Donald Trump’s campaign has confirmed that President Andrzej Duda and former, and possibly future, US President Donald Trump will attend the same event. They will meet on Sunday in the so-called American Częstochowa, the National Shrine of Our Lady of Częstochowa in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
“We can confirm that President (Donald) Trump and (Andrzej) Duda will be present at the same event. We are not providing any further details at this time,” wrote Donald Trump’s campaign in response to a question from an RMF FM correspondent, who had already reported on Tuesday (September 17) that such a meeting could take place next Sunday (September 22).
The possibility of such a meeting was also reported by two different agencies: PAP, Reuters and TVN, and the Chancellery of the President she placed in the announcement of Andrzej Duda’s visit to the USA, the participation of the Polish presidential couple in the mass celebrated in the sanctuary in Doylestown and the ceremony of unveiling the Solidarity Monument there. In addition, the possibility of such a meeting was announced on Tuesday by the head of the Chancellery of the President, Małgorzata Paprocka. – The meeting is likely, but the organizer is not the Chancellery of the President – the presidential minister reserved.
The Duda-Trump meeting could take place a little over a month before the election, in a key state for deciding the American elections, in a place where the Polish diaspora will be gathered (over five percent of the population there claims Polish roots). Reuters points out that Americans of Eastern European descent are an important target group before the election for both Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
The Polish president is expected to appear with Trump on his campaign trail, which would be an exceptionally rare event, as politicians tend to avoid getting involved in election campaigns in other countries. Meanwhile, the head of the committee organizing Sunday’s ceremony, Tadeusz Antoniak, argued in a Tuesday (September 17) interview with PAP that the ceremony is to be non-political.
However, both politicians were invited to the ceremony in the “Polish Częstochowa”. According to the media, the meeting is not officially scheduled, but it is rather impossible for the conversation not to take place, since both Trump and Duda will be in the same place.
Majmurek: Meeting with Trump one of Duda’s worst decisions
“If this actually happens, Duda’s meeting with the Republican candidate will be interpreted as an expression of support for Trump by the Polish president. Supporting Trump at this point, considering everything we know about the former president’s plans for a second term on Ukraine, would be one of Andrzej Duda’s worst decisions in foreign policy,” Newsweek journalist Jakub Majmurek warned yesterday (even before the meeting was confirmed — ed.) in a commentary.
The Polish president arrives in the US on Saturday (September 21). Next week, he will attend the UN General Assembly in New York. The previous meeting between the two politicians took place at Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York, on April 18.