The video recorded during a pre-election meeting in March last year, shows the then opposition leader saying that if Trump had won the 2020 presidential election “USA would no longer be in NATO.”

He added: “Trump’s links with Russian secret services are irrefutable. This is not what I think but the result of investigations conducted by U.S. intelligence.

“They don’t rule out the possibility that Trump might have been recruited by Russian secret services 30 years ago.”

Trump’s first four years in office were tainted by allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. electoral process, and questions over his team’s relations with Russian officials.

Although an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller failed to establish a conspiracy between Trump and the Kremlin, it did reveal his campaign had contacts with Moscow.

In September 2024, former FBI director Andrew McCabe said Donald Trump could be viewed as a Russian agent, although not in the traditional sense of the word, as an active agent or a recruited asset. “I think his approach to interacting with Vladimir Putin ... raises significant questions,” he said.

But asked at a press conference on Thursday about his own comments in the 2023 video, Tusk denied making them, telling a journalist: “No, I never made any such suggestions.”

Now politicians from the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party have demanded the prime minister explain his comments.

Mariusz Błaszczak, the head of the PiS parliamentary caucus, posted on X saying that the allegations were so serious that Tusk must make a public statement because “Polish-US relations are at stake.”

Also writing on X, former PiS Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki posted clips from the video alongside the comment: “Before you, Donald Tusk in all his glory.”

Another former PiS prime minister, Beata Szydło, posted: "A new level of Tusk's lies.

“He knows very well that the recording of this statement is on his own YouTube channel.

“And yet he lied without hesitation at the conference today.

“For Tusk, lying is a natural reflex.”

Following November 5’s election win against Democrat candidate Kamala Harris, Tusk sent a message to Trump, saying: “Congratulations to Donald Trump for winning the election. I look forward to our cooperation for the good of the American and Polish people.”