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Oval Office

2:30 P.M. EDT

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Thank you very much.  It’s an honor to have President Duda, a friend.  We’ve had many discussions, and we work very well with Poland.  I don’t think we’ve ever been closer to Poland than we are right now.  And we’re going to have a very important meeting on economic development, military, and other things.  And that’ll start in about 10 minutes.

We’re going to meet for a little while here, and then we’re going into the Cabinet Room.  We then will go outside, and we’re going to see you all, or most of you, out in the Rose Garden, where we’ll take some questions and make statements.  And it’s an honor to have you here, Mr. President.

PRESIDENT DUDA:  Thank you very much, Mr. President.  It’s a privilege and honor to be here with you in the White House as the first president of state after the lockdown, at the end of the coronavirus —

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  It’s true.

PRESIDENT DUDA:  — epidemic.  So thank you very much.

And I hope this meeting will be the next step in our relations, and I hope that we will build together a stronger alliance between Poland and the United States of America.  I’m very glad to be here.

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Very good.  It’s great to have you.

Okay, thank you very much, everybody.  Thank you.

Q    Mr. President, why did President Duda get the honor of meeting with you after so many months?

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Great respect for Poland.

Q    How does it feel to have the first foreign leader since the shutdown?  And now is a good time to have the first foreign leader since all the shutdowns?

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Well, I think it’s a great honor.  And, frankly, Poland is a country we have a tremendous relationship with, and I have a very good personal relationship with the President.  So this is the first after COVID, after the start of the plague, as I call it.  And it’s an honor to have you here.

Okay.  Thank you very much, everybody.

And I’m very happy about General Flynn.  He was treated horribly.  He was treated very, very horribly by a group of very bad people, and I think you’ll see things are going to start to come out.

But what happened to General Flynn should never happen again in our country.  He was persecuted, and many other people were persecuted.  They spied on a campaign, and they should never spy on a campaign, to put it mildly.  It never happened before in the history of our country.  The Obama administration spied on a campaign.  This is just the first one.

He’s been exonerated, and I want to congratulate him.  He’s been through a lot.  He’s been through a lot.  He had great courage, great fortitude.  But they spied on a campaign.  There’s never been anything like that happen.  If that were the other way around, people would be in jail for 50 years already.

Thank you very much.

END            

2:33 P.M. EDT