WASHINGTON (AP) — President Trump is set to welcome Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the White House on Tuesday, marking their second face-to-face meeting this month. The visit comes just ahead of Sen. Lindsey Graham’s funeral and follows a notable shift in opinion from a far-right activist who holds significant sway with the president.
Zelenskyy is traveling to Washington to pay his respects to Graham, whose final act as a public official was a trip to Kyiv, where he helped secure an agreement on a sanctions package designed to penalize nations that buy Russian oil, gas, and other exports.
Adding an unexpected dimension to the meeting, Zelenskyy now has a surprising new supporter: Laura Loomer, a figure best known for her provocative social media presence and her close ties to the president. After traveling through Ukraine and witnessing Russian attacks firsthand, Loomer interviewed Zelenskyy and publicly admitted she had been “bamboozled by Russian propaganda.”
Loomer said she spoke with Trump following her meeting with Zelenskyy in Ukraine last week and expects to sit down with the president again once she returns from her trip.
“It’s looking good for Ukraine, right?” Loomer told The Associated Press. “Going into this meeting next week at the Oval Office is looking pretty good.”
Before the White House meeting, Zelenskyy also raised concerns about Russia allegedly helping Iran by capturing satellite images of U.S. military installations in the Gulf region — images that he says later surface in Iranian hands. The Ukrainian president pointed to what he called a “clear correlation” between those Russian images and subsequent Iranian strikes.
“The purpose is clear,” Zelenskyy said earlier this month. “None of us in the world should turn a blind eye to one very simple fact: Evil always seeks ways to make things worse and spread further.”
On Monday, Trump pushed back on the idea that Russia has been meaningfully assisting Iran. “I don’t think they’ve been doing it, certainly not at a high level,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One while traveling to Michigan. “And if they have, it has been very un-impactful.” He added, however, that he planned to bring the matter up with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Zelenskyy has a packed schedule during his Washington visit. Beyond the White House meeting, he is expected to head to Capitol Hill on Tuesday evening following Graham’s funeral at Washington National Cathedral to meet with senators, according to a source familiar with the plans who was not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity.
Republican leadership is hoping to push Graham’s sanctions legislation forward this week, though the Senate is balancing several competing priorities before lawmakers break for the August recess.
The bill, backed by dozens of lawmakers from both parties, is widely viewed as the primary policy legacy of Graham, who died unexpectedly this month from a tear in his aorta. The legislation would impose tariffs on goods from the world’s five largest buyers of Russian oil or natural gas, including China and India. It also includes sanctions targeting Putin, senior Russian political and military figures, and Russian financial institutions and energy projects.
Trump and Zelenskyy previously met on the sidelines of the NATO summit earlier this month in Ankara, Turkey, where Trump announced that the U.S. would grant Ukraine a license to manufacture Patriot air defense systems — a long-standing request from Kyiv to help counter Russian missile attacks. Noting that he and Zelenskyy have “actually developed a good relationship,” Trump said the U.S. would assist Ukraine in producing the systems and that the country could begin manufacturing them “pretty quickly.”
