In pretty much any other timeline, a foreign dignitary visiting the White House and meeting with the President would feel like business as usual. This is, after all, part of the job of being President, right?
If only we lived in one of those timelines.
In this timeline, we get Trump.
It shouldn’t have surprised me, then, given how familiar I am with the Trump administration’s bullshittery, that the very first foreign dignitary to be hosted by the White House post-lockdown would be the President of Poland.
Oh wait, yes it was surprising. But only because that honor wasn’t given to Putin or, if Vlad was too busy, Kim Jong Un.
If you’re not familiar with President Andrzej Duda, here’s the TL;DR: he’s a bad guy.
Among other constitutional crises and other disgusting stuff, Duda has attacked the LGBTQ+ community in Poland, saying that, if re-elected he will not allow LGBTQ couples to adopt, will ban teaching about LGBT issues in schools and has said that the LGBTQ movement is a “foreign ideology worse than communism.”
Hatred of the LGBTQ community, constitutional crises, criminalizing speech against the state…and he’s up for re-election! Sound familiar?
It is not a coincidence that this guy is the guy awarded the first post-lockdown WH visit. Of course, as usual all Trump wanted to talk about was how high his ratings are, to brag about strong-arming other members of NATO…something that Duda was all too happy to echo, usually choosing to fluff Trump’s ego instead of actually answering questions he was asked.
The only real surprise during today’s joint presser in the Rose Garden is that Trump didn’t verbally attack any reporters.
Anyway, here’s a link to my tweet thread of the event, if you’d like to check that out! Enjoy?