Could Laura Loomer save Ukraine?

0:02This is a global production.

0:04Laura Loomer:Zelensky clearly made mistakes with the Republicans. In the first year of the Trump administration, we saw this meeting with Zelensky in the Oval Office that was perhaps one of the most embarrassing things we've ever seen in the Oval Office. Fast forward a little bit more than a year. you've got a Trump administration and conservative influencers like Laura Loomer who are warming up to Zelensky. He's learning to speak MAGA. Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Great results, 70, 70. You know, the best president is first of all, the president for your country. Donald Trump. For today, Donald Trump. You believe he's the best president?

0:56The best president of the United States? Now, history will answer because I think that Lincoln. Lincoln. Yes. Free the slaves. But after Lincoln, who do you think is the best? I know a lot. President Trump is going to watch this interview.

1:15Laura Loomer:No, Trump is good. Volodymyr Zelensky has long been able to speak English as a foreign language. But following his catastrophic meeting with Donald Trump in the Oval Office last year, he's learning to speak MAGA and he's being schooled by one of Donald Trump's closest confidants. Is this a game changer for Ukraine? Welcome to the News Agents USA. The News Agents USA with Emily Maitlis and John Sopel. It's John. And the voice you heard, of course, that was deep and gravelly was that of Volodymyr Zelensky, unmistakable. The woman asking the questions is someone called Laura Loomer. She's 33 years old and has become an indispensable Trump influencer.

2:06Laura Loomer:She has the ear of the president. She travels on Air Force One. She is a Trump whisperer. And originally, back in the day, she was one of those people who thought that Ukraine was in need of no help, deserved no help. It was full of Nazi sympathisers, she said. And she's had a bit of a journey. Some might even go as far as to say it's been a Damascene conversion. Because Laura Loomer has gone to Ukraine, visited the front line. And while she was there, such is her importance that Volodymyr Zelensky got in touch with her and invited her to come and do an interview with him. And the one seems to have been charmed by the other.

2:52Laura Loomer:And so we now have a situation where Laura Loomer is going out to Magaland and saying Zelensky needs our support. And Zelensky has been very smart to realise that after that appalling, catastrophic, ghastly meeting with J.D. Vance and Trump at the White House last year, he needed to start learning the language of Trump, which is something he appears to be doing right now. Well, let's bring in Miles Taylor, great friend of the podcast and someone who was, you know, served as a chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security in Trump's first administration, but has since been a pretty forthright critic of Donald Trump.

3:39Laura Loomer:Have I got it right on Laura Looma? What do you think? I think you do, John. But here's the thing. The timing here is all very, very suspect. Keep in mind that the, you know, in the first year of the Trump administration, we saw this meeting with Zelensky in the Oval Office that was perhaps one of the most embarrassing things we've ever seen in the Oval Office. Notionally, a friend of the United States that is at war, whose territory has been invaded, sitting there getting berated by the president and his senior officials. You don't have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards. I'm not playing cards.

4:23Right now, you're playing cards. You're playing cards. You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War III. You're gambling with World War III. and what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country, that's back to you, far more than a lot of people said they should have. Have you said thank you once? That was last spring and it was an extraordinary moment. I mean, I know folks, John, here in Washington who literally stopped watching the news for a month because they were so shocked by what they saw in that episode. Fast forward a little bit more than a year, you've got a Trump administration and conservative influencers like Laura Loomer who are warming up to Zelensky.

5:11What has changed in that time period? Well, I'll tell you, a year ago, Donald Trump and his team looked at Zelensky and said, you don't have any cards. They basically said to him, you're going to lose this thing without us. And then lo and behold, months go by, sounds like Zelensky does have the card. Zelensky's mounted operations that have put Russia on its heels in different locations that have sent Russians going back from the front lines. And now this administration is starting to feel like Zelensky is a winner. And I'll tell you one thing about Donald Trump. There was one schema that was useful for understanding the man.

5:52It was the winners and losers schema. And he does not like to associate with the losing side. He likes to be friends with the winning side, even if that means investing in both candidates, right? He's the type of guy that would donate to both candidates in a race just to say he was friends with the winner. And so I think you're seeing some of that trickle down to the Laura Loomer types who are very close to Trump is if Zelensky wins this thing and comes out on top, they don't want to be seen as just having allied with Putin alone.

6:21Laura Loomer:I suppose the other aspect of this, and it's something that Donald Trump has kind of been questioned about in the recent days, is that Russia is supplying satellite images to the Iranians of where American positions are in the Middle East. And Donald Trump is saying, well, I don't know about that. But obviously, I would imagine in national security circles, There is deep unease about the role Russia is playing in helping Iran. And of course, Iran has been supplying Russia for the last four years with these Shaheed drones that have been pummeling Ukraine. So I would imagine Donald Trump has reason to feel really pissed with Vladimir Putin right now.

7:05Well, he should. This is the type of thing that we have seen coming over many years. I mean, more than a decade ago, it was obvious that the Russians were deepening their relationship with the Iranians. They were broadcasting it in the national security community. We were very concerned about what this would mean for the Russians to have a deeper relationship with the Iranians. And now they are clearly using that relationship to target Americans, to kill U.S. troops, and to try to get the United States locked in this quagmire in Iran. Now, for the Russians, this is revenge. This is revenge for the United States supporting Ukraine.

7:48But Donald Trump's failure to recognize that really limits him in both conflicts. And it's something that critics have said is missing from his negotiations over Iran. He's doing them in a vacuum, as if the Iranians don't have a superpower patron in the Russians, goading them to continue this conflict. It's something he should be familiar with. And if he was, perhaps there wouldn't be two stalemates here. Perhaps it wouldn't be a stalemate in Iran and what has for a very long time looked like a stalemate in Ukraine. If we recognized the role Russia was playing, we might be able to use that to the West's advantage.

8:29Laura Loomer:I just wonder whether there There is still that blind spot for Donald Trump about Vladimir Putin. If you go back a year or so, you know, that kind of ludicrous summit that took place between the two of them in Anchorage, where Donald Trump has literally had a red carpet rolled out for him. They ride in the beast together. It's the greatest act of palliness that you could possibly imagine. And yet Donald Trump is being confronted with more and more evidence that Vladimir Putin is not being that straight with him and is not negotiating openly. but yet it still seems that Donald Trump is somehow blinded by the attraction of Vladimir Putin.

9:18Laura Loomer:I mean, what would normally happen after Zelensky's been at the White House, which he was yesterday, is that we'll suddenly learn today there's been a call between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, and Vladimir Putin has put Donald Trump right on where he should be on the whole Russia-Ukraine thing? You know, John, I got to take you back to the first Trump administration, the first year of the first Trump administration. I cannot tell you how many conversations I had with cabinet members inside that administration who were themselves trying to figure out why their boss, Donald Trump, had such an evident affinity for Vladimir Putin.

10:01They were as perplexed by it as anyone else, which to me is pretty alarming that the president of the United States, his top national security officials cannot figure out why he keeps capitulating to a man who is avowedly one of America's greatest adversaries, a man, Vladimir Putin, who has spent years targeting U.S. interests, who was responsible for helping to fund movements in the Middle East and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to kill U.S. troops, that was baffling to folks. My boss in the first administration, John Kelly, who later became Trump's White House chief of staff, I remember we were on a flight to New York City and he asked me exactly this question.

10:46Is Trump had just done something to flatter Putin? In fact, I can tell you exactly what it was. He He had a conversation with Putin and decided we were going to form, in his words, an impenetrable cyber unit to handle cybersecurity together, the United States and the Russians. Keep in mind, this was months after the Russians had just attempted to hack our elections in the United States, and the president proposed we team up with them on securing sensitive U.S. systems. Of course, we said, Mr. President, this is reckless and insane. And no, we should not team up with the Russians on cybersecurity.

11:21But it prompted John Kelly to look at me on that flight and say, what is it? What is going on here? Why is the president so beholden to Putin? And I'll give you what I think is the answer most of Trump's lieutenants came to by the end of the first administration. And that is, rather than Trump being a secret mole over many decades with the Russians, there was a sense that in his time in the business world, he had learned you can get deals done with autocrats. It's a lot harder to get deals done in democracies. And so Trump saw these relationships with foreign strongmen as more lucrative, as more beneficial, as more helpful to him and his interest in the long term than relationships with leaders in key democracies.

12:09Laura Loomer:Yeah, I think that sounds so much more plausible than the explanations that somehow there was compromise. There was the pee pee tape of Donald Trump peeing on a mattress with two prostitutes in a room where Barack Obama had once stayed. I mean, it just seemed so far fetched somehow. The idea that he does, he likes autocrats because he can do better business deals there seems to me a very persuasive one. But I also think that it's, you know, going back to where we are now with Ukraine. I think that Zelensky clearly made mistakes with the Republicans in the run up to the last presidential election when he goes to Pennsylvania and goes and visits an arms factory in a key swing state.

12:59Laura Loomer:And he's accompanied there by a whole bunch of Democrat officials. And Laura Loomer put that to him in this kind of strange interview they did together. I was very anti-Ukraine. I said that I didn't have a problem with Vladimir Putin. I was very angered when you came to the United States in 2020, I believe it was 2023 or 2024, and you campaigned with Democrats. And there was an image of you and there was video of you signing, I believe it was either a rocket or some type of drone in a factory in Pennsylvania and you were campaigning with the Democrats in Pennsylvania. Do you think that you were ill-advised by your advisors and do you regret campaigning with Democrats?

13:40No, no, it was not about politics and elections. My team, they prepared a factory. I needed very much artillery rounds. We had deficit. Now we have profits, but we began to produce it. But those times it was a big problem. I have a deficit with NATO standard artillery round, 1.55 caliber.

14:05Laura Loomer:Yeah, he needed artillery rounds. And you spin forward to today, and really what he's doing in Washington is he's trying to buy air defense systems, so that come this winter, he's got some protection if the Russians go after energy plants and power generation plants, which is what they've done in previous winters, which have such a devastating effect. And he wants to be able to protect Ukrainians from that. And it seems he's getting a bit more of a sympathetic audience. And I totally accept what you say, Miles, about, you know, being on the side of a winner rather than a loser. But I also sense there's a slight tonal shift as well about what's right and what's wrong in all of this as well.

14:52Laura Loomer:And maybe that's maybe I'm kind of, you know, been sitting by a fire and singing kumbaya a little too often. But it does feel that there's something of a shift going on. It certainly does. And not just among Trump and his officials, obviously, Loomer and others. And we'll get to that in a moment. But I would say that the claims about 2024 and Zelensky's campaign appearance being the reason that people like Loomer wouldn't stand with Zelensky doesn't really hold up to the historical record. And I would challenge her on this to her face. Her and a whole lot of other Trump supporters were hesitant to support Ukraine, if not outright hostile, years prior going back into the first Trump administration.

15:43Remember, Donald Trump didn't want to give the Ukrainians money to defend themselves during his first presidency. Hell, It's the reason he got impeached in the first administration is he attempted to illegally hold on to Ukrainian defense funding and he wanted to dangle it in exchange for the Ukrainians launching a political investigation into the man that ultimately ended up challenging Donald Trump for the White House. So this is a bit of revisionist history for the Laura Loomer types to say somehow this had to do with something that Zelensky did in the 2024 campaign. But they're hanging on episodes like that because it's easier for them to to walk that back and say, well, we've forgiven it, especially now that Ukraine is on the offensive.

16:32And, John, that Ukraine has become so essential to the United States in a military context. Remember, right now in Iran and in surrounding U.S. bases in the region and allied bases, U.S. officials are very worried about drone attacks. What is the country that is the number one country on the face of the earth in guarding against drone attacks? The Ukrainians who have lived a drone conflict for the past few years. And so there's a different relationship here with them for a lot of reasons. But I go back to this tonal shift from the Oval Office on out. There's this Sean Hannity also, by the way, had Zelensky on his program and struck a similar change in tone.

17:17People like Hannity, who backed Donald Trump's position in the past, instead find themselves fawning over Zelensky. Take a listen. You were a comedian. You're now a wartime president and have been on a war footing for five years. Not easy. not easy but you know that lindsey also was very how to say serious uh politician but he had a great sense of humor sometimes yeah sometimes i want to smile because i'm i'm a alive person so without it you can't be you know you can't be you can't feel people your nation and and it's very all these sensitive things. So that's why we love the Lindsay have some dialogue serious and not, not only.

18:05He called you a warrior poet, really a warrior comedian. Mr. President, thank you for your time. We appreciate you being with us. John, I got to get your reaction to that because this is a different Sean Hannity. I mean, that was a, it was a very fawning interview, warrior poet, Mr. President, complete change in tone here.

18:23Laura Loomer:Absolutely. It's really striking. And look, you know, if you spent as much time as you and I have watching Hannity, who's a very effective communicator, very effective TV presenter, you know within five seconds what sort of ride the person he's interviewing is going to get. Is it someone I love or someone I despise? And up until a few months ago, if Zelensky had sat down with Hannity, it might have been respectful because it was a president that he was sitting down with. But ultimately, it would have been why on earth should Americans come anywhere near your country? This has nothing to do with us.

19:04Laura Loomer:It's a faraway country of which we know little. Sorry, you're on your own. Instead of which it was your country was invaded. and you have to defend yourself. Otherwise, it would be surrender. And you're thinking, wow, that is not the language that I have come to expect from Fox News, from Sean Hannity, from conservative influencers, from the MAGA world. Now, it's true to say, look, there is, you know, not everyone is on Zelensky's side. I mean, you know, you've got people like Tucker Carlson who are still saying, what the hell? What's this got to do with us? We should have nothing to do with it.

19:39Laura Loomer:and the West are deluding themselves if they think that Ukraine can win this. Those people are still there. But the split within MAGA over this has become quite acute. And it's looking like Donald Trump is moving much more towards Ukraine sympathy than he was at the outset. Well, John, one more thing I would say on that front is here is why folks should see Sean Hannity as a genuine bellwether of Donald Trump's thinking. The man is very, very closely aligned with Donald Trump. He's on a text message basis with him, and he very rarely shows daylight between he and the president. Simply look this week at Senator Lindsey Graham's funeral where Sean Hannity stood there.

20:27He was supposed to be eulogizing the late senator and created this scenario where he imagined Lindsey Graham is now in heaven, building a ballroom in honor of Donald Trump, building an arch in honor of Donald Trump, and decorating his own gold-plated Oval Office. Lindsey, Mr. President, I would argue in my mind, probably has a heavenly version of Mar-a-Lago. It may even be a little bigger. He may have a little more gold in the Oval Office in his mansion in heaven. And I wouldn't be surprised if he added one big, beautiful ballroom and an arch somewhere on the property. Because he would want to obviously duplicate his dearest friend in life, you, Mr.

21:16President. You can't make this up. This is what Sean Hannity was saying, knowing that the president was in the front row in front of him, knowing that it wasn't an audience at the funeral. it was an audience of one that he was spelling out this scenario of Lindsey Graham living out a Donald Trump fantasy in heaven. That's how close these two men are.

21:36Laura Loomer:Well, in a moment, we will be back to talk about some people in the U.S. Senate who may not be prepared to do all of Donald Trump's bidding.

21:58The News Agents USA.

22:01Laura Loomer:So Donald Trump has another big hurdle to cross this week, and that is getting his choice for who should be the next attorney general over the line. The person he wants to be the next attorney general is Todd Blanche. He has been acting in that role since Pam Bondi left slash was fired. And he is a Donald Trump man. Now, obviously, we say that about more or less anyone and everyone who is in Donald Trump's orbit. But he was Donald Trump's personal lawyer who is now going to become his sort of personal attorney general, even though theoretically the attorney general ought to have some real distance between himself and the president.

22:44Laura Loomer:Because, of course, he presides over the Justice Department, which, let's put this in inverted commas, is supposed to have some degree of independence. Todd Blanche, though, was the one who came up with this anti-weaponisation fund. And this is the most extraordinary thing of a lot of extraordinary things that happened, whereby Donald Trump, the president, sued his own government. And this was over kind of the leak of some tax documents that showed what his tax returns were and how much he paid in tax. And Todd Blanch came up with this settlement whereby Donald Trump would receive a guarantee that he would no longer be audited by the Inland Revenue, the IRS.

23:32Laura Loomer:Nice work if you can get it. And furthermore, there would be a fund essentially to go to those people who'd rioted on January the 6th, the kind of people who had been victims, supposedly, of the justice system. Now, remember, those people who were convicted of the riots on January the 6th were done so before a court, before a jury for having broken the law. And many of them pleaded guilty. However, Donald Trump thinks they were kind of hostages and victims of a weaponized Joe Biden justice system. And so we get to Todd Blanch's confirmation hearings now in the Senate. And there are some Republicans who are saying, no, no, no, no.

24:13Laura Loomer:If you want us to vote for Todd Blanche, this whole anti-weaponization fund has to go. He has to accept that this cannot be part of any settlement. And Miles, thanks for staying with us. How serious do you think this is for Donald Trump? Well, look, it's got Blanche's nomination on the ropes. He cannot afford to lose Republican members of Congress. He can't afford to lose a single U.S. senator on the Judiciary Committee that would vote him out. And that's before his vote even gets to the Senate floor where things can be fluid. Votes can change. This matters a great deal to Donald Trump. There is no single appointee in the second term that he cares about more than the person running the U.S.

25:01Department of Justice. Why? Because that is the lawyer who affixes their signature to Donald Trump's actions, giving them the impritor of legality. This is a man who, in my experience in his administration, is constantly inclined toward illegality. In fact, there was no one in my department at the Department of Homeland Security I had to confer with more than our chief lawyer because we were so regularly on the receiving end of things the president wanted us to do that our team deemed to be not legal. So Trump cares a lot about this because in a second term to get these schemes over the finish line.

25:41He's got to have a lawyer willing to co-sign them. So the question, John, is going to be whether this administration makes this sacrifice, because on the other side of it, Donald Trump has something he's very much wanted for years as basically a permission slip from the IRS to do what he wants. And there are some experts and scholars who've looked at this very uncanny arrangement and said, hypothetically, it could allow Donald Trump to avoid paying taxes for the rest of his life. Because if the IRS cannot audit you, then they cannot go find out whether you have properly filed your taxes. That's quite an extraordinary thing.