Right-wing influencer Laura Loomer announced she is taking a “brief hiatus” from her Loomer Unleashed podcast just hours after a Trump administration adviser exposed her for being paid to post some of her manic, hateful content.

It all started on Thursday, when Alex Bruesewitz, who is behind much of Trump’s digital media strategy, took aim at conservative social media influencers following the GOP’s massive midterm election loss.

“Believe it or not attacking Democrats over their relationships with a streamer (Hasan Piker) wasn’t an effective hit,” Bruesewitz posted, not mentioning Loomer by name. “GOP candidates probably shouldn’t take messaging advice from fringe right-wing ‘influencers’ moving forward.”

Loomer took the bait.

“But they should take their advice and meetings with @TuckerCarlson instead?… It’s completely reasonable for people to be appalled with Democrat candidates campaigning with a guy who said America deserved 9/11. Hasan Piker regularly makes comments in support of jihadi groups,” she wrote. “What wasn’t helpful was your friend Tucker Carlson essentially endorsing Abdul El-Sayed over Mike Rogers and using his show to tell people to not support Rogers just a few weeks out from an election. But we all know you will never condemn your buddy Tucker.”

“Laura, you are basically the Republican version of Hasan Piker. Democrats over the years have attacked Republicans for affiliating with you. Those weren’t effective hits either,” Bruesewitz replied. “Voters simply don’t care enough about ‘influencers’ or streamers. lol”

Loomer took offense to that, claiming that she was not an influencer and criticizing Bruesewitz for his association with Omeed Malik, a conservative venture capitalist and major Republican donor.

“I’m a journalist and an opposition researcher Alex. What are you? What is it that you do for Omeed Malik exactly? He’s a Muslim right? Half Iranian and half Pakistani if I’m not mistaken,” Loomer fired back. “Is that why you have such an issue with the things I say about Islam?”

“Okay lol. But is it common for journalists to get paid for their opinions and tweets?”

“You say ‘Okay lol.’ Not sure why you are laughing. I recall last year your company X strategies reached out to me asking me for help. Do you deny that? What is so funny? I guess I don’t get the joke,” Loomer said, admitting that she was indeed paid to tweet. “You loved sharing my journalistic reports during the 2023/2024 DeSantis-Trump primary too. What changed?”

“No I don’t deny that. I’ve paid you for tweets before. I haven’t for at least a year though,” Bruesewitz wrote back. “I also know you still get paid by others for tweets so I do think it’s fair to refer to you as an ‘influencer.’ What percentage of your tweets are paid for?”

…

Hours later, Loomer announced a “one to two month show hiatus.”

  • stormeuh@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    This smells like Stephen Miller cleaning house and purging enemies now he’s chief of staff. I think he wants to strictly control the information that is getting to Trump, and Loomer was a threat to that control.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      54 minutes ago

      This smells like Stephen Miller cleaning house and purging enemies now he’s chief of staff.

      Very funny to imagine Miller coming through the White House like Georgy Zhukov in Death of Stalin, but the person he’s coming for is Loomer.

  • mad_lentil@lemmy.ca
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    2 hours ago

    God I can’t get enough of American politics. If it wasn’t so terrifying it would be the greatest show on earth.

    I feel our politicians are way too canny. They work against us very slowly and subtly, helping us all along, but gradually moving the commons into the sphere of private property until I suppose we’ll have nothing left.

    Maybe we’re just in the earlier stages of the frogboil.

    • TrackenDaKracken@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      Better to go after her nose, it’s a clear issue for her, considering her nose job. She had it cut down, now it’s growing bigger every time she opens her mouth. Maybe she’ll go full Michael Jackson with it.

      No one should hold back with these assholes, they don’t deserve kid gloves. She chases the spotlight, so say whatever you want. Bully these cunts at will, it’s akin to punching fascists.

  • chleb@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    These women-like people benefit from chaos, instability, and polarization. Twitter-like platforms incentivize and reward engagement regardless of misinformation or propaganda

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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    21 hours ago

    “I’m getting married, and I want to give this exciting part of my life the time that it deserves, as I’ve spent a lot of time fighting for our country, and for President Trump—sometimes at the expense of my own personal life,” she said.

    Imagine marrying someone who clearly blew Trump.

  • KullumDaue@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    i really don’t know much about hasan piker, but fucking hell he is really living in their domes rent-free.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      9 minutes ago

      She wishes she was the Hasan Piker of the right. That would imply she’s attractive and charismatic lol

    • Horsey@lemmy.world
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      23 hours ago

      Piker is very much “new media”. He’s been caught saying things that can be taken out of context and was burned by right wingers for it. I might not agree with everything he says, but he’s definitely not a terrible person either.

      • Mo.@lemmy.world
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        22 hours ago

        Why does this platform glaze Hasan Piker so hard? LMAO it’s so gross. He’s a fucking look at me. He doesn’t stand for anything but money.

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          8 minutes ago

          Lol that person hedged like 3 times in a single comment to make sure it’s not interpreted the way you just did.

          “I don’t agree with everything he says, but he isn’t a terrible person” is not “glazing.”

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          50 minutes ago

          Why does this platform glaze Hasan Piker so hard? LMAO

          “I don’t know who Hasan Piker is”

          “All I know is Right Wingers hate him”

          <Incoherent 4chan speak>

          :-/

          You’re only feeding this man’s legend

        • Mo.@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          This is my point. You guys come out of the woodwork to defend him. It’s almost eerie. Watch. Hey what about the dog zapping?

          “Oh he didn’t do that! He would never!”

          Lol.

          I’m gonna take this a bit further. Hasan is no different than Destiny or Asmongold. They’re all of the same cloth you just don’t hate in Hasan because he’s not as ugly and says the shit you want to hear.

          If I were to say the same shit about Greta Thunberg nobody would’ve said a goddamn thing.

          Bunch of fucking idiots.

          • NEZ27@lemmy.zip
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            32 minutes ago

            I wouldn’t know shit about this dude if it weren’t for people like you crashing out in posts that have nothing to do with him

            90% of what I know about this dude is from perpetually online crybabies.

        • blartcap_@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          13 hours ago

          When you respond to a calm and reasonable opinion by instantly jumping to accusations of “glazing” and ironically write LMAO, then you sound like you’re more in line with Laura Loomer, who sounds just like this above.

          It really shows everyone what kind of person responds so strongly to the guy.

        • PepperoniNipple@lazysoci.al
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          22 hours ago

          Because people like you always attack the messenger, never the messages.

          So, when people go watch out of curiosity, they realize you lied to them. He doesn’t promote gambling, has any ads or grifts with the manosphere alpha male bs. He just covers the news 8hrs everyday and he platformed most of the candidates you saw win in the blue wave by getting them donors, door-knockers, phone-callers, etc. in front of hundreds of thousands of people in Twitch + YouTube.

          You, in the other hand, do nothing but complain about shit that is impossible, like demanding all socialists/communists live like Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber: In the middle of the woods with nothing in their name, just a long-ass beard. It’s hard not to assume you’re just a concern troll trying to disarm socialism/communism of their resources to fight.

        • new_world_odor@lemmy.world
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          21 hours ago

          Why does this platform glaze Hasan Piker so hard?

          You know, I don’t think it actually does. Every time his name comes up, people just pop out of the woodwork to cry about how terrible he is, usually without a shred of evidence (lil clips don’t count). It kept happening so often that I decided to just watch some of his content and make up my own mind. And you know what’s fucking wild? Everything I’ve seen shows me he’s a reasonable person.

          • oscarmeyer82@lemmy.world
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            18 hours ago

            I did the same. Not a fan of how loud and chaotic he runs his stream with popup graphics, sound effects, chat roll etc. but that’s fine not everything needs to be to my taste. From what I saw he seems to use a bunch of sarcastic and inflammatory comments to make his points which opens him to being clipped out of context. Kind of fits into the “you’re not wrong, you’re just being an ass” category to me which I also think is fine. Even the whole 9/11 comment thing is understandable. I feel like it’s widely accepted that 9/11 was a consequence of the US’s worldwide aggression and heavy handedness with Piker’s comments reflecting that sentiment in an insensitive way. How many Iranians do you think are out for blood after having a girls school blown up let alone all the other shit going on?

        • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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          21 hours ago

          This platform doesn’t glaze him, there’s just about an equal amount of people that say they like him as say they dislike him in every thread/post he’s mentioned as far as I’ve seen.

          What makes you think he stands for nothing but money?

    • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      He’s also an influencer. Just random bozos with marketing skills getting millions of followers to do nothing but film themselves collecting their own farts and huff them from a plastic bag.

    • Lyrl@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      My understanding is he is a tankie. So a mix of left and right as commonly understood - the left associate with him because of the overlap, and the right see the opportunity to divide the left on the areas where they disagree. But apparently he puts on a good show to attract audiences of the size he has. Guess it might be helpful to have someone with many left views to counterweight all the Joe Rogan types that are solidly right.

  • gibmiser@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Eat each other. Do it.

    I thonk it should be illegal to push someone else’s message without an explicit and obvious disclaimer.

    Beyond that I think it is shameful and embarrassing. Anyone who posts other people’s opinions or propaganda as their own for money should feel like a piece of shit, because that’s what you are.

    • Kirp123@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      The FCC already has rules that influencers must disclose they were paid to endorse a product. That why you see those “#ad” tags in YouTube videos or whatever. It’s kinda crazy that it doesn’t extend to political influencers.

      • farmgineer@nord.pub
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        2 days ago

        It does still impact political influencers, just not in the desired way since the content itself nor the group it’s endorsing aren’t a product per se. They should close that loophole.

    • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
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      1 day ago

      I thonk it should be illegal to push someone else’s message without an explicit and obvious disclaimer.

      Representing it as your own message when someone else wrote it, OK. Otherwise it steps on free speech far too much.

      • Lyrl@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        21 hours ago

        The listeners should have a right to know whose message they are hearing. It’s a civil issue - I think any laws should have fines and required communication fixes, not any criminal charges or jail time - but allowing fake grass roots movements that are actually collaborations between billionaires and grifters is harmful to civil society.

    • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      There used to be a law against using federal funds to spread political propaganda domestically, but it was abolished some time in the past few years.

      Hey, I heard we control both houses now. Hmm.

      • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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        19 hours ago

        Hasan is still doing it. Loomer took a break. She’ll be back too. It’s just a fucking grift for all of them.

          • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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            18 hours ago

            No it’s about Loomer. And all of the other grifters. But it’s also about Piker because it’s the same bullshit.

    • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      I mean, journalists, newscasters and any other media organization about news are being paid to say what they’re told. We all know that, but I don’t think it makes a difference. The 1% decides what most of us hear.

      • gibmiser@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        I think there is an extremely big difference in how I view a message coming from someone who believes what they are saying, and someone who i know is getting paid to push a message.

        I will actually attempt to process and debate someone’s honest opinion. A paid shill? You know its disingenuous so why even waste your time on it.

  • vividspecter@aussie.zone
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    2 days ago

    I’m a journalist and an opposition researcher Alex

    Hahaha. Oh wait, you’re serious, let me laugh even harder:

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHA