Noem urges Poles to elect Trump ally as CPAC holds its first meeting in Poland

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — 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.

The two candidates vying to replace Polish President Andrzej Duda offer starkly different visions for Poland: Rafał Trzaskowski, the pro-European Union liberal mayor of Warsaw, and Karol Nawrocki, a conservative historian backed by the Law and Justice party who is skeptical of the EU.

“We need you to elect the right leader,” Kristi Noem, the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary and a prominent Trump ally, said in a speech at the event. “You will be the leaders that will turn Europe back to conservative values."

Noem described Trzaskowski as “an absolute train wreck of a leader" and Nawrocki as someone who would lead Poland in a style similar to Trump.

She opened her speech saying: “I just had the opportunity to meet with Karol and listen: he needs to be the next president of Poland. Do you understand me?”

She also implied that electing Nawrocki would strengthen the U.S.-Poland relationship.

“If you (elect) a leader that will work with President Donald J. Trump, the Polish people will have an ally strong that will ensure that you will be able to fight off enemies that do not share your values,” she said.

“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.”

The United States currently has some 10,000 troops stationed in Poland, a mission aimed at reassuring the frontline NATO nation worried about Russian aggression.

“Donald Trump is a strong leader for us, but you have an opportunity that you have just as strong of a leader in Karol if you make him the leader of this country,” Noem said.

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.

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, located in a region of Poland that is 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 argued 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.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, center, takes a selfie as she attends at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, Tuesday, May 27, 2025, in Jasionka, Poland. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, center right, and Poland's President Andrzej Duda, center left, speak with attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, Tuesday, May 27, 2025, in Jasionka, Poland. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, Tuesday, May 27, 2025, in Jasionka, Poland. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, Tuesday, May 27, 2025, in Jasionka, Poland. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, Tuesday, May 27, 2025, in Jasionka, Poland. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, left, shakes hands with Poland's Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak, Tuesday, May 27, 2025, in Rzeszów, Poland (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, right, shakes hands with Poland's Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak, Tuesday, May 27, 2025, in Rzeszów, Poland (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, left, poses with Poland's Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak, Tuesday, May 27, 2025, in Rzeszów, Poland (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A man was charged on Thursday with threatening an Australian lawmaker’s staff with nunchucks days after another legislator was critically injured when a man repeatedly hit her with a car.

Nunchucks are a controlled weapon used in martial arts consisting of two or more batons joined by a cord, rope or chain, according to Western Australia state law. Nunchucks can only be carried in public in the state for use in legitimate sports, training or martial arts instruction.

The incidents are heightening concerns about female politicians’ safety and security in a country where lawmakers are highly accessible to the public.

Prosecutors said in a Perth court on Thursday that John Lawrence Smart, 56, was screaming when he entered Western Australian state government minister Hannah Beazley’s electorate office in suburban Perth on Wednesday, demanding to see her while holding above his head two pieces of wood tied together.

Beazley wasn’t in the office at the time. Two staff members remained safe behind a security barrier in the office and no one was hurt.

“It was confronting,” Beazley posted on social media.

Smart said from the prisoner’s dock that he had been holding claves, not nunchucks. Claves are typically wooden sticks used as a percussion instrument.

Magistrate Heidi Watson refused to release Smart on bail, saying he posed a potential risk to himself and the public. She ordered Smart to be medically assessed while in custody. He had previously been involuntarily admitted to hospital with schizophrenia.

Smart did not enter pleas to charges of being armed, or pretending to be armed, in a way that may cause fear and with making an unlawful threat.

There was no allegation that Smart's alleged behavior was connected to the driver who hit federal lawmaker Helen Haines with his car in the east coast state of Victoria on Monday.

Haines' alleged attacker, Brendan Nugent, appeared in a court on Wednesday on charges including intentionally causing serious injury. He did not enter pleas and remains in custody.

Police are still searching for a motive.

Haines, a 65-year-old independent lawmaker, remained in critical condition on Thursday in a Melbourne hospital where surgeons have amputated both her legs, a health department statement said.

Both the Haines and Beazley incidents have raised concerns about the safety of female politicians, who account for a growing proportion of lawmakers in Australian parliaments. Just under 50% of federal lawmakers and a majority of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Cabinet are women.

Australian lawmakers are some of the most accessible in the world and political violence has traditionally been rare. But there are fears that increasingly toxic public debate driven by social media creates additional risks for elected women.

Albanese said the fact that the threat to Beazley came so soon after the alleged attack on Haines was “just heartbreaking.” Beazley is the daughter of Albanese's former federal colleague, Kim Beazley.

“We can have debate and disagreement, but do it in a way without descending into the sort of violence that we have seen in too many parts of the world,” Albanese told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “It’s certainly not who we are as Australians.”

Albanese attended an online security briefing this week for women lawmakers in his center-left Labor Party. Security agencies addressed misogynistic threats directed at them.

Male and female federal lawmakers agree that women are facing the worst of the online abuse.

“Of course people are concerned. They’re anxious,” Albanese said. “There has been a normalization of behavior that can be very aggressive in a way that wasn’t happening a couple of decades ago.”

Governor-General Sam Mostyn, who is only the second woman to ever serve as the British monarch’s representative in Australia, said that she was abused on social media for speaking at a press conference on Wednesday alongside Haines’ husband Phil Haines.

“Like any woman who has stepped up into any position across any part of our society, there is a unique and pernicious form of attack that comes our way,” Mostyn told ABC.

“Women across the country know that there are certain things that are reserved for women in that attack that go to our gender and they are often vicious and just despicable,” she added.

Western Australian state government minister Hannah Beazley arrive for a Labor caucus meeting in Perth, Australia, June 6, 2023. (Richard Wainwright/AAP Image via AP)