CPAC holds its first meeting in Poland ahead of crucial presidential runoff

WARSAW: The Conservative Political Action Conference, the United States' premier conservative gathering, held its first meeting in Poland on Tuesday, just five days before a tightly contested presidential election between a liberal mayor and a conservative backed by U.S.

President Donald Trump. CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp opened the proceedings with a speech claiming that conservatives around the world are locked in a battle against "globalists," whom he described as enemies of faith, family and freedom. Kristi Noem, the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary and a prominent Trump ally, is scheduled to speak at the event in the afternoon. She is also expected to meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative whose second and final term ends in August. The two candidates vying to replace Duda offer starkly different visions for Poland: Rafał Trzaskowski, the liberal mayor of Warsaw who strongly favors the European Union, and Karol Nawrocki, a conservative historian backed by the ruling Law and Justice party who is skeptical of the EU. Schlapp claimed CPAC had stood by Trump throughout his legal battles and declared that similar threats were playing out in countries like Poland.

"Are you happy that America is getting closer to being great again?" Schlapp asked the audience. "Did the reelection of Donald Trump bring you joy?" "When one of us is under attack, the rest of us must come to that person's defense," he added. "The globalists intend to take each one of us out one by one - to shame us, to silence us, to bankrupt us, to ruin us, to make our kids turn against us." He said that's why it was important to "win all these elections, including in Poland, that are so important to the freedom of people everywhere." The conference took place in Jasionka, near the southeastern Polish city of Rzeszow and an area that's staunchly conservative. Jasionka has also been the hub for U.S. and Western weapons sent to Ukraine following Russia's full-scale invasion more than three years ago. CPAC meetings, which started in 1974, used to champion tight budgets and a hawkish foreign policy, but have steadily been taken over by the Trump wing of the Republican party.

CPAC has rebranded itself as a celebration of the U.S. president's populist approach. At the same time, it's reached out to other conservative populists with a stated goal of helping grow a global conservative movement. CPAC has held gatherings in Japan, South Korea, Mexico City and Israel. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his staff have become regular speakers. The gathering in Poland followed multiple CPAC meetings in Budapest. Another speaker Tuesday was John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who was the architect of much of Trump's unsuccessful strategy to overturn his 2020 election loss. In his speech, Eastman framed the upcoming Polish presidential election as a decisive moment for the future of Western civilization. He argues that a cultural and ideological "cancer" marked by a loss of faith in Western civilization is spreading eastward. "Poland is poised to play a critical role in defeating this threat to Western civilization. That is why the election this coming Sunday is so important," Eastman said. "For whether Poland chooses to embrace the European Union, from whence this threat comes, or stop it in its tracks, much like it stopped the Ottoman threat three centuries ago, may well be decided by that election," he said. "We in the United States are watching with keen interest," he added. "The world is watching with keen interest."