Who is Luke Meyer? Trump Field Director Fired Over White Nationalist Views
Luke Meyer, a 24-year-old regional field director for the Donald Trump campaign in western Pennsylvania, has been fired after Politico revealed he was a prominent white nationalist writing and podcasting under an alias.
Meyer admitted to Politico that he was "Alberto Barbarossa," who cohosted the paywalled Alexandria podcast with Richard Spencer.
Spencer is known for neo-Nazi rhetoric , coining the term "alt-right," and organizing the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Meyer used the online identity of "Barbarossa" to promote white nationalist views.
Newsweek has contacted the Trump campaign via email for comment but has not been able to contact Meyer, who has deleted all of his social media accounts.
In one episode of Alexandria, Meyer suggested that the U.S. could implement a racial regime akin to the Apartheid in South Africa in the 20th century.
Spencer said: "The country is not going to return to Ben Franklin's heady, glorious ideals of a pure, Hyperborean ethnostate." Barbarossa replied: "But what you can preserve is something where we have complete and total control, something not unlike Rhodesia or South Africa."
In an appearance on a separate white nationalist podcast, Meyer advocated for racially homogeneous U.S. cities. "Why can't we make New York, for example, white again?" he asked, adding that a "return to 80 percent, 90 percent white would probably be, probably the best we could hope for."
His "Barbarossa" persona often appeared online in images that showed a hand wearing a ring bearing the sonnenrad, or Black Sun, a symbol appropriated by neo-Nazi groups.
According to Politico's investigation, published Tuesday, Meyer responded to being presented with evidence that he was Barbarossa by expressing relief at no longer having to "conceal my true thoughts," and saying that white nationalism was already part of the Trump campaign.
"Like the hydra, you can cut off my head and hold it up for the world to see, but two more will quietly appear and be working in the shadows," Meyer wrote in an email to a Politico journalist. "Slating Trump to speak at [Madison Square Garden], putting ' poisoning the blood ' in his speeches, setting up Odal runes at CPAC , etc. In a few years, one of those groypers [white supremacists] might even quietly bring me back in, with a stern warning for me to 'be more careful next time.'"
"Every second man under the age of thirty in the GOP believes 90 percent of the same things I believe," he wrote. "They just don't have the platform that I do, and can remain undetected as I had done."
After learning about Meyer's secret identity, the Pennsylvania GOP immediately terminated his employment.
"The employee in question was background-checked and vetted, but unbeknownst to us was operating separately under a pseudonym," the Pennsylvania GOP said in a statement. "If we'd had any inkling about his hidden and despicable activity he would never have been hired, and the instant we learned of it he was fired. We have no place in our party or nation for people with such shameful, hateful views."
Meyer held the position of regional field director for five months, working on Trump Force 47, an initiative within the Trump campaign focused on mobilizing volunteers and door-to-door efforts. The program is jointly funded by each state's GOP and the Trump campaign.
The Pennsylvania GOP made eight payments to Meyer for a total of $9,936 between June 17 and Aug. 30, according to Federal Election Commission data.
Since Friday, Meyer has deleted his LinkedIn and X accounts, as well as the Barbarossa X account. His Alberto Barbarossa Substack profile remained live at the time of writing.
