Laura Loomer, a right-wing social media personality and adviser to President Donald Trump, was forced to explain herself during a trip to New Delhi when a journalist read her anti-Indian tweets back to her during an event.
During the India Today Conclave in New Delhi on Saturday, Indian journalist Rajdeep Sardesai presented a trove of tweets Loomer made disparaging India and its people. Loomer’s posts had been deleted before her visit, but not before others archived them.
Loomer told the conference that she had just spoken to Trump and read out a message she claimed was from the president.
“I love India. I love Modi and I love the Indian people,” the message reportedly said.
The hosts of the event pressed Loomer on controversial statements she has made about Islam in the past. Approximately 15 percent of India’s population — roughly 205 million people — are Muslim.
Nevertheless, Loomer said she believes that “Islam is a cancer on the world” and that she does not “believe that Islamophobia is real.”
“I believe that it should be illegal in the United States for Muslims to hold office,” she said.
Before her tweets were presented back to her at the event in New Delhi, she was asked about disparaging remarks she had made about India in the past. She immediately backed down, saying ‘I shouldn’t have said some of the things that I said … and I apologize if my remarks offended people.”
She did maintain her criticism of the H-1B visa program — which many Indian nationals have used to gain entry into the U.S. — saying her views are intended to protect the American people.
“My job is to speak for Americans and to stand up for American interests, and our immigration laws have been exploited and abused, and our labor laws have also been exploited and abused,” she said.
Near the end of the discussion, Sardesai, who works for India Today, confronted Loomer on her previous statements about India.
He read a post from 2024 in which Loomer said the White House would “smell like curry” if then-Vice President Kamala Harris became president. She also said that the U.S. was built by “white Europeans, not third-world invaders from India.”
The journalist went on to accuse Loomer of being “brazenly racist and Islamophobic” and told her her comments represented “anti-Indianism, worse still Islamophobia, and even worse racism,” which he said had “no place in today’s world.”
Loomer insisted Islamophobia wasn’t real, claiming the faith “explicitly calls for the killing of non-Muslims.” She insisted that “everybody who is not a Muslim should really honestly be fearful of this ideology.”
She also claimed her comments regarding Harris were actually “pro-Indian,” saying they were a critique of Harris allegedly downplaying her Indian heritage during the election and instead emphasizing her Black heritage to win over voters.
It doesn’t seem as though Loomer is going to change her tune anytime soon. On Saturday afternoon she shared a video allegedly showing Muslims in India surrounding a Sikh restaurant and demanding they sell halal food.
“Islam has no place in the West. Are you ok with this @sardesairajdeep? Should Muslims be allowed to terrorize Sikhs who refuse to sell halal food? Are you going to call the Sikhs Islamophobic and racist too?” she wrote in her post.
Loomer is one of many MAGA personalities — including lawmakers — who have attacked Islam. The ramp-up in rhetoric appears to have coincided with Trump’s war in Iran. Shortly after the U.S. and Israel began striking Iran, a series of violent attacks occurred in the U.S. — in Texas, Virginia, and Michigan — that the FBI are treating as possibly motivated by the war.
Senator Tommy Tuberville was accused of Islamophobia earlier this week when he shared an image of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani breaking his Ramadan fast in City Hall alongside an image of the 9/11 terror attacks and wrote “the enemy is inside the gates.”
The Independent has contacted Loomer for comment.
