Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Wednesday said President Trump “hasn’t done a deep dive” into the views of GOP congressional candidates Laura Loomer and Marjorie Taylor Greene, both of whom he has voiced support for despite both expressing anti-Muslim sentiments.
“The president routinely congratulates people who officially get the Republican nomination for Congress, so he does that as a matter of course,” McEnany said at a press briefing.
“He hasn’t done a deep dive into the statements by these two particular women,” she continued. “I don’t know if he’s even seen that, but he supports the Muslim community. He supports the community of faith more broadly in this country.”
Trump late Tuesday congratulated Loomer, a far-right provocateur, for winning a GOP primary race in Florida’s 21st Congressional District, which includes his Mar-a-Lago property.
Loomer was banned from ride-sharing apps Uber and Lyft in 2017 after a public tweet threat in which she told the companies that she “never want[s] to support another Islamic immigrant driver,” along with others calling for “someone … to create a non Islamic form of @uber or @lyft.”
She was banned from Twitter after a series of anti-Muslim posts, including one targeting Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, that made incendiary claims about Islam.
The president earlier this month declared Greene a “future Republican Star” after her primary victory in Georgia’s 14th District to replace outgoing Rep. Tom Graves (R).
Greene has garnered national attention after Politico unearthed past racist, anti-Semitic and Islamaphobic comments she made, including comparing Democratic donor George Soros to a Nazi, saying the 2018 midterms were like an “Islamic invasion of our government” and asserting that African Americans “are held slaves to the Democratic Party.”
While Loomer is unlikely to win in her heavily Democratic district, Greene is favored to win her general election in Georgia.