Trump-backed conservative wins Polish presidency, can torpedo Tusk's liberal agenda: 'Rebuff to the Brussels oligarchy'

Polish boxer-turned-historian Karol Nawrocki met last month with President Donald Trump and attended an event at the White House marking the National Day of Prayer. Nawrocki reportedly shared with Polish media that Trump told him he would win the Polish presidential election.

Trump was right again.

Nawrocki, backed by Poland's national-conservative opposition Law and Justice (PiS) Party, defeated the liberal mayor of Warsaw — whom Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem deemed a "train wreck" — in Poland's presidential election runoff on Sunday. The results, published on Monday, showed that Nawrocki beat Rafał Trzaskowski 50.89% to 49.11%, thereby securing a five-year term.

'You picked a WINNER!'

Upon taking office on Aug. 6, Nawrocki can continue former President Andrzej Duda's work of preventing Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk's "globalist liberal government" from simultaneously advancing its leftist, pro-European Union agenda and from undoing the reforms undertaken by the previous PiS government.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated Nawrocki on his "hard-earned victory," noting that "together, the United States and Poland will forge the most ambitious alliance in our shared history on defense, energy, and commerce."

Trump said in a Truth Social post, "Congratulations Poland, you picked a WINNER!"

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Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Nawrocki noted in response that his top priorities are a "strong alliance with the USA, as well as partnership based on close cooperation."

In addition to opposing illegal immigration and the EU's ruinous migration frameworks, the former boxer made abundantly clear on the campaign trail his opposition to leftist social policies, promising to axe any legislation that threatens to weaken Poland's pro-life legislation or normalize non-heterosexual unions, reported the Catholic News Agency.

Nawrocki also emphasized that Poland's national culture is rooted in traditional Catholic values, telling supporters, "Poland's strength lies in its faith and family values."

'It's bad news for the EU, Ukraine and women.'

Homeland Security Secretary Noem likened Nawrocki to Trump last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Poland and suggested that under his leadership, Poland could "steer Europe back toward conservative values."

Various European conservatives and populists celebrated Nawrocki's victory, including Jordan Bardella, the president of France's right-wing populist National Rally party, who tweeted, "The Polish people have spoken and their free and democratic choice must be respected, including by the Brussels leaders who ardently hoped for their defeat."

"Faced with a European Commission whose authoritarian policies and federalist ambitions are brutalizing national sovereignty, Karol Nawrocki's victory in the Polish presidential election is welcome news," said Marine Le Pen, former National Rally president. "It is a rebuff to the Brussels oligarchy, which intends to impose a standardization of legislation on member states, contrary to any democratic will."

Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán Viktor called the election a "nail-biter," calling the outcome a "fantastic victory."

Western liberals, meanwhile, clutched pearls and ramped up their fear-mongering.

Adam Simpson, a lecturer at the University of South Australia, wrote, "Nawrocki's win has given pro-Donald Trump, anti-liberal, anti-EU forces across the continent a shot in the arm. It's bad news for the EU, Ukraine and women."

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The White House

Simpson acknowledged that it's harder to frame Nawrocki as "Russia-friendly" — a framing routinely used by critics of other national conservatives and populists in the region.

'More anti-European, nationalist and pro-Trump.'

It'd be an especially hard case to make that Nawrocki is sympathetic to Moscow given he has called Russia a "barbaric state," recommended cutting off diplomatic relations with the Kremlin, and has personally been put on a Russian wanted list after leading efforts to topple Soviet monuments while director of the Museum of the Second World War and head of the Institute of National Remembrance, reported ABC News.

Nevertheless, critics have made hay out of the incoming Polish president's vow to oppose NATO membership for Ukraine and suggestion that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy "treats Poland badly."

Piotr Buras, head of the European Council on Foreign Relations' Warsaw office, told the Washington Post that Nawrocki will be a "much more radical politician" than his predecessor — "more anti-European, nationalist and pro-Trump."

Anne Applebaum, the Atlantic staff writer who smeared as propagandists early proponents of the pandemic lab-leak theory and wasted ink last year imagining parallels between Trump and various 20th-century dictators, made sure to repeatedly label Nawrocki as an "authoritarian populist."

In the wake of the election, Tusk, now facing some calls to step down, indicated the Polish parliament will hold a confidence vote on his government.

Jacek Sasin, a PiS parliamentarian, suggested that Tusk was a "completely frivolous man who got a red card from the Poles."

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