Inside the Laura Loomer and Riley Gaines fight

Since she began speaking out against trans athletes competing in women’s sports, former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines has received her share of threats from the mob. Just this year, she was allegedly punched by a transgender protester in California. Now she finds herself in the sights of one of Trumpworld’s most rabid advocates.

Laura Loomer, a self-described investigative journalist and Trump supporter, accused the athlete of shilling for Ron DeSantis and posted her address to X, sparking a cat fight between the two women.  

In the post, which has since been deleted, Loomer claimed that Gaines had been bought off by DeSantis. “In June 2023, Riley announced that she was endorsing DeSantis over Trump,” the post read. “FEC records show that she was paid out on 8/02/2023 for endorsing Ron.” Loomer also included Gaines’s address, which is on the FEC filing, in her post.   

Gaines wasted no time firing back. The former collegiate athlete said that was compensated by the DeSantis campaign after speaking at an event since “that is how it works.” Gaines was referring to an appearance she made at a DeSantis rally in Greenville, South Carolina, just a day after endorsing him publicly. Gaines added that she had previously been offered a paid position on Trump’s team, while Loomer kisses Donald Trump’s “butt for free.”  

According to Federal Election Commission data, Gaines was paid over $12,000 by the DeSantis campaign in August for combined travel expenses and “political strategy consulting,” presumably from her speaking engagement in June. The August payment is the only one made from the campaign to Gaines.  

On her blog, Loomer wrote that she had exclusively confirmed that Gaines was bought out by the DeSantis campaign… except the Boston Globe had reported the exact same story a month earlier, with the same data from the FEC. The only difference: they didn’t include Gaines’ address.

Loomer insisted that she wasn’t trying to doxx Gaines, although she did remove the original post which included Gaines’s address. In a follow-up post, Loomer said that she was merely trying “to expose that @RonDeSantis and his campaign are paying for endorsements and they aren’t disclosing it to the American voters, which is ethically and morally repugnant.”

Loomer also attacked Gaines for playing the victim card and seemed to imply that she was a loser to be beaten by a biological man. Gaines rose to fame after tying transgender swimmer Lia Thomas in an NCAA championship race but being denied a medal at the podium.  

“Riley, your fifteen minutes of fame are over. We get it, a transgender beat you,” she posted. “We have more important issues to talk about than you getting beat by a man in a swimming competition.”  

Reading between the lines, Loomer seems jealous of the younger, blonder woman. Gaines is a successful college athlete who made national headlines. Loomer, meanwhile, is best known for losing two Florida elections, getting banned from Uber Eats for Islamophobia and handcuffing herself to Twitter’s New York headquarters. On her blog, Loomer makes a point of describing how Gaines “rose to semi-prominence”… please.

Loomer has been snuggling up to the former president, however, since her failed congressional runs. Last week, Donald Trump Jr. said that he would like to see Loomer as his father’s White House press secretary if he is re-elected. 

“She’s a bulldog, man, I will say that. She gets after it. I’d love to see her as press secretary just to watch DC just explode,” Trump Jr. said.