Conspiracy theorist said to have been key promoter of false rumour about immigrants ex-president repeated in debate

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.

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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.

    • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
      49·
      6 days ago

      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.

      • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
        18·
        6 days ago

        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.

    • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
      36·
      6 days ago

      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.

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
        22·
        6 days ago

        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.

        • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
          14·
          6 days ago

          “But the TV said it so it’s not my fault for saying it again!”

          It’s kind of like Tucker Carlson’s approach with “I’m just asking questions.” No, you’re spewing bullshit and trying to spin it as curiosity.