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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
The US ambassador to Poland, Thomas Rose, has criticised the speaker of Poland’s parliament, Włodzimierz Czarzasty, for calling President Donald Trump “irrational” and a “leader of chaos”.
Rose, who had a similar dispute with Czarzasty earlier this year, called the speaker a “menace” and pointed to his past as a member of Poland’s former communist party.
This man is a menace. The aim of his inflammatory rhetoric disparaging @POTUS can only be to damage U.S.–Poland ties, and weaken his own country. Perhaps as a notorious far-left, ex-communist apparatchik, we shouldn’t be surprised.https://t.co/r05rsSZ9Ix
— Ambasador Tom Rose (@USAmbPoland) April 13, 2026
Czarzasty serves as speaker of the Sejm, the more powerful lower house of parliament, making him a key figure in Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s ruling coalition.
In remarks to the Financial Times published on Sunday, Czarzasty said that “Trump is becoming a leader of chaos and I think that in many cases Trump’s behaviour is absolutely irrational”.
In response, Rose, a former conservative radio host and political advisor who was appointed as ambassador to Poland last year, posted a link to Czarzasty’s interview on his official ambassadorial account on X and declared that “this man is a menace”.
“The aim of his inflammatory rhetoric disparaging POTUS [the president of the United States] can only be to damage US-Poland ties, and weaken his own country,” continued Rose. “Perhaps as a notorious far-left, ex-communist apparatchik, we shouldn’t be surprised.”
In the 1980s, when he was in his 20s, Czarzasty was a member of the communist Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR) that ruled Poland as a Soviet-backed authoritarian regime.
Following the fall of communism and restoration of democracy, Czarzasty became part of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), which governed Poland for parts of the 1990s and the first decade of the 20th century.
In 2016, Czarzasty became head of the SLD and, under his leadership, it merged with other left-wing parties to form a new alliance, The Left (Lewica), which has since 2023 been a junior member of Tusk’s ruling coalition, which ranges from left to centre-right.
Włodzimierz Czarzasty has transformed the role of speaker of parliament into a forceful political weapon, writes @aleksszczerbiak
Controversial yet effective, he has become one of Donald Tusk's key allies and the ruling coalition’s uncompromising enforcer https://t.co/wZFCqCSFly
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) March 9, 2026
Czarzasty himself became speaker of the Sejm in November last year. That role gives him influence over the passage of key government legislation, while also allowing him to effectively block bills proposed by the right-wing opposition and opposition-aligned President Karol Nawrocki.
In February this year, Rose cut off ties with Czarzasty, accusing him of making “outrageous insults” against Trump after the speaker had expressed opposition to the US president being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
However, when asked by Polish media to specify which element of Czarzasty’s comments had constituted an insult against Trump, Rose refused to say.
The US has cut all contact with the speaker of Poland's parliament because of his "outrageous insults" against President Trump.
In response, Polish Prime Minister @donaldtusk told the US ambassador that "allies should respect, not lecture, each other" https://t.co/h2gGH7iMkn
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) February 5, 2026
During the clash in February, Tusk came to Czarzasty’s defence, telling Rose that “allies should respect, not lecture, each other”. So far, however, neither Tusk nor other senior government figures have commented on the latest spat.
While Nawrocki is a close ally of Trump, Tusk has had a more ambivalent relationship with the US president. He has at times openly criticised some of Trump’s rhetoric and actions, but also emphasises the importance of the US as Poland’s key ally, especially when it comes to security.
Meanwhile, opinion polls indicate that the Polish public is becoming increasingly concerned about the direction of US policy under Trump. A survey conducted in January this year found that a majority of Poles, 53.2%, believe the US is no longer a reliable ally, while only 29.9% believe that it is.
Another poll, published in February, showed that Trump is the third-most distrusted major world leader among Poles, behind only Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko.
The US has cut all contact with the speaker of Poland's parliament because of his "outrageous insults" against President Trump.
In response, Polish Prime Minister @donaldtusk told the US ambassador that "allies should respect, not lecture, each other" https://t.co/h2gGH7iMkn
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) February 5, 2026
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Main image credit: Jakub Wlodek / Agencja Wyborcza.pl
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
