Donald Trump Ally Booted from Nikki Haley Event in Iowa

Conservative activist and journalist Laura Loomer shared a video on Saturday where she wasn't allowed to enter or attend a Town Hall hosted by the Nikki Haley campaign in Bettendorf, Iowa.

The video shows Loomer, an avid supporter of former President Donald Trump, being told by an officer with the Indianola Police Department to leave the event.

When Loomer asks Sgt. Devin Thomas, "why?" She is told "This is private property, and they want you to leave."

Loomer is shown telling the officer that she had signed up for the event after receiving an email blast. A member of Haley's campaign staff is shown, nearby, but did not speak during the one-minute interaction.

Newsweek reached out to the Haley campaign and the Indianola Police Department via email for statements about the incident.

As of 6:30 p.m., the video had been viewed over 6 million times and Loomer was trending on X, formerly Twitter.

In a phone interview with Newsweek, Loomer said she was surprised to be asked to leave the event.

"I'm a well-known conservative journalist so there's no denying who I am," she said. "I had Vivek Ramaswamy on my show. I talk to candidates, and today I decided to go see Nikki Haley.

"I was approved for the ticket, and I signed my name when I got there. They even asked me if I wanted to volunteer. But while I was waiting for the event, they just called the cops over on me."

Haley is now Trump's main challenger in the 2024 GOP primary, although she still trails the former president by a large margin in most national polls. Haley and Ron DeSantis are neck-and-neck for second, but both trail Trump in Iowa.

With the Iowa caucuses just ahead on January 15, Loomer said she planned to ask questions at the Town Hall. The far-right activist blasted Haley, mocking the presidential contender's ability to stand up to foreign leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

"She says she will stand up to dictators," Loomer told Newsweek. "How is she going to stand up to Putin and Xi if she can't answer a question from Laura Loomer? As nasty as the press is to President Trump, you never see him kicking the press out."

The incident comes on the heels of several conservatives, including Loomer, accusing Haley of being similar to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Loomer recently shared an article from her conservative website, Lommered, on X, where her colleague Charles Downs criticized Haley's perceived likeness to Democrat Clinton.

In the article, titled Nikki Haley Embraces Her Inner Hillary Clinton, Downs pointed to a 2015 video of Haley talking about decriminalizing immigrants in the U.S. In the video, Haley said: "These people that are wanting to come here, they want to come for a better life too...we don't need to talk about them as criminals, they're not...."

Downs said in the article that Haley's comments "are almost word for word" like Clinton's comments on immigration during a Facebook question-and-answer session in November 2015.

Haley has cracked down on border security during her 2024 campaign, calling to "close" the border and "catch and deport" anyone who entered the U.S. illegally.