Republican Guest Tells Anderson Cooper His Segment About Trump and Laura Loomer Is ‘Juvenile’ – It Didn’t Go Well

Former Rep. Scott Taylor (R-VA) has been a frequent guest on CNN of late, but given the week he’s had on the network, hosts may not be itching to have him on.

On Monday’s AC360 , Taylor did election denialism without engaging in it, instead opting for the old Republican refrain about how “a lot of folks out there” really believe the 2020 presidential contest was rigged. That prompted Anderson Cooper to dismiss Taylor’s line as “high school debate stuff.”

In the same segment about former President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud, Taylor – “with all due respect” – slammed the network over its handling of “the Steele Dossier , Hunter Biden’s laptop , lab leak theory dismissal, Jussie Smollett, and so on.”

Then on Thursday, Taylor completely trashed a segment he participated in, calling it “juvenile.”

At issue is the fact that Trump has been spending a lot of time with far-right conspiracy theorist, racist, and 9/11 truther Laura Loomer , who is so beyond the pale that Republican bomb-thrower Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called her out over her “appalling and extremely racist” attack on Vice President Kamala Harris .

Loomer was seen disembarking from Trump’s plane just two hours ahead of his debate with Harris on Tuesday night in Philadelphia. The next day, Loomer accompanied the former president to a fire station in New York City to commemorate the Sept. 11 attacks, which Loomer claims was an “inside job.”

Some Republicans have expressed concern about Loomer’s apparent place in Trump’s inner circle.

On Thursday’s AC360 , Cooper hosted a panel to discuss the matter, during which time Taylor committed the cardinal sin of telling a host how to run his show.

After Brian Stelter delivered a brief bio of Loomer, Cooper turned to his panel of Taylor, Natasha Alford , and Anthony Scaramucci . They noted that Trump has run with false claims by Loomer, including the ludicrous idea that the vice president only recently “ became a Black person .” During the debate, the former president also repeated a baseless right-wing rumor – spread by Loomer – about migrants in Ohio stealing pets and eating them.

After Alford and Scaramucci said their pieces about Loomer being so close to a former and perhaps future president, Taylor pooh-poohed the discussion entirely and called the topic “beneath the show.” Here’s how that went:

TAYLOR: I just think this is a super juvenile, to be honest with you. I mean, I watched Stelter on there say, “Well, you know, you get to reward her for this. Of course. Look, she’s being talked about right now and you asked the question, who’s Laura Loomer? I don’t know who she is, but I just feel like this is juvenile watching him–

COOPER: She’s on the former president’s plane.

TAYLOR: It doesn’t matter. The way that your– the way that the program is framing it, and the way that Brian’s framing, it’s like all these rumors and innuendos. “I don’t know what she’s doing on there.” Like, what are you talking about? That’s not news. I think it’s just juvenile and beneath the show, to be honest with you.

COOPER: But we’re not the ones hanging out with her. It’s– your candidate is hanging out with her and actually listening to her and taking advice from her to call the vice president a recently-turned-Black person.

TAYLOR: You guys are saying he’s taking advice from her. How do you know that? Brian doesn’t know that.

COOPER: She’s riding on the plane with him posting memes that he then talks about and adds dogs into them in the debate.

TAYLOR: Have you on this show had someone else who says crazy stuff, anti-Semitism, plenty of that on the left, have you done the same kind of segment for Kamala? Because there’s plenty of examples out there. So, I just don’t, I just find this kind of juvenile, to be honest with you.

COOPER: Ok, but what you’re not doing is, you’re not talking about Laura Loomer. So, your argument–

Taylor: Do one with her.

COOPER: What you’re doing is you’re trying to distract– I’m asking you about Laura Loomer.

TAYLOR: It’s juvenile, that’s all.

COOPER: Ok, is it juvenile for the former president to hang out with her and to take advice from her?

TAYLOR: I don’t know that he’s taking advice from her. I don’t know who she is. So, I don’t know.

…

COOPER: He brought her to 9/11 remembrances. She’s with him for days at a time.

Watch above via CNN.