Biden jokes with the Polish president that he wants to add ‘ski’ to his name

President Joe Biden told Polish President Andrzej Duda that he wanted to add a ‘ski’ to his last name as a child, because he grew up surrounded by many Polish immigrants.

Biden discussed his Delaware upbringing during a bilateral meeting Tuesday with Duda at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, as he kicked off the pre-planned portion of his trip to Poland, which will mark the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

On Monday, Biden appeared in Kiev to stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, after taking a secret flight to a Polish border city and then a 10-hour train ride to the Ukrainian capital.

Duda opened the expanded bilateral meeting with an ecstatic review of Biden’s surprise trip to Ukraine. “It was really spectacular,” Duda said in Polish, which was translated into English on the headsets of the US delegation.

In turn, Biden spoke of his former appreciation of the Poles.

“I was born in a coal town in Scranton… When coal died, we moved to a town called Claymont, which was a working-class town, everyone in town was Polish or Italian,” Biden said. “I grew up feeling self-conscious because my name didn’t end in ‘ski’ or ‘o’.

President Joe Biden kicked off the previously planned part of his European trip on Tuesday with a bilateral meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda.

President Joe Biden (left) arrives at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw to meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda (right)

“Jokes aside,” Biden continued, before noting the “pride, the overwhelming demonstrable pride that Polish-Americans feel in Poland, the role it’s playing now.”

Biden praised Poland for accepting about 1.7 million Ukrainian refugees.

“The United States needs Poland and NATO as much as Poland and NATO need the United States,” the president also said.

Duda said Biden’s secret trip to Ukraine boosted morale among Ukrainians but was also an “extraordinary gesture” toward America’s NATO allies.

He then admonished Russia for attacking a “free, independent and sovereign country.”

Duda pointed out that the war really started in 2014, with the Russian annexation of Crimea. But this week, a year ago, it turned into a “large-scale” attack, which “caused tragedy and catastrophe.”

He applauded Biden’s visit to Warsaw, his second in a year, because Duda said it showed Poland was safe, despite the Russian assault on the Ukrainian border.

President Joe Biden and the US delegation sit across from Polish President Andrzej Duda (right) and his advisers at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, Poland, on Tuesday.

“Some people might think that this is a dangerous place,” Duda said.

He credited the US and NATO troops stationed in his country for keeping him safe.

Duda also said he was “delighted” that Biden was delivering his speech from Warsaw, a speech scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.

Biden’s meeting with Duda on Tuesday marks the beginning of the publicly announced part of the trip.

The president took the Beast a short distance through downtown Warsaw before arriving at the Presidential Palace with Duda, Polish officials, a military band, and soldiers in full dress uniforms waiting for him.

Biden and Duda stood in the center of the ornate courtyard to play first the US and then Polish national anthems, before Duda escorted Biden across the red carpets laid out on the cobblestones to watch the troops.