It’s a fairly regular occurrence for foreign leaders, diplomats and other top officials from allied governments to visit Capitol Hill and meet with congressional leaders.
Get ready for that on steroids.
The annual NATO summit kicks off today, bringing dozens of world leaders to Washington. The summit isn’t usually held in the United States, but this year is different in part because the alliance is celebrating its 75th anniversary.
This means the Capitol will play host to a ton of bilateral meetings beginning today. This includes a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later in the week.
Here’s just a sampling of who’ll be making the trek to the Hill.
Tuesday:
→ Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) will host the speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk, at 2:15 p.m.
→ Speaker Mike Johnson will meet with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at 11:15 a.m. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will also meet separately with Mitsotakis.
→ Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) will host a group of Western Balkans leaders, including Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, North Macedonian Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski and Montenegro’s Foreign Minister Filip Ivanović. This will take place at 2:00 p.m.
→ New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon will stop by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the morning. This will be followed by a meeting with the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the afternoon.
→ A bipartisan group of senators will meet with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Wednesday:
→ Zelensky will meet with Johnson one-on-one. He’ll also meet with a large bipartisan group of senators.
→ Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will meet jointly with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who’ll be just five days into his new job.
→ A bipartisan group of senators will host NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg as well as the leaders of Finland and Sweden, the newest NATO members.
→ German Chancellor Olaf Scholz — otherwise known as Sen. Chris Coons’ (D-Del.) doppelgänger — is also expected at the Capitol on Wednesday.
