EXCLUSIVE: Top Trump administration figures make their mark on Poland’s elections at the country’s first CPAC
THE LOWDOWN:
On the eve of Poland’s historic elections, top figures in the Trump administration and in the American conservative movement descended on Poland’s easternmost province with a simple message: Karol Nawrocki “needs to be” the next President of Poland.
Kristi Noem, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), made the declaration, echoing President Donald Trump’s famous speech in Warsaw from his first term, asking “does the west have the will to survive?”
Andrew Lubelski, a Polish-American who runs the Republican Coalition, told the Washington Reporter that Poland’s 2025 presidential election mirrors many of the themes of America’s in 2024.
Poland’s reigning Law and Justice Party, closely aligned with conservatives in America, has prioritized issues like combating illegal immigration and a close relationship with the Trump administration.
RZESZÓW — “Welcome to Davos without as many rich people,” Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) chairman Matt Schlapp said from the G2A Arena.
On the eve of Poland’s historic elections, top figures in the Trump administration and in the American conservative movement descended on Poland’s easternmost province with a simple message: Karol Nawrocki “needs to be” the next President of Poland.
Kristi Noem, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), made the declaration, echoing President Donald Trump’s famous speech in Warsaw from his first term, asking “does the west have the will to survive?”
Trump knows, she said, “that the west has the will to survive,” in part because of countries like Poland. “Donald Trump is a strong leader for us,” she said, and Poland has the opportunity to elect its own Trump through Nawrocki.
Poland’s upcoming elections — which will be held on Sunday, June 1 — weren’t just on Noem’s mind. Poland can send the same “FAFO” message that Americans sent in 2024, Corey Lewandowski said, repeating similar themes to the crowd that helped propel President Donald Trump to the White House on multiple occasions.
“Walls work. Borders work. The rule of law is in place for a reason,” Lewandowski said.
“Poland is in the toughest neighborhood in the world,” he said. “Together, our nations can lead the way, showing the world that freedom isn’t just a word — it’s a way of life. Let’s commit to fight for that freedom.”
Those words weren’t just an applause line — both Noem and Lewandowski reaffirmed the importance of American troops to be at the proposed “Fort Trump” in Poland, which is a key priority for many in the country.
The remarks came at the first-ever CPAC in Poland’s history. The conference, which was attended by over 1,000 people, was hosted by CPAC in conjunction with Poland’s conservative news channel TV Republika.
While Trump was not physically present, his historic 2024 comeback was on the minds of many. Poland’s former Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszcza discussed how Napoleon used to be Poland’s model for victory — but now that Donald Trump is their model for victory.
Likewise, Miklós Szánthó, the director of the Hungarian Center for Fundamental Rights, copied Trump’s famous exhortation for CPAC attendees to “fight, fight fight” and “never surrender” in his remarks from the main stage.
The stakes of Poland’s national elections mirror those of America’s in 2024, attendees of the conference explained, and they will resonate throughout Europe and beyond.
Andrew Lubelski, a Polish-American who runs the Republican Coalition, told the Washington Reporter that Poland’s 2025 presidential election mirrors many of the themes of America’s in 2024.
In Poland, “people are afraid of the consequences of illegal immigration, but the government lies about this issue,” he said. “People look at what has happened in Germany and in France and they are afraid of that. [Rafał] Trzaskowski [the candidate of Poland’s left-leaning party] is like Kamala Harris. They even ran their campaigns in similar ways.”
“They do not hesitate to promise everything to people,” Lubelski said. “One day, Trzaskowski is for LGBT rights, the next day he’s conservative on the issue.”
“They don’t have strong spines, personally,” he added.
Lubelski, who voted for President Donald Trump in 2024, said that America is giving the cold shoulder — but that will end if Karol Nawrocki wins. “The relationship will be much greater because he is conservative.”
Lewandowski seemed to agree, cautioning that a Trzaskowski win would “strain” relations between America and Poland.
“It’s all the same fight in all of our countries,” Schlapp said, concurring. Those fights include everything from the left’s wars on biology to cars.
Poland’s reigning Law and Justice Party, closely aligned with conservatives in America, has prioritized issues like combating illegal immigration and a close relationship with the Trump administration.
“We need liberation from the Green New Deal, we need liberation from the distribution of illegal migrants, we need liberation from this mad leftist, liberal revolution, we need liberation from this censorship which is visible all over Europe — this is why we meet at CPAC in Rzeszów — we will be fighting hand in globe for this liberation,” the country’s former prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said from the main stage.
“Long live Poland, long live the United States, long live conservatives and patriots all over the world!” he declared.
In contrast, the country’s Civic Platform party has prioritized closer proximity to the European Union. Poland’s Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, a member of the Civic Platform, formerly served as the President of the European Council, and he has a complicated relationship with America’s own leading Donald.
The Reporter previously covered how as recently as last year, Tusk falsely claimed that “it is no longer debatable” that “Trump [has] dependence on Russian intelligence” and that “Trump was actually recruited by Russian intelligence thirty years ago.”
Following Trump’s 2024 win, however, Tusk made an about-face, falsely claiming in November that he has “never made such suggestions.”
Poland’s past, present, and future alternatives to Tusk and Trzaskowski were on full display at the conference. Morawiecki, the country’s former prime minister, was joined in attendance by Andrzej Duda, Poland’s current president.
Nikodem Rachoń, Poland’s Undersecretary of State, noted to the Reporter that the repeated bursts of applause during Duda’s speech show that even “after ten years in office, it’s clear that President Duda remains Poland’s most popular politician.”
Duda addressed the audience in Polish — and Rachoń categorized his remarks as focusing on
the “key milestones in transatlantic security cooperation achieved during his presidency.”
“Whether it was facilitating the deployment of 10,000 American troops to Poland with infrastructure financed by the Polish government, opening the U.S. missile defense system in Redzikowo, modernizing the Polish military with cutting-edge American technology, providing joint support for Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression, phasing out Russian crude oil in favor of U.S. LNG imports, or launching Poland’s first nuclear power plant in cooperation with Westinghouse and Bechtel—it was evident tonight that people recognize the significance of these achievements.”
Poland’s president was no stranger to the CPAC scene. He attended the flagship one earlier this year in D.C., when he was also the first European leader to meet with Trump following Trump’s second inauguration.
Rachoń said that Trump’s top figures are helping Polish conservatives out after Duda helped Trump win. “I remember Trump saying that, in his view, over 80 percent of Polish Americans voted for him — and he credited President Duda for that.”
During Duda’s remarks, he also endorsed Nawrocki once again as being a guarantor of bold and ambitious policy continuity and a strong advocate for transatlantic relations. He also “noted how viciously Nawrocki is being attacked during this campaign and emphasized the need to push back against the weaponization of law and state institutions against political opponents,” Rachoń explained.
Nawrocki also received a surprise endorsement from Przemyslaw Wipler, one of the top figures in a smaller party during the conference. Following Nawrocki’s remarks, he was mobbed by fans who wanted him to sign everything from shirts to books he wrote.
For conservatives in Poland’s parliament, the conference couldn’t have come at a better time. Janusz Kowalski, a self-described CPAC “enthusiast,” who many view as Trump’s biggest supporter in Poland’s equivalent of the House of Representatives, told the Reporter that Noem’s presence “is a clear signal of support for right-wing candidate Karol Nawrocki, who opposes the EU migration pact.”
Kowalski is a CPAC veteran, having attended the conference in both D.C. and in Hungary. In his day job, he requested in 2021 for Poland’s president to “decorate Donald Trump with the highest Polish decoration for a foreigner for his support of Poland between 2016 and 2020.”
Kowalski is an embodiment of how CPAC has, in recent years, grown its international presence, with conferences in countries ranging from Japan to Argentina to Hungary. Likewise, TV Republika has grown its international presence. One of its star hosts, Michal Rachoń, has interviewed Trump in America and the outlet hosted a conference in D.C. in conjunction with the Reporter around Trump’s inauguration in January.
In order to counter the left’s dominance in the media, international institutions, and in Brussels, “we should have an international nationalist movement” to counter the international left, Szánthó said. “The globalists are using the very same tools, the very same methods” to attack the way of life in countries across the world, he said. “God, homeland, and family” are “under threat because of this woke gender nonsense propaganda.”
“Although we may have our differences on policies ranging from taxation to labor law, always keep in mind that the left…unites and they forget about technical differences and they concentrate on their shared goal,” Szánthó cautioned. “Our western way of life is under threat by the globalists.”
Szánthó wasn’t alone in seeing the need for conservatives to work across borders. “We share a common enemy, Japan and Poland,” Jay Aeba, said: “Russia.” While Vladimir Putin likes Japan, everyone else in leadership in Russia “hates Japan.”
Jack Posobiec, whose family hails from the region of Poland that hosted the conference, noted the irony that a group of anti-globalists need to work together across borders to defeat common foes they all face. That intra-conservative collaboration was also echoed by Romania’s almost-prime minister George Simion and Szánthó, one of the top conservatives from Hungary.
“The Romanian people stand with you,” Simion said, urging Poland to elect a man and “not a puppet” this weekend.
“We Hungarian patriots stand shoulder to shoulder with” Polish counterparts against Donald Tusk, Szánthó echoed.
Trump’s victory was a significant win, but the war is ongoing, Szánthó said.
“Thanks to God, Donald J. Trump won the election, and he is the leader of the most important superpower in the world,” he said. “Having a guy named Donald instead of a lady called Kamala is a success for all of us.”
“Imagine the pressure on the Polish right, or the Hungarian right,” if Kamala Harris had won, Szánthó added, cautioning that the “Brussels swamp is still alive, and it is strong.”
Szánthó also noted that the Obama administration financed the Hungarian left.
“It was a very clear sign that globalists...would like to remove the Hungarian government in order to have their puppets in government,” like they did with Donald Tusk in Poland, he said.
“Without a strong Europe,” Szánthó continued, “the U.S. will be weaker as well, because you will lose a reliable ally and you will have some type of European federal state run by statists.”
The day-long conference set the stage for what Poland’s conservatives hope will be an ongoing and successful partnership down the road.
“We have just brought to Poland one of the strongest brands of conservative movement, not just in the United States, but globally,” Adrian Kubicki, the chairman of CPAC’s Poland’s organizing board, told the Reporter. “It took us only a couple of months to turn an idea of having CPAC Poland into reality and become a part of a global CPAC family…I would like to thank Matthew and Mercedes Schlapp for their trust. CPAC Poland will help grow Polish-American ties. We have just created a completely new and powerful platform for conservatives in Poland and all across Europe.”
“We can’t wait for the second edition,” Rachoń said, “hopefully under a new President of Poland who shares conservative values and carries forward the proud legacy of President Duda’s decade in office.”
