KYIV, Ukraine — Laura Loomer built a reputation for pushing conspiracy theories on social media. But after traveling through war-torn Ukraine and witnessing the destruction left by years of Russian attacks, she is now publicly admitting that she herself was misled.
A trusted confidant of President Donald Trump, Loomer has done a complete about-face on her long-standing criticism of Ukraine. She is now warning fellow conservatives to be on guard against Russian propaganda, which she says has successfully deceived large portions of the American political right.
“You don’t need to listen to a podcaster and let them influence your opinion about a country. You can look at those facts yourself,” Loomer told The Associated Press in Kyiv, shortly after returning from a trip near the front lines in eastern Ukraine. The interview was originally scheduled to take place in her hotel, but had to be relocated to the building’s underground bomb shelter when the city came under another ballistic missile attack.
Though Loomer holds no official government position, she has maintained significant influence with Trump. She said the two spoke by phone after she sat down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and she also indicated she plans to meet with Trump in person after returning from her trip.
Ukrainian officials have welcomed Loomer’s change of heart, particularly given the sometimes rocky relationship between Kyiv and the Trump administration. However, her reversal has also generated confusion, surprise, and skepticism back in the United States. Loomer has repeatedly denied that Ukraine paid for her travels.
With Trump and Zelenskyy preparing to meet in Washington on Tuesday, Loomer expressed confidence that her visit has already had an impact — drawing renewed attention to the conflict as Congress debates new sanctions aimed at punishing Russia.
“It’s looking good for Ukraine, right?” she said. “Going into this meeting next week at the Oval Office is looking pretty good.”
For years, Loomer minimized the war and amplified pro-Russian narratives — until her sudden and public reversal this week.
“I’ve come to realize I was bamboozled by Russian propaganda and I came to believe a lot of untrue things about Ukraine. I used to think that this was a country full of Nazis,” Loomer told Zelenskyy during an interview she conducted for her show on Rumble, an online video platform.
She attributed her shift in thinking partly to getting banned from American social media platforms, which led her to use Telegram, a platform where Russian state media content circulates widely.
“The Russians,” she added, “are very good at capitalizing on people’s rage. And I was very angry” — referring to her feelings about the 2020 presidential election, which she continues to falsely claim was stolen from Trump, a claim that has been thoroughly debunked.
She described her change of perspective as gradual, saying she began noticing podcasters like Tucker Carlson “turn on President Trump” while their messaging was being amplified by Russian outlets.
Loomer, who describes herself as an independent journalist, told the AP she believes her reversal is already shifting opinions within Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.
“Oh, 100%,” she said. “I’ve received messages all day from different people and media and politics and people just who follow me online who said, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize how much we’ve been lied to.’ ‘Wow you really opened my eyes.’”
Ukrainian officials appeared to recognize the strategic value of winning over a prominent Trump supporter with a large online following. Beyond her interview with Zelenskyy, Loomer met with senior Ukrainian officials and the country’s chief rabbi. She also received a tour of Dormition Cathedral of Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a historic monastic complex that was attacked by Russia last month.
“It takes courage to come to Ukraine and not be deterred by Russian propaganda or air raid sirens,” Zelenskyy’s office posted on social media.
“Laura is very powerful and she’s a very authoritative in the U.S., so I hope that everything she has seen by her own eyes will help her to spread the truth when she is back at the U.S.,” said Tetyana Berezhna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and minister of culture, in comments to the AP. “I do really hope and I believe that her visit will have a huge impact on relations with the U.S. administration.”
While some have questioned the extent of Loomer’s influence with the president, Trump has frequently followed her lead. She traveled with him at times during the 2024 campaign, and last year Trump removed members of his National Security Council staff after Loomer raised doubts about their loyalty during an Oval Office meeting.
Trump appears to be paying close attention to her Ukraine visit, sharing footage of her conversation with Zelenskyy on social media and writing, “Very good!!!” on Thursday evening.
Loomer’s record of spreading misinformation is well-documented. She once shared a video describing the September 11 attacks as an “inside job” and helped spread a false claim about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Ohio — a lie Trump later repeated during a presidential debate.
While her position on the Russia-Ukraine war has shifted, her controversial views on other subjects have not. On Saturday, she posted online: “One thing I really love about Ukraine is I haven’t seen a single Muslim here. It’s so refreshing.”
Yet in her AP interview, she criticized the outsized influence of podcasters who she says distort public understanding of major issues.
“They have been able to warp people’s minds to the point where people aren’t even capable of analyzing a subject with common sense anymore because they want to depend on these personalities to give them the opinion that they think they should have,” she said, calling the situation “a major national security threat.”
She argued that this kind of “information war” has “the potential to be more destructive than any kinetic war that our country may ever face,” and called on the Trump administration to take the threat of Russian propaganda, foreign interference, and influence operations more seriously.
“I think that some of our leaders are being influenced by propaganda,” she said.
The White House has generally downplayed the role of Russian influence operations, in part because Trump has long bristled at investigations concluding that Russia worked to benefit his 2016 presidential campaign.
Loomer has been consistent in saying Ukraine did not fund her trip and that she traveled independently.
“I can guarantee you I wasn’t paid by anybody. I certainly wasn’t paid by the government of Ukraine to come here,” she said.
“If it’s fake, why did I risk my life? I’m in a bomb shelter right now. I barely slept this week,” she added.
