Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi calls spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Poland this week, throwing the Trump administration’s support behind right-wing presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki.
“He needs to be the next president of Poland,” Noem declared. “Do you understand me?”
Noem’s speech comes less than a week before the country’s closely contested second round of its election. Nawrocki, a Donald Trump ally and conservative historian, currently trails Warsaw’s liberal mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski, in a tight race to replace outgoing President Andrzej Duda. Trzaskowski supports the kinds of democratic reforms, such as judicial independence and repairing relations with the European Union, that Duda has actively blocked.
Noem called Trzaskowski “an absolute train wreck of a leader” and accused “socialists” and left-leaning leaders of using “fear to control people.” She quoted from Trump’s Islamophobic 2017 address to Polandwhere he asked if “the West have the will to survive” and whether it would create “strong borders to preserve our civilizations.”
Since being confirmed in January, Noem has spent her time—and a $200 million public relations budget—sharing videos of herself cosplaying as an ICE agent and pitching producers on a xenophobic reality show where immigrants have to compete against each other to stay in the country.
But on Tuesday, Noem was back to standard MAGA politics, promising that the election of a right-wing candidate like Nawrocki would ensure military security, reviving the idea of a “Fort Trump,” a failed first-term attempt by Duda to ingratiate himself to Trump by naming a military base after him.
CPAC, the top conservative gathering in the United States, has been trying to expand into Europe since 2022, when it held an event in Hungary, where Trump hero Viktor Orbán has gutted constitutional checks of power. This year marks CPAC’s first venture into Poland.
In her speech, Name Suggested Poland would benefit if it elected a Trump-favored candidate.
“You will have strong borders and protect your communities and keep them safe, and ensure that your citizens are respected every single day,” she said. “You will continue to have a U.S. presence here, a military presence. And you will have equipment that is American-made, that is high quality.”
It’s not the first time Trump administration officials have tried to sway foreign elections. In the run-up to Germany’s February elections, Vice President JD Vance and billionaire shadow-president Elon Musk endorsed the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party, which has neo-Nazi ties, only to see 80% of German voters respond with a resounding “nein.” In Romania, George Simion’s Trump-inspired “Make Romania Great Again” campaign also ended in a decisive defeat. Australia and Canada have also held elections where Trump has greatly impacted the outcome—and not to his benefit.
“I run the country and the world,” he boasted to The Atlantic in April. Maybe not.
Campaign Action
