Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R., Fla.) has become one of the most visible practitioners of attention politics on Capitol Hill, using a steady stream of viral-ready posts, television appearances, and public confrontations to press an agenda that ranges from declassifying federal secrets to capping credit-card interest rates, according to a Wall Street Journal profile.
The 37-year-old Air Force veteran, who entered Congress in 2023 after working as a model and for the conservative youth group Turning Point USA, now commands roughly 790,000 Instagram followers and nearly 1 million X followers. She said in an interview that she rejects the label of “influencer,” though her X biography links to a 2023 profile headlined “The Influencer Who Came to Congress.”
“I am Mike Johnson’s favorite headache,” Luna said, referring to the House speaker.
Luna’s approach has drawn fierce loyalty from a small group of allies while irritating many colleagues, including Republicans who spoke to the Journal on condition of anonymity, saying they feared retaliation from her online following. Rep. Nick LaLota (R., N.Y.) said: “While she has a large Twitter following, she’s not somebody I go to for legislative advice.”
Retiring Rep. Ryan Zinke (R., Mont.) described Luna as part of a broader shift in House decorum that began during the pandemic. “She’s very talented, but she operates out of process, and that I think institutionally is a problem,” Zinke said.
Luna pushed back, saying the criticism stems from her willingness to “hold their feet to the fire.” She said she is proud of bypassing House GOP leadership to advance her priorities. “Everything that I’ve had to do is because of operating outside of normal procedure, because they will intentionally hold your legislation back if you don’t fall in line and I refuse to give up my autonomy,” she said.
As chair of the House Oversight Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, Luna has amplified claims from a CIA whistleblower who alleged that intelligence officials removed boxes related to John F. Kennedy’s assassination and the MKUltra human experimentation program. She suggested on NewsNation that the episode looked like an “internal coup,” a segment that other outlets used to claim there had been a raid at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Tulsi Gabbard’s press secretary publicly said those claims were false; Luna said she never used the word “raid” and said she based her remarks on news reports of a whistleblower account.
Days earlier, Luna jumped into a dispute between Make America Healthy Again activists and House GOP colleagues over a farm-bill provision that would shield pesticide makers from health-related lawsuits. She said she would “BLOW UP the farm bill” and successfully introduced an amendment to remove the language. Some Republicans blamed her for MAHA activists later targeting them. Luna said she had a text from a member on the Agriculture Committee saying she was “fighting the pesticide liability shield for attention, and that I was a damn liar.”
In April, Luna pushed to expel Rep. Tony Gonzales (R., Texas) and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D., Calif.) over sexual misconduct allegations, threatening to force a vote ahead of House Ethics Committee investigations. Both resigned in mid-April. “I was one of the only members of Congress willing to call my party and others and get them out,” Luna said.
Luna has also accused Sen. Ruben Gallego (D., Ariz.) of sexual misconduct, saying she based the claim on other women’s accounts and has referred the matter to the Senate Ethics Committee. A spokesperson for Gallego dismissed the allegations as “right wing conspiracy theories being parroted by a fringe far right member of Congress.” Gallego’s office said the senator had proactively met with the Ethics Committee in April.
Luna declined to sign a bipartisan discharge petition forcing the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the late convicted sex offender. She said she supported the files’ release but opposed the petition because she did not want to “intentionally be used in a personal fight that’s now still playing out in an election.”
Last week, Luna said she was filing charges against CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin, alleging Benjamin had followed her out of a House Foreign Affairs Committee and “smacked” her. CODEPINK posted a video showing Benjamin lightly touching Luna’s arm. Luna replied that Benjamin had “crossed a personal boundary that should NEVER be crossed.”
Luna has worked across party lines on some issues. She pushed to allow proxy voting for new parents in Congress, a move that drew conservative backlash and prompted her to leave the House Freedom Caucus. She also introduced legislation with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) to cap credit-card interest rates, and has advocated for a ban on members of Congress trading stocks.
Rep. Max Miller (R., Ohio), who described Luna as a friend, said: “People may not like how she goes about things, but no one can say that she’s not effective in what she does.”
Luna told the Journal that staying in Congress is not her long-term plan. “I think a lot of people want to do this for 20 years,” she said. “I do not want to do this for 20 years.”