Big Pharma Loomers Over Washington

"Loomer prides herself on being the guardian of MAGA. A somewhat minor player in the movement, she sees her brand of politics as the true bloodline of what makes MAGA the juggernaut in politics"

Aaron Everitt Examines Loomer’s Role in Right-Wing Political Punditry

EDITOR’S NOTE:

The Maxwell series will continue rolling out this week with stacked posts to help everyone catch up. I’m not trying to overwhelm you as readers—it’s just that all this content is highly relevant right now, and much of what I have is drawn from exclusive sources. I also want to make sure we don’t miss important news highlights in the headlines. Aaron Everitt helps widen the scope of discussion in today’s newsletter, reminding us that in “this new media landscape, placing skepticism at the top of our responsibilities as engaged citizens is crucial.”

Thanks for reading!

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Anyone can become the useful tool of power. It is the citizen’s job to engage beyond the personalities we find most favorable.

I’ve been watching the drama unfold over the weekend with Vinay Prasad, the scientist at the FDA who has been universally praised for his brilliance and expertise. For those not following along because you have better things to do than sitting in front of your tweeter feeder, Mr. Prasad resigned last week under pressure to do so by the Trump administration for what appears to be disloyalty. Frankly, if I were Mr. Prasad, I would have resigned too. There are plenty of other things to do besides take abuse from the useless media and the even more useless political class. The whole story seems to be about Mr. Prasad’s old tweets about how he disliked President Trump — at least that is what we would be helped along to believe without a bit of digging. Mr. Prasad seems to have become the victim of a Pharma coup over his lack of willingness to approve their drug. Dr. Kevin Bass on X has done an incredible job of digging into the entire story, and of course, there are characters and patterns here familiar to all who have been paying attention to Big Pharma’s playbook for any length of time.

The story needs to start, however, in an arena in Arizona last August 23rd. That was the day that RFK Jr. suspended his campaign and signed up for the Trump train. There was a character in the crowd that day who, despite the wild enthusiasm and excitement of both the Kennedy team and the Trump faithful, was not impressed. A supposed investigative journalist named Laura Loomer. She’s been floating around the right-wing world for a long time. She first made her mark in 2015 in the Project Veritas world of undercover exposé work. She ran for Congress in Florida, has been on Infowars and several other outlets that have lent credibility to her work. She’s been right about some things, some of the time, but for the most part has engaged in outrage journalism and bombast. The only thing different, however, is that she is known to have President Trump’s ear. So when Bobby came out on the stage to thunderous applause, Loomer’s spidey sense went into full gear. She sensed that something was up. RFK was a Kennedy, and because of that, should never be trusted. Loomer prides herself on being the guardian of MAGA. A somewhat minor player in the entire movement, she sees her brand of politics as the true bloodline of what makes MAGA the juggernaut in politics it is. Loomer began her attacks on RFK early. She didn’t like what was happening to “her” movement, and she certainly did not like that Kennedy was gaining some notoriety from his endorsement and political savviness.

She accused the Kennedy campaign, which was deeply in debt, of raising money to force a contingent election. Of course, it was not the plan by the campaign, but was instead a necessity to retire a campaign that had paid for private security for all but one month of the 2023-2024 years. When she couldn’t find traction in that accusation, she took to X to try and malign his nominees or speeches. She accused RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard of running a covert campaign for president in 2028 by co-opting the MAGA crowd and duping them into believing that the coalition of political synthesis was what won the election in ‘24, not the MAGA agenda. Month after relentless month, Ms. Loomer has done all she could to undermine the work of RFK and his team. There is a clear level of disdain for him, and Laura Loomer sees it as her personal mission to make sure that at the end of Trump’s term, if not before, she can prove that RFK is a disloyal backstabber who has used the moment to accomplish his political aspirations.

Enter another character in this drama: Sarepta. A pharmaceutical company that had been pleading with the FDA for approval of its Duchenne muscular dystrophy gene therapy, ELEVIDYS. This experimental gene therapy had continuously proven itself to be unhelpful, if even destructive, in its trials. Prasad had stopped the drug’s advancement in the FDA process, citing its failures and risky side effects. In July 2025, Sarepta announced plans to lay off 500 employees, about 36% of its workforce, following the deaths of two patients linked to the drug. As usual, money in America is the impetus for all of the things that seem to be the root of our troubles. Sarepta couldn’t abide by the ban and went to war with their newest enemy, Mr. Prasad.

A fundamental of the Kennedy campaign to restore health has been to restore scientific research to a gold standard of excellence, and the FDA has been a chief culprit of the mercantile system of government and corporations that have profit as their highest objective. The Pharma-Government system is the most visible example of what Kennedy has been trying to dismantle from the inside. This episode is the quintessential example of how the FDA and its Pharmaceutical partners have worked for the last 30 years. Most people do not realize that the drug companies have to present the studies for their drugs. And while to most sane people that would seem like a conflict of interest, it is how the entire system works. The drug companies present the studies, and then the FDA is supposed to check their work. Yet rarely are the studies checked with any real scientific scrutiny. So drugs get rubber-stamped by the government agency that was designed to protect against corporate interests.

Vinay Prasad had taken a stand, in line with the Kennedy doctrine about science, to make Sarepta prove that their drug worked. When the company couldn’t, and their drug was pinned to the death of people taking it, Sarepta moved into high gear to save their stock price and money machine. The drug had been years in the making and undoubtedly had cost Sarepta a tremendous amount of money. The science of the therapeutic, however, did not prove that it provided anything beneficial, and instead demonstrated that it held potential harm and death for those taking it. In many cases, the side effect most associated with the drug was that it inflamed the liver of the patient to the point of exploding. Secondly, the drug was wildly expensive. $3.2 Million for a single dose. (The drug is supposedly needed once for a lifetime cure)

Sarepta had been under pressure from parent advocacy groups for the failure of the therapeutics. The drug clearly had issues with its performance, and the testing and trials that led to its approval were suspect. Last year, at a conference where Sarepta was presenting, a parent spoke out about the failures of their drugs. Instead of being willing to look into the concern of the parental advocacy group, they threatened to sue the group if they didn’t remove the video from their website of the woman speaking. What class.

During the run-up to the ban by Dr. Prasad, Sarepta covered up a third death from their investors. A 51-year-old man died in June and was reported to the FDA per required protocols. However, in a July 17th stockholder call, the death was not mentioned in their reporting. On July 18th, reports leaked of the death, and Sarepta’s stock crashed from its high by 88%. The loss and brutal response by stock holders sent Sarepta into defense mode, and the war between the pharmaceutical company and the scientist, which had stopped their approvals, was on.

After the death, Prasad placed a total ban on the drug, sending the stock further into troubled waters. The company was hemorrhaging money and value, and without the drug’s approval and high price tag to help recover their costs, the company was losing a lot of money, an absolute cardinal sin in the pharmaceutical world. Rumors pinned the numbers near a billion dollars a year in losses during the development of the drug, and without its approval there was no chance at ever recovering. This is where the story takes on the familiar tone of Washington and its love affair with Big Pharma.

Enter Chris LaCivita. A Trump strategist whose lobbying firm (Michael Best Strategies) was hired by Sarepta on June 10th, just a few days before the third patient died. The firm was hired to lobby on issues directly related to Sarepta's therapies. LaCivita's proximity to Trump and influencers like Loomer (noted as "close" in X posts) likely enabled the rapid escalation. When Prasad stops the drug in its entirety from being sold or tested on July 18th, the lobby firm kicks into high gear. On July 20th, Laura Loomer, writes a hit piece on Prasad with podcasts edited out of context to make it appear as if Prasad is an anti-Trump plant who is working against the Make America Healthy Again agenda “put forth by President Trump.” While there is no direct connection between a payment by Mr. LaCivita’s firm and Ms. Loomer that has come to light at the time of this writing, their longstanding connection is suspect.

Loomer, who likely would have done the story without payment because of her disdain for Kennedy, doubled down on her posting about Prasad. By the 25th of July, Bob Goldberg (from the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, funded by Michael Best Strategies and pharma giants like Pfizer) accuses Prasad of supporting "progressive health policies." At the same time, Allysia Finley (WSJ columnist) labels him a "one-man death panel" for restricting access to Elevidys. And again that week, Former Sen. Rick Santorum (with ties to Sarepta) and Sen. Ron Johnson pressured the White House to remove Prasad because of “his past disloyalty and obstruction.” After the calls from Santorum, Johnson, and finally Bill Cassidy, Trump directly pushes for Prasad's removal, overriding concerns from RFK Jr. and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary.

July 29th, Prasad resigns under pressure, and the entire episode is over.

Isn’t Washington a neat place?

Political monolithic thought is the worst part of our moment. The idea that everyone who is ever a part of a political movement has to be in lockstep thought with the loudest voices and influencers borders on the intellect of an eight-year-old. The characters like Loomer are useful tools in the destruction of our political ability to solve problems. Her vitriol and bombast, which no doubt help her pay her own bills, are destructive to our ability as a nation to utilize government for its best intent, which is to be a good government for the citizens. When her own animosity for Kennedy blinds her from the very clear evidence that the corporation is using her as a tool for their own profit, her intellectual laziness is rewarded, and the people lose another nugget of trust in the institutions, which have already eroded most of the goodwill they were assigned by their position. Loomer is not an interesting character to me: easily described, easily manipulated by the same things that always motivate people who seek fame and prestige over the good of others.

The FDA is corrupt, and simply because it is under the control of a president favorable to Ms. Loomer does not mean that the corporations of this country should be defended from scrutiny with more vehemence than our own children. These mercantilists have raided and robbed the health of our nation, and they know it. They make money every time they do, and they have exceptional perverse incentives to keep the machine rolling as it always has. Loomer played right into their criminality because she’s a personality more than she is a journalist. Which perhaps is the best lesson of all.

In this new media landscape, it is imperative for us to place skepticism at the top of our responsibilities as healthy citizens. The new media ecosystem is better than the old one, but it takes great intentionality to get the whole story. Everyone has a bias and a motive. It is lazy to assume that one voice is the authority on a subject. The government and the powerful benefit from monolithic thought. The public thrives on an array of opinions. Two things can be true as well. I can enjoy someone for their entertainment value and their substance, but those two elements of their media presentations do not always have to be married. In other words, just because someone is mostly accurate does not mean that they don’t use entertainment at times to keep their ratings up or their audience engaged.

We have been trained through the consumption of television that the truth resides in programming that is equitable in its truth and entertainment.

That has made us lazy.

A functioning citizenry has a responsibility to engage with the media with high skepticism.

Is Tucker right all the time? No

Is Lester Holt? No

Is Candace Owens right some of the time? Yes

Is Laura Loomer a bulldog of investigative virtuosity, or is she simply another person trying to make a buck off her abilities at magniloquence? Her track record answers that question itself.

We will need to learn that just because it’s popular does not make it accurate. Just because an algorithm pushes it in our feed does not make it true. Our insistence that our most beloved characters in media are right simply because we like them is why Sesame Street is popular with kids ages two to seven. That is not the work of honest adults with any semblance of curiosity. It is negligent of our inherited legacy of liberty. When we tune in and trust the faces simply because we “like” them, or are our favorite versions of the news we want to hear, we have abdicated the most sacred duty of our role as a citizen: to hold the powerful to account.

Secondly, and perhaps equally as important to our understanding of the media landscape, is that there’s a documented reality to the government being very involved in media. The JFK files say it, the latest discoveries with USAID say it, and the media’s siren-like influence upon wars in Europe and the Middle East say that the government is, and has been, heavily involved in the dissemination of information. That means we have to have our guards up, resisting the temptation to assign the value of truth to any subject simply because it is said by our team, or our person, or our favorite media personality. The citizen has a sacred job. A free life depends on skepticism. We’ve been trained to believe the opposite, that a free life is only available in conformity and obedience. The new media landscape is waking us up. We must retrain ourselves to allow it to inform a conversation, not dictate it.

What happened to Vinay Prasad is all that is wrong with the government, but more than that, it is everything that is wrong with our media culture of the moment. We owe our neighbors more than a slavish devotion to our brands and venerated personalities. Donald Trump may be better than others at being president, but it doesn’t make him right all the time, and any media that demands loyalty so ferociously that it forgets what power does to men isn’t worth paying attention to. Most of us were shamed by those in power during Covid that “doing our own research” was stupid and dangerous, but in reality, it is the only way to live as a free people. We have to dig. We have to read. We have to listen to people whom we don’t like. We have to analyze the conflicts of interest and personal animosity that a bombastic, fame-hungry “journalist” might have. If we don’t, we deserve exactly what we are getting: a broken system, unfixable through politics. That is a dangerous place to be when power is on the line.