As she pushed Donald Trump to “shut down” leftist organizations in the US over Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the far-right influencer Laura Loomer was confronted with a social media post that less than two months earlier lambasted the Turning Point USA (TPUSA) executive director as a “charlatan” who had betrayed the president.

“It’s time for the Trump administration to shut down, defund & prosecute every single leftist organization,” Loomer wrote on X after Kirk was fatally shot while speaking at Utah Valley University on Wednesday. “We must shut these lunatic leftists down. Once and for all. The left is a national security threat.”

The staunch Trump supporter on Thursday also described having stayed up all night and pledged to expose anyone online whom she perceived to mock Kirk or “celebrate” the rightwing activist’s murder, saying: “I’m going to make you wish you never opened your mouth.”

Yet replies to her plea for the president to pursue US liberals in Kirk’s name were inundated with screenshots of a lengthy post from 13 July in which she criticized the slain 31-year-old as a “charlatan” and “political opportunist” who engaged in “mental gymnastics” and “stabs Trump in the back”.

At the time, Kirk had spoken against military strikes targeting Iran that were ordered by Trump, for whom TPUSA had rallied young voters’ support. Kirk had also been vocal about wanting a full release of materials pertaining to the prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein, the former Trump friend who in 2008 had pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor and in 2019 died in jail while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.

Loomer in those days said she was also upset that, just one year removed from Trump’s having survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, Kirk had hosted the comedian Dave Smith at a conference after the latter called on the Republican president to be impeached and for his supporters to “abandon” him.