RANCHO PALOS VERDES, California — President Trump refused on Friday to condemn recent racially insensitive and conspiratorial comments from provocateur Laura Loomer, who traveled with him earlier this week to Tuesday night’s presidential debate and several 9/11 memorial events.

“Laura’s been a supporter of mine,” Trump told reporters at a press conference near Los Angeles, where he was pressed on concerns from Republican allies about his ongoing association with Loomer, who once declared herself a “proud Islamophobe” and has a long history of promoting conspiracies.

Trump said Ms. Loomer has “strong opinions,” but insisted at the news conference he was unaware of her recent comments, including a post on X in which she played on racist stereotypes by writing that “the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center” if his Democratic rival, Vice President Harris, wins in November. Ms. Harris is the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants.

“I don’t control Laura. Laura has to say what she wants,” Trump said. “I can’t tell Laura what to do.”

Yet later, via his Truth Social account, Trump tried to distance himself more clearly from Ms. Loomer, saying, “I disagree with the statements she made” and describing her as “a private citizen and longtime supporter” who “doesn’t work for the Campaign.” 

Even in that post, though, Trump defended Loomer, writing that “like the many millions of people who support me, she is tired of watching the Radical Left Marxists and Fascists violently attack and smear me.”

After the backlash, Trump seemed frustrated in a later post on his social media network in which he lashed out at the press, and he had more bluster than usual that night onstage at a rally in Las Vegas, frequently shouting.

Loomer’s appearances on the campaign trail with Trump have alarmed some top supporters, who have taken the rare move of publicly airing their concerns that he is hurting his chances against Harris, who is driving up Democratic enthusiasm that intensified with her debate performance Tuesday. Harris was campaigning Friday across Pennsylvania.

The Georgia Republican congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene, known herself for spreading conspiracies, called the post about curry “appalling and extremely racist” and said it did not represent Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.

Senator Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, called Ms. Loomer “a crazy conspiracy theorist who regularly utters disgusting garbage intended to divide Republicans,” and said a Democratic Party “plant couldn’t do a better job than she is doing to hurt President Trump’s chances of winning re-election.”