Ukraine war: Will Laura Loomer persuade Trump to turn on Russia?
Laura Loomer may not have an official position in the White House (or anywhere else), but she nevertheless has Donald Trump’s ear. Prior to 2025, the far-right media personality was perhaps best known for handcuffing herself to the headquarters of Twitter to protest her ban from the platform. (Her account was eventually unblocked, of course.)
Bizarrely, in the second Trump administration, she has become a major adviser to the president. Her latest move? Advocating for Ukraine. Loomer has been ultracritical of the nation, deeming it “full of Nazis” and calling its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a dictator, a “fake Jew,” and a “Jihadi apologist.” Yet she recently visited the country and met with Zelensky—a conversation Trump reposted, signaling a potential pivot in U.S. policy toward Ukraine.
Ken Bensinger, a New York Times reporter who covers media and politics, wrote about this junket of Loomer’s. He notes that over the past four years, Ukraine has been fighting for its life. The war “is being fought on their territory,” he said. “They need to figure out a way to survive. A big part of that has to do with making sure that they get support from the West. And key to that is currying favor with the Trump administration.”
On a recent episode of What Next, host Mary Harris spoke to Bensinger about why Loomer’s trip to Ukraine was actually a big deal—maybe. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Mary Harris: For context, can you give me a brief update on where we are with the Ukraine war?
Ken Bensinger: To be clear, I’m not an expert on this. But essentially, the war started in February 2022, and we’re still in it. Russia thought it would steamroll to victory in a matter of weeks, and instead, it’s four and a half years later and it’s still grinding out. The casualty counts, if they’re to be believed, are horrendous on both sides, but particularly with the Russians: They’ve turned the front line into something of a human meat grinder for Russian conscripts. It’s been estimated that the time between someone being brought into the Russian military and dying on the front was something like a few months, on average. Just horrendous. These people are being sent to die. And Russia is bringing in people from other countries that are associated with it that want to fight, just doing everything they can to continue waging this war.
Anne Applebaum wrote an article for the Atlantic, and the headline was: “Ukraine Is Not Losing. Russia Is Not Winning”—the implication being that Ukraine’s doing better than we thought. Notably, it’s been able to be innovative in terms of how it fights. It’s been sailing drones into Moscow, which is a pretty major innovation.
This has also been an incredible front line of the technological vanguard for how war is going to be fought in the future. This is drone headquarters, and Ukraine and Russia are fighting the war in increasing degree with drones, and Ukraine has been a huge innovator, to the point that its experts are now consulting with American experts on how to improve our technology and defend U.S. military assets in the Gulf region against Iranian drones. Ukraine knows about Iranian drones because Russia uses Iranian drones. It’s all interconnected in awkward and interesting ways.
And what’s the U.S.–Ukraine relationship? When Joe Biden was president, the relationship was very enmeshed, right? There was good intelligence sharing. People were essentially working together to fight this war. I get the sense it’s not that enmeshed now.
Yeah. Trump appointed Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner as negotiators, to supposedly fix this and all other conflicts in the world. They have been to Moscow numerous times, but they have never been to Kyiv.
Amazing. Loomer went first.
Yes, Loomer went before the actual negotiators. Now, you could say that neither Kushner nor Witkoff is an actual diplomat—they’re both real-estate guys—but they haven’t been to Kyiv. They’ve certainly visited the Gulf a bunch of times. They’ve been to Oman, to Pakistan. If you want a single fact to point out how bad that relationship is, that’s a good one.
It’s interesting—you talked to a guy named Steven Moore, who straight-up says Ukraine looks like it’s winning right now. To him, this creates an opening to try to shift the relationship with Washington, because Trump likes a winner.
Moore is among a number of people who have set up nonprofits and other groups to sway public opinion, and the big man’s opinion, in innovative ways. You could think of it as the drone warfare of diplomacy, which is, instead of sending infantry in the normal way to do it and shooting up howitzers, you’re trying different approaches.
Like sending Laura Loomer?
Like sending Laura Loomer. Although I want to be clear: Moore was not behind that. But he was behind other initiatives: getting billboards, seeding social media with messages that Vladimir Putin is a loser or that Russia is losing a war it should have won.
Trump doesn’t like losers, and the whole thinking was: We need to get inside his head and convince him that he wants to be on the side of a winner.
So Moore didn’t pay for Loomer’s trip to Ukraine. Do we know who did?
We have a sense, but unfortunately, it’s not public information. As described by Loomer, there is a U.S.-based nonprofit, founded by an American who has Ukrainians in their family, that has been pushing to change public opinion about Ukraine. That founder proposed that Loomer go over there and offered to organize the whole trip and set up the meetings. You can imagine that someone like Loomer, who doesn’t speak Ukrainian, has never been there, wouldn’t know where to begin. Here’s someone who’ll pay for your driver when you’re in Ukraine, find a videographer to film you, pay for security, all that kind of stuff. It’s a lot cheaper and a lot easier that way.
This is a robust effort. But Laura Loomer is still Laura Loomer. While she was in Ukraine, she tweeted out or posted somewhere, “One thing I really love about Ukraine is I haven’t seen a single Muslim here. It’s so refreshing.” So let’s all hold that in our hearts as we have this conversation.
Many people sent me that tweet, and it’s completely true to herself. No matter what she’s doing or what she’s talking about, she’s going to find a way to bash Muslims. She and I have had multiple conversations about it, and it’s something she won’t move on. She seems unashamed of being labeled a bigot when it comes to Muslims.
So she interviewed Zelensky. Was there any breaking news there?
I don’t think there’s anything major. I think he’s pretty polished about that kind of stuff.
To me, the biggest news was that Trump blasted the interview out to his followers, which seems to be a tacit endorsement.
Correct. And to hear Loomer’s telling of it, she posted it online, then she called up the president twice. In one of those calls, she mentioned the clip and said, “Can I send it to you or get it in front of your eyes?,” and he said sure. She said that very soon thereafter he posted it. So she didn’t just create the content; she also pushed it on Trump, and he took the bait and reposted it. Mission accomplished, right? That was probably the main goal of the entire trip. That’s a win.
It’s interesting to listen to what Loomer is saying about Ukraine, because it hints at how a pivot to more robustly supporting Ukraine in this war could be justified. She talks a lot about the drones. Ukraine has become so good at using them that other countries—the UAE, Saudi Arabia—are asking for Ukraine to please share this technology. To me, this is pivoting Ukraine away from being a pitiable country asking for charity—like, “We are in a tough spot, help us, please, Mr. Trump”—to “We are a strong country with something to offer, and we deserve investment, United States of America.” Do you see that too?
I think that’s right. One of the reasons MAGA has been against supporting Ukraine is this idea of: Why should we just do a charitable act of helping them? If they can’t help themselves, why is that our problem? The “America First” foreign policy means helping America, so what does it give us to give them money or munitions? But there’s so much talk now about Ukrainian technologists and scientists coming here to teach us to make better drones and help us fight Iran. The idea that Ukraine is giving us something in exchange for us giving them support is a much more palatable kind of thing for Trump and MAGA world to consider. Then it’s a business deal. And remember, of course, Trump loves deals. If anything can be described as a deal, then he wants it.
