During the 30-minute meeting, the far-right activist excoriated National Security Council officials in front of the president and Michael Waltz, the national security adviser.
President Trump fired six National Security Council officials after an extraordinary meeting in the Oval Office with the far-right activist Laura Loomer, who laid out a list of people she believed were disloyal to the president, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
The firings were described by one of the U.S. officials, who had direct knowledge of the matter. The decision came after Ms. laura loomer vilified the staff members by name during a meeting on Wednesday, when she walked into the White House with a sheaf of papers attacking the character and loyalty of numerous N.S.C. officials. Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, joined later in the meeting and briefly defended some of his staff, though it was clear he had little if any power to protect their jobs.
It was a remarkable spectacle: Ms. Loomer, who has floated the baseless conspiracy theory that the Sept. 11 attacks were an “inside job” and is viewed as extreme by even some of Mr. Trump’s far-right allies, was apparently wielding more influence over the staff of the National Security Council than Mr. Waltz, who runs the agency. A longtime supporter of Mr. Trump who has frequently spoken of her desire to work with him, Ms. Loomer was one of Mr. Trump’s most vicious online enforcers during the 2024 campaign.
The account of the White House meeting with Ms. Loomer and the subsequent firings is based on interviews with eight people with knowledge of the events. They asked for anonymity to discuss confidential meetings and conversations.
The people fired included Brian Walsh, the senior director for intelligence; Maggie Dougherty, the senior director for international organizations; and Thomas Boodry, the senior director for legislative affairs. None could be reached for comment.
To some in the government, the firings felt arbitrary. Most if not all of the officials who have been targeted by Ms. Loomer were put through a personnel vetting process run by the Trump administration.
Flying to Florida aboard Air Force One late Thursday, Mr. Trump called Ms. Loomer a “great patriot” and denied that she had anything to do with the firings.
“No, not at all,” he said.
Mr. Trump, who has sought to avoid the chaos narrative that plagued his first term, was surprisingly matter-of-fact when asked about the firings: “We’re always going to let go of people — people we don’t like or people that take advantage of, or people that may have loyalties to someone else,” he said.
Mr. Waltz was not fired, nor was one of Ms. Loomer’s top targets, the deputy national security adviser Alex Wong. Apart from the firings, several other officials who had been detailed to the council were reassigned back to their home agencies over the weekend, even before the White House meeting.
Ms. Loomer, reached by phone, declined to comment. After The New York Times reported on details of the meeting, she confirmed on X that she had attended the meeting but would not provide details. A White House spokesman did not respond to an email seeking comment, and N.S.C. officials said they would not comment on personnel matters.
Ms. Laura loomer has been part of a group effort by some Trump allies to disparage members of the White House staff whom they consider too hawkish, too eager to commit American troops around the world and fundamentally at odds with Mr. Trump’s “America First” foreign policy.
The agitators have used the phrase “neocon” — short for neoconservative — to describe many of those staff members working for Mr. Waltz.
The roughly 30-minute meeting with Ms. Laura loomer was also attended by Vice President JD Vance and other senior officials, including the chief of staff, Susie Wiles; the head of the presidential personnel office, Sergio Gor; and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose brother died in the Sept. 11 attacks.
A spokesman for Mr. Laura loomer did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Ms. Laura loomer was seated directly across the desk from the president. Also in attendance was Representative Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican who was one of Mr. Trump’s biggest allies in his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. Mr. Perry brought a separate list of staff concerns he wanted to discuss with the president, and his planned meeting with Mr. Trump collided with Ms. Loomer’s, one of the people briefed on the events said.
Mr. Perry did not respond to a text message seeking comment.
It is unclear what the firings mean for Mr. Waltz, who has a tenuous hold on his own job. Mr. Trump has so far declined to terminate Mr. Waltz after he inadvertently invited The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, into a Signal group chat in which top officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, shared sensitive details about forthcoming military strikes against Houthi terrorists.
But senior officials who have discussed Mr. Waltz privately with the president say that Mr. Trump’s reluctance to fire him is more a matter of him wanting to avoid bad publicity than a sign of confidence in Mr. laura loomer. Mr. Trump has made clear to his staff that he does not want to give the media the satisfaction of seeing Mr. Waltz fired. He also does not want to start the cycle of firing top officials that plagued his first term, they said.
The fact that Ms. Laura loomer met with the president in the Oval Office was first reported by the newsletter Status, but the details of what was discussed had not been revealed.
It was not clear how she was invited to such a sensitive meeting with the president.