Zelensky courts MAGA in Washington but anti-interventionists remain skeptical

Full text

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives in Washington this week having made initial headway courting the MAGA movement that has long complicated his push to keep U.S. support flowing for Ukraine’s war against Russia.

But if he wants to get the anti-interventionist wing of the Republican party on his side, Zelenskyy will have a lot more convincing to do during his time in the U.S.

The most public MAGA-figure-turned-Ukraine-backer has been conservative activist Laura Loomer, who visited Ukraine last week, interviewed Zelenskyy and said she now fully supports Kyiv. While the social media influencer stressed that she made the trip of her own accord, she said in an interview that it was the Ukrainian president who approached her about the sit-down, rather than the other way around.

“Zelenskyy saw that I was in the country, and then he reached out and asked if I would come” to meet him, Loomer said.

There have been other signs that Ukraine is getting traction with the anti-interventionist crowd in recent weeks — including Vice President JD Vance, who recently praised Ukraine’s defensive strategy and argued that Kyiv’s battlefield performance could help create the conditions for peace.

Ukrainian officials and their supporters have long hoped to bring a wider swath of the Republican Party on board to back their four-year war against Russia — in the hopes of persuading President Donald Trump to stand by Kyiv. Zelenskyy has arrived in Washington with a list of requests for Trump and is trying to seize the moment provided by new backers and the battlefield wins Ukraine has made in recent months against Russia.

A person familiar with the Ukrainian president’s plans said the topics he wanted to discuss, in order of priority, were: sanctions, a drone deal, Patriots and peace talks. The person was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive briefings.

But scores of hard-line America First Trump allies on Capitol Hill do not share Loomer’s change of heart. That’s especially true of a band of House Republicans who have long pressed GOP leadership to cut off U.S. military and economic assistance to Ukraine.

“I can’t speak for MAGA but I’m not” coming around to supporting Ukraine, said Rep. Tim Burchett, an America First and MAGA-aligned Republican from Tennessee.

Other MAGA-aligned Hill Republicans argued they believe Loomer is getting paid to push her new Ukraine-friendly position and that no Republican lawmaker has changed their mind about Ukraine.

“X doesn’t make foreign policy,” said a House Republican lawmaker, referring to the spate of social media posts from former Ukraine skeptics in the GOP. The individual was granted anonymity to speak about internal discussions.

Asked who paid for her trip to Ukraine, Loomer said it was not the Ukrainian government, but did not provide more details. Loomer also stressed that she initiated the trip.

“I had no idea people were going to, like, freak out about me being in Ukraine,” Loomer said. “It became like a national news story in the country. I didn’t plan for it to be this way. I just came to Ukraine, and like everybody wanted to meet me, and it just turned out that way.”

Zelenskyy’s meeting with Loomer was not originally intended to be an interview but the Ukrainian president “appreciated that she has taken her time” to get firsthand reporting of the war, a Ukrainian official said.

Trump remains committed to ending the war between Russia and Ukraine, the White House said in a statement when asked about the Zelenskyy meeting.

“The president and his team remain committed to continuing to play a constructive role in ending the war between Russia and Ukraine, and he remains optimistic that we’ll ultimately get a peace deal done,” the statement said.

The White House didn’t respond to further inquiries about Ukraine and MAGA or Vance’s stance.

Some close to the White House question the sincerity of Loomer’s about-face.

“Foreign governments and foreign aligned interests have infiltrated the right-wing media ecosystem in America … it’s a space that’s gotten completely out of control,” said one person close to the White House, who was granted anonymity to discuss foreign government influence on right-wing media.

Zelenskyy is trying to sway Republicans skeptical of U.S. engagement in Ukraine with a few key points, including emerging evidence that Russia has been backing Iran. Such messaging could land with the MAGA base that has been broadly supportive of U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, even if that support is fading.

Trump, though, was unmoved when asked about Zelenskyy’s claims on Monday.

“Well, we’ll find out if that’s true. I’ll ask Putin about it,” he said. “We’ll find out.”

Zelenskyy is also expected to try and make more inroads on Capitol Hill on this trip. His visit to Washington is timed so he can attend the funeral of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Ukraine’s most forceful advocate in Congress.

Graham’s death strips Zelenskyy of one of the few voices pushing Trump to go harder against Russia from within his own party. Graham’s influence, however, never fully moved Trump’s position to begin with.

Zelenskyy does have another very concrete argument to make to Trump — that Ukraine is showing it can win the war. The Ukrainian military has made inroads into Russian defenses with repeated drone attacks in recent months that have put Moscow on the back foot.

“Trump sees that Putin is losing, and he sees that Zelenskyy has actually pulled this all together and is winning.” said Kurt Volker, who served as the U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations during Trump’s first term. “So that has, I think, then colored his attitude.”

Volker called Trump’s declaration that he has a “good relationship” with Zelenskyy at this month’s NATO summit in Ankara — where he also backed Ukrainian production of Patriot interceptor missiles — “a signal to the MAGA world that it’s OK to support Ukraine.” Volker now is an adviser to Ukrainian energy company DTEK.

NATO alliance leaders noted a shift in Ankara from previous dire predictions about the course of the war and Trump administration skepticism.

“I heard a different tone in the room,” Maria Malmer Stenergard, Sweden’s foreign affairs minister said. “Yes, Ukraine has momentum, and we must increase the support, because now they have a possibility to change things and make sure that Russia actually comes to the negotiation table for real.”

In his time on the Hill this week, Zelenskyy is expected to have some smaller meetings as well as address a meeting of the full Senate on Tuesday evening, according to a Republican aide, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Ukraine’s priority push on sanctions is about getting Congress to finally move on long-stalled legislation that Graham had spearheaded. Now formally named the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctions Act on Russia, the bill would impose sanctions on Moscow and its enablers, potentially including tariffs on the largest buyers of Russian energy. It gained the White House’s backing shortly before Graham died unexpectedly earlier this month.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the bill would get its first vote Tuesday. Trump has so far been reluctant to impose sanctions on Russia.

“I hope the motion to get on it will be a very big vote, a very big bipartisan vote, and if it I think that will at least set up a path to get it done and maybe create an opportunity to get a limited time agreement,” Thune told reporters on Monday.

Still, it’s unclear whether other MAGA figures are anywhere near giving Kyiv the kind of vociferous support for Ukraine that Loomer has voiced.

Prominent conservative podcaster Tim Pool, previously an outspoken critic of Ukraine, raised eyebrows when he said in a post on X last week that Ukraine was “fighting for its very existence against an evil dictator” and wrote that he now understood the importance of a Ukrainian victory over Russia.

It was unclear whether he was commenting seriously or not. On Monday, Pool suggested that those who support Ukraine receive more media attention.

Pool did not respond to a request for comment.

Others who support a more isolationist foreign policy say the messaging shift is the result of Trump’s failure to deliver on his promise to swiftly end the war.

“Trump is allowing this war to fester and activists like Loomer are entering the gap,” said Curt Mills, executive director of The American Conservative magazine.

Veronika Melkozerova, Paul McLeary, Meredith Lee Hill and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.