President Trump fired some national security staffers after right-wing journalist Laura Loomer encouraged him in person to purge suspected "neocons" who don't share the president's agenda.
The president defended Loomer, who took credit for the firings, as a "patriot" while also denying she had any role in the shakeup.
"Laura Loomer is a very good patriot and she is a very strong person. I saw her yesterday for a little while. She makes recommendations of things and people, and sometimes I listen to those recommendations," Trump said aboard Air Force One.
"I listen to everybody and then I make a decision. … . She always has something to say and it’s usually constructive. … She recommended some people for jobs," he added.
The fired officials include National Security Agency Director Gen. Timothy Haugh and civilian Deputy Director Wendy Noble. Haugh, a Biden appointee, also led the Cyber Command. Loomer wrote on X that Noble and Haugh "have been disloyal to President Trump," adding, "That is why they have been fired."
Trump also fired people at the National Security Council, including Brian Walsh, the senior director for intelligence; Maggie Dougherty, the senior director for international organizations; Thomas Boodry, the senior director for legislative affairs; and David Feith, the son of George W. Bush official Douglas Feith, often described as an architect of the Iraq War.
Loomer, who runs her own opposition research outfit, is known for vigorously defending Trump against perceived traitors and "neocons" -- meaning people with hawkish foreign policy views that peaked in influence under former President George W. Bush -- who many Trump supporters see as a threat to the president's agenda.
During a White House meeting on Wednesday, Loomer named and shamed individual NSC staffers and recommended that Trump fire them, the New York Times reported. At one point, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, a former Bush administration official who worked as a counterterrorism advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, jumped in to defend the individuals.
Loomer later criticized White House officials who leaked the meeting's details to left-wing media.
"Out of respect for President @realDonaldTrump and the privacy of the Oval Office, I’m going to decline on divulging any details about my Oval Office meeting with President Trump. It was an honor to meet with President Trump and present him with my research findings," she wrote on X.
Trump's national security team was thrust into controversy recently after Signal chats about military strikes in Yemen were leaked through a liberal reporter. The president has called the controversy overblown, and he has defended Waltz, who added Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat.
The president is said to be reluctant to fire anyone over the leak, believing that it would play into the hands of his liberal media opponents.
Trump is operating with a more loyal and cohesive staff than he had during his first term, when Trump was often undermined from within by insubordinate officials with deep ties to the culture of Washington D.C.
Still, some Trump backers are skeptical of certain administration officials including Waltz, whom critics have called a "neocon" because of his work in the Bush-Cheney administration. Loomer reportedly pushed Trump to fire Waltz's deputy Alex Wong, although it appears he has not been fired.
