New battle lines are being drawn over what “America First” actually means, and Pastor Mark Burns has planted his flag on the side nobody saw coming. 

Trump’s unofficial spiritual advisor is now meeting regularly with the State Department, pushing secondary sanctions on Russian oil and telling anyone who will listen that supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia is actually an America First position. 

The televangelist-turned-Trump confidante didn’t plan to become Ukraine’s most unlikely champion. He once believed the Russian talking points, appearing on every media outlet that would have him arguing against U.S. involvement in the country. But after befriending Ukraine’s chief rabbi, Moshe Azman, Burns visited Kyiv earlier this year, where he witnessed firsthand the devastation wrought by the war.

Now, Burns is pointing fingers at the conservative media ecosystem that helped shape much of MAGA’s views on the war. Calling out Tucker Carlson, Fox News and the anti-Ukraine chorus of right-wing voices, Burns spoke in an interview of his past conviction that Ukraine was a Nazi-harboring, racist regime that persecuted Christians and was undeserving of American support. 

That was all a lie, Burns now says. 

“I believed the hype when they said Ukraine does not allow religious freedoms to happen…I believed that Russians were conservatives and believed in the conservative movement in America – all of that is a lie,” he told MS NOW.

Before his Ukraine conversion, Burns struck up a relationship with Trump in 2015 when he was invited to Trump Tower with other evangelical leaders to discuss Trump’s first presidential bid. Burns quickly became a campaign surrogate, electrifying crowds at rallies across the country with his sermon-like speeches. 

The pastor, who founded the Now TV Network for Christians, was then tapped to serve on the campaign’s evangelical advisory board. His trajectory to unofficial “spiritual diplomat,” as he calls it, following several failed congressional bids in South Carolina, has kept him at the fringes of Trumpworld, one of the figures with varying influence on the president who is outside of the formal chain of command. 

He’s not traveling as an official government emissary, but Burns says he’s in frequent touch with the State Department about Ukraine. He has not spoken directly with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was among the American negotiators who met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday to discuss the latest peace proposal, or Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy who is deeply involved in efforts to broker peace.

The White House and the State Department did not respond to request for comment. 

Unlike most MAGA acolytes, Burns finds himself at odds with Trump on one of the most consequential foreign policy questions of the moment. Administration figures sympathetic to Ukraine are dwindling: Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, is set to leave his post next year. 

Burns’s Ukraine awakening started with his  spring visit to the country, which took place shortly after the explosive Oval Office showdown between Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Zelenskyy. The pastor said the trip left him near tears as he toured flattened sites, saw  evidence of what he described as Russian atrocities and heard harrowing testimony from religious leaders. He also felt remorse and regret for taking part in the campaign to amplify Russian narratives about the war and criticisms of Ukraine aid.

Burns started flooding Trump with images and reports from the ground. “I was sending him everything that I can see, and every image that I could see – and this is what’s really happening. These things are not showing up on Fox News,” Burns explained.

Since that trip, Burns has privately and publicly called on Trump to supply Ukraine with weapons. And after the release of the recent 28-point peace plan that echoed Russian talking points, Burns said he told Trump he “disagreed” with a proposal he viewed as “capitulating to Russia.”

But the Trump administration seems committed to pulling back from Ukraine, ramping up pressure on Zelenskyy to accept a plan that calls for Ukraine to withdraw from territory in the eastern Donbas region. Last week, in a document known as the National Security Strategy, the administration stated the need for an “expeditious” peace deal, the re-establishment of “strategic stability with Russia,” and a retreat from European security interests.

Burns’ work for Ukraine was recognized this week by the U.S.-Ukraine foundation, a non-profit that advocates for close ties between the two countries. The way Burns sees it, support for Ukraine is an America First policy: arm Ukraine now, or risk sending American soldiers to fight a third World War in Europe at a later date, if Russian President Vladimir Putin triggers NATO’s mutual defense clause. It’s essentially the same argument establishment Republicans have made for decades about containing and deterring foreign adversaries – a worldview that Trump explicitly ran against. 

Burns’ advocacy has started to extend beyond military aid to what he has described as a moral crisis that has also put him at odds with another one of the administration’s policies. 

He’s now lobbying State on behalf of Ukrainians refugees who came to the U.S. legally to flee the war and are facing deportation as their visas expire and the Biden-era immigration program has been paused. Burns told MS NOW he met with State Department staff about the issue this week as roughly 260,000 people who fled the war and now live in the U.S. are in legal limbo, according to Reuters. 

“We have a moral obligation to support the people – those who have entered into our nation legally,” Burns said.

 “Locked up by ICE? This doesn’t make any sense to me,” Burns added. “They left with nothing. Many came here with just their book bag,” he said. “Now many can’t work and their visas are expiring. There’s no renewing these applications. It’s a 911 situation that is a moral obligation.”

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