN reported that at least three aides were fired following the meeting: Director for Intelligence Brian Walsh, Senior Director for Legislative Affairs Thomas Boodry, and Senior Director for Technology and National Security David Feith.
It was not clear whether Alex Wong, who bore Loomer’s harshest criticism for his Chinese heritage, was among those fired.
A senior U.S. official, who believed the firings were linked to Loomer’s visit, described it to Axios as a “bloodbath.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to Loomer, the White House, and the NSC for comment.
