Want to go back: H-1B hawk Laura Loomer's India praise amid Marco Rubio's visit

"I love India," gushed Laura Loomer on X. For those unfamiliar with her brand of activism and political commentary, she is a Trump loyalist, a MAGA stalwart and, till recently, an India hater.

What prompted this outpouring of love for a country whose human exports she previously professed to despise? It was US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s four-day India visit, during which he hopped from Kolkata to Delhi, then Agra and Jaipur. Accompanied by his wife, he posed for pictures at the iconic Taj Mahal and toured the historic Amer Palace in the Pink City. Photos and videos of their cultural getaway were splashed all over social media.

"Seeing all of Marco Rubio’s photos from India makes me want to go back to India! I love India. Such a beautiful country. So glad our Secretary of State and his supermodel wife were able to visit India and meet many of the same people I met while I was there," Loomer posted on X, along with a picture of herself in traditional Indian attire.

Presumably, the photo was from her visit to India in May 2026. Prior to that, her social media was replete with posts denouncing the H-1B visa programme, which brings foreign workers -- mostly from India and China -- to fill tech jobs in Silicon Valley. Some of her tweets also used crude stereotypes to question the intellectual abilities and hygiene of Indian people.

In 2024, she warned that if Indian-origin Democrat Kamala Harris won the presidential race, the White House would "smell like curry". America, she insisted, was built by "white Europeans, not third-world invaders from India".

She was not done there. H-1B visas became her favourite punching bag, with rants about Indian techies "replacing" Americans and jibes such as: "Average IQ in India is 76. ‘Best and brightest’!"

But after nine days in the country, Loomer changed her tune.

"Honestly, as someone who has travelled a lot, India is the best country I have ever travelled to. It’s incredible," she said. "Indian people are the nicest people I have ever met... My misconceptions have been corrected."

But the internet remembers. While attending the India Today Conclave in May, she was hauled over the coals for her anti-India vitriol online. Senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai confronted her with a trove of tweets disparaging India and its people, characterising them as "brazenly racist".

Loomer’s posts had been deleted before her visit, but not before others archived them.

She immediately wilted, saying she "shouldn’t have said some of the things that I said in the other tweets", and adding, "I apologise if my remarks offended people."

She, however, refused to back down from her criticism of the H-1B visa programme, saying her views were intended to protect the American people.

"Our immigration laws have been exploited and abused, and our labour laws have also been exploited and abused," she claimed.

After her latest post expressing her newfound appreciation for India, the internet once again showed that it neither forgets nor forgives. The comments section was packed with X users armed with receipts, mockingly reminding her of her track record of spewing hate against Indians. Others -- no doubt hardcore MAGA supporters -- slammed her for her about-face on India.

"It seems like you used to despise India and Indians, Laura, but I’m glad you got to see India for what it actually is and changed your tune on it," wrote one X user.

"You’re out here gushing about loving India like you didn’t tweet that the average IQ is 76, call their water ‘running out of people’s asses’, and mock them as not the ‘best and brightest’. Now suddenly it’s a ‘beautiful country’ for clout? The flip-flopping hypocrisy," tweeted another.

"No amount of gaslighting from you is convincing us otherwise," said a third.