Laura Loomer’s Ukraine reversal: ‘I feel like I’ve changed global policy’
Laura Loomer, the controversial but influential pro-Trump blogger, arrived in Kyiv on July 19, with only a few meetings lined up and, in her telling, no agenda other than seeing the war-torn country for herself. Ten days later, she returned to Florida as one of MAGA’s most prominent advocates for Ukraine.
Along the way, a person who not long ago was a sharp critic of Kyiv made international headlines as she interviewed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a frontline commander and tried to persuade special envoy Steve Witkoff to make his first trip to Kyiv. She challenged her MAGA compatriots to reexamine the conflict and America’s role in the world.
“I feel like I’ve changed global policy,” Loomer said in a phone interview.
Loomer said she expects to visit the White House this month to discuss her trip, among other subjects, with President Donald Trump, who promoted her interview with Zelensky online. Trump has remained a steadfast fan of Loomer to the chagrin of some advisers, praising her doggedness and devotion to him.
Trump, too, has been somewhat more supportive of Ukraine of late, declaring at a NATO summit in July that he was comfortable with Kyiv striking inside Russia and opening the door to letting Ukraine license U.S. missile defense technology. He has been warmer toward Zelensky, whom he once ejected from the White House, in recent months as Kyiv has resisted Russian battlefield advances and menaced the Kremlin deep into its territory.
Following his own meeting with Zelensky on Tuesday, Trump said he wants him to end the war and stopped short of taking sides between him and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“It’s very simple: I get along with both,” he said. “I get along with President Putin, I get along with President Zelensky.”
Loomer said she hopes to convince Americans that Russia is the problem. After years of assailing Zelensky and opposing American support for Ukraine, Loomer returned from the country a full-throated evangelist for a strategic alliance, tying its resistance to Russia with Trump’s war in Iran. [Continue reading…]