The Secret Trip That Turned Laura Loomer From Ukraine Skeptic to Supporter

The right-wing provocateur and Trump ally says she had a change of heart after realizing she was being duped by Russian misinformation: ‘I made a mistake’

By

Philip Wegmann

July 24, 2026 7:12 pm ET

The Wall Street Journal

Quick Summary [JB - such is named for the text]

-- Trump ally Laura Loomer said she was duped by Russian misinformation and now views Ukraine as an essential ally after visiting the country.

-- During her trip, Loomer interviewed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and called Trump twice to keep him apprised of her travels. 

-- Loomer said her shift began after she realized Russian propaganda channels were leading a foreign-interference operation.

This summary was generated with AI and reviewed by an editor. Read more

about how we [AI] use artificial intelligence in our journalism.

Laura Loomer is on a journey.

For years, the right-wing provocateur parroted Russian talking points, urging U.S. leaders to abandon Ukraine and calling the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, “an actual Nazi.”

But after a trip to war-torn Ukraine this week, and a sit-down with Zelensky, Loomer now says she was duped by misinformation coming out of Moscow./

“I made a mistake,” she said in a phone interview from Ukraine, as she looked for remnants of a Russian drone to bring home as a souvenir. Loomer now believes that support for Ukraine is the right “America First” policy stance, a sentiment she predicted the larger MAGA movement would soon adopt.

In the interview on Friday, she praised Zelensky as a “wartime leader” and heralded Ukraine as “an essential ally.” She has kept President Trump apprised of her travels, she said, calling him twice from the ground in Ukraine.

Loomer, an influential voice in some conservative circles, has at times promoted conspiracy theories. A controversial figure beloved by Trump, she has claimed that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were “an inside job,” claimed that a number of school shootings were “false flag” operations orchestrated by Democrats, and maintains that widespread election fraud led to her defeat while running for Congress in 2022.

It is a dramatic reversal, and if the larger MAGA movement follows the lead of Loomer, it could have significant ramifications back in Washington, where Republican critics of foreign intervention have seen their footing slip. The detente between Loomer, an ally of Trump, and Zelensky, who has sometimes been on the receiving end of his ire, could boost the standing of the Ukrainian leader in the White House. Zelensky is scheduled to meet with Trump next week, according to a White House official.

Asked by a reporter on Friday about Loomer’s U-turn and whether the support is growing for Ukraine in the MAGA movement, Trump said, “I think they support what I support.”

A Kyiv street market following Russian missile strikes earlier this week. Tetiana Dzhafarova/AFP/Getty Images

  

Trump returned to the White House as a skeptic of the Ukraine war. He campaigned on a promise to wrap up hostilities in 24 hours but quickly lost patience with Ukraine for not agreeing to terms that Kyiv complained were too favorable to Moscow. When Trump and Vice President JD Vance criticized Zelensky during a tense Oval Office meeting last year, Loomer cheered them on. She wrote on social media at the time that the U.S. wouldn’t put up with “Ukrainian disrespect.

Loomer’s conversion from Ukraine critic to sympathizer stemmed from her disillusionment with many of her fellow conservative influencers.

Pro-Kremlin accounts on social media began amplifying voices like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes, she recalled, who accused the president of being influenced by Israel./

Loomer, who is Jewish and a staunch supporter of Israel, had already been at war with those antiwar podcasters and influencers. She calls that loose group of commentators the “Woke Reich,” and has accused them of antisemitism.

“I started to think to myself, What else are we being lied to about? And I started to really examine a lot of the content that was coming out of Russia Today,” she said of the Moscow-backed broadcaster now known as RT, including its efforts to vilify Ukraine.

“And I realized, holy sh—,” she recalled, “there’s like a full-blown foreign-interference operation happening, and Russia’s propaganda channels are leading the way.” 

Then Loomer booked her flight. When she arrived in Ukraine, she said she found a much different country than the one she had spent years dismissing.

Loomer visited the Dormition Cathedral in Kyiv, the gold-domed church that Ukraine said had come under attack from Russian drones. She posted a picture of herself eating McDonald’s next to rubble. She met with members of the country’s diplomatic corps and religious leaders. She said she plans to tour the drone factory that the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) visited earlier this month before his sudden death.

But Loomer drew the most international attention for her on-camera interview with Zelensky on the grounds of Mariinsky Palace.

She apologized for minimizing Ukrainian suffering during the war. He opened up about a turning point in his relationship with Trump when they huddled at the Vatican earlier this year after the funeral of Pope Francis. Zelensky called it a historic moment in which the two leaders “changed the relations during 15-20 minutes.”

Loomer said she booked the interview only after arriving in Ukraine. She wouldn’t disclose who exactly underwrote her trip. “I’m an independent journalist. I’m not a billionaire. I’m not even a millionaire,” she said, insisting that the excursion was paid for by “private donors” and “100% all-American money.”

The trip and the subsequent reversal in her feelings toward Ukraine have attracted scrutiny.

Loomer pointed to online speculation from Russia-linked social-media accounts that claimed Zelensky paid her millions to make the trip. During a tour of what she described as an intelligence center tasked with countering Russian disinformation, Loomer said she asked about their annual budget and was told it was $2 million. “It’s absolutely obscene for somebody to think that they would spend that entire amount, that one budget, on one person,” she said.

Loomer said she didn’t give anyone a heads up that she would be traveling to Eastern Europe, not even the White House. Once she was on the ground, she called Trump directly. The president asked how she was enjoying Ukraine, she said, adding that he told her “to tell Zelensky I say hello.” According to Loomer, Trump promised to share her interview online once it was published. He had already posted a clip to his nearly 13 million followers on Truth Social.

Her new support for Ukraine isn’t unconditional. Loomer said she doesn’t believe that the U.S. should send billions of dollars in aid indefinitely. “I’m saying that we need to have a conversation about how many Americans have been propagandized by foreign media,” she said before adding that “the grown-ups in the GOP” needed to “excommunicate people who are foreign propagandists and are working on behalf of foreign governments to further destabilize our national security.”

Loomer predicted that Trump’s conservative base would follow her lead. She said she had been receiving messages all day from her fans who had been telling her, “Wow, my eyes have been opened.”