What Role Might Russian Media Have Inadvertently Played In Turning Laura Loomer Pro-Ukrainian?

The perceptible shift in Russian media coverage since last fall was likely a response to Trump reneging on the “Spirit of Anchorage” and implementing the “Neo-Reagan Doctrine”.

Top Trump advisor Laura Loomer’s reversal from anti-Ukrainian to pro-Ukrainian has been the subject of much speculation since she traveled to Ukraine and interviewed Zelensky. It’s important to discover the reason for her political transformation since Trump places such trust in her judgement that he even fired six National Security Council staffers last year reportedly at her request. He might therefore soon be swayed by Loomer into further escalating the US’ Ukrainian-fronted “war of attrition” against Russia.

Many people on social media think that this is just the latest phase of her feuds with Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, both of whom visited Russia on high-profile trips, which they believe is why she then decided to visit Ukraine to countersignal them. According to what Loomer told the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press, her views about Ukraine indeed began to change after “pro-Kremlin accounts” and “Russian sources” began amplifying the ‘MAGA dissidents’ like them who’ve turned on Trump.

She concluded that “Russian state media RT has turned its feed into wall-to-wall coverage of Woke Reich podcast clips, which makes no sense for a foreign outlet whose purpose is supposedly to cover Russian news directed by the Kremlin. This is exactly the kind of coordinated foreign influence that should be INVESTIGATED”. That’s of course her own opinion, and it’s a gross exaggeration to describe the sharing on RT’s X account of “Woke Reich podcast clips” as “wall-to-wall coverage”, but that’s what she believes.

What Loomer doesn’t realize is that publicly financed doesn’t automatically mean state-run in the sense that every single information product (including tweets) is preapproved by a Russian official. Rather, RT and Sputnik are largely autonomous in terms of what they choose to publish, with the only expectation being that their content doesn’t condemn Russia. In the example that radicalized her, the primary motive was retaining their American audience and generating social media traction, not meddling.

That said, the geopolitical context suggests that an ulterior motive could have been to needle Trump in response to him reneging on the “Spirit of Anchorage” as Russia sincerely believe that he did and implementing what’s been called the “Neo-Reagan Doctrine”. Regarding the first, an RT contributor reported that Trump was supposed to coerce Zelensky into withdrawing from Donbass in exchange for Putin then agreeing to a ceasefire, while the second relates to rolling back Russian influence worldwide.

RT’s state patron might have therefore requested that they report more regularly on the ‘MAGA dissidents’ and perhaps also positively on subjects that Trump hates such as Leftism, Islamism, and ‘Third Worldism’ as a mild asymmetrical response to these US moves. That would be a legitimate policy given the circumstances, yet it might have also have inadvertently radicalized the woman who has Trump’s ear and unintentionally misled MAGA about Russian foreign policy, thus ultimately being counterproductive.

In any case, the takeaway is that the perceptible shift in Russian media coverage since last fall was likely a response to Trump reneging on the “Spirit of Anchorage” and implementing the “Neo-Reagan Doctrine”, not an attempt to meddle in the US nor a reflection of Russian foreign policy as clarified here. It remains to be seen whether ‘winning’ more Leftists, Islamists, ‘Third Worldists’, and ‘MAGA dissidents’ outweighs ‘losing’ MAGA and Trump as regards the fulfilment of Russia’s goals in the special operation.