Read my previous story: After 100 Letters to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, No Response.

June 17, 2026

Senator Thune, 

I hope you received my two letters mailed from Kraków, Poland. I’m back in New York now. There’s so much to write about. But what I want to start with is how upsetting it has been to see how the Polish feel about our country. No one seemed to know what to make of that spectacle at the White House. I know you weren’t there. Good for you! It was embarrassing. Our monuments were defiled by the UFC fighters who tromped through like they were worthy of that honor. How does our country look to the world? Like a tacky reality show, which is what Trump has turned us into. Does that make you happy? Proud? I hope not.

I have to call out one thing that happened. UFC fighter Josh Hokit used his post-fight interview to promote a false conspiracy theory – “Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right, America?” Trump smirked.

OMG, Senator Thune! There’s no other way to interpret this except as racism and misogyny. This is the behavior he is modeling for our children. Your grandchildren. My grandchild. It’s disgusting. You know it is, but you and the other Republicans remain silent. Why? Have you lost your moral core? 

Let’s move on. Now Trump is heralding his Iran deal – which you have said you have yet to see – as a victory. It’s not. He destroyed the deal Obama had, because he is so jealous of Obama he has to hit back any chance he gets, and now he’s come out with something that is a failure. Yes, the strait is open, but it was closed because he started this illegal and unnecessary war. He says traffic through the strait will be free. It won’t. There will be tolls. He says we will help rebuild Iran, giving them $300 billion to do that. It will require them to stick to the terms of the agreement, whatever those terms are. How will that be determined? And we have to rebuild Iran because Trump destroyed it. For what? To take the focus away from the Epstein files.

Yes, those nasty files that just won’t go away. There is so much more to come out. You know it, too.

Senator Thune, you have a lot on your plate. He wants you to push through that Save America Act, which will make it hard for a lot of people to vote. So far you haven’t been able to get enough votes to do that. Please don’t push it through. 

Although I was able to ignore a lot that Trump did over the 10 days I was gone, his hold on, not only our country, but the world, is so huge that there’s no way to escape. But I have to stress one thing that my trip to Poland made clear. The Polish people are resilient. Think of all they’ve been through, World War II, when the Germans destroyed so much of their country. Auschwitz was nearby and Polish people and Polish Jews were some of the first to be sent there to die. And then the Russians came in. They rebuilt Warsaw, but the buildings are drab and ugly. One, supposedly a gift from Stalin, has been dubbed, “Stalin’s penis,” because the Poles hate it. I took strength from watching the Polish people on this trip. They love their country and they have fought to keep it free.

Americans are going to fight, too. Only not in some tacky UFC cage, but at the polls.

Sincerely, 

Charlene Giannetti

Top Shutterstock photo by vladivlad
The Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, Stalin’s “gift.”