Former President Donald Trump met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Friday, and the likely Republican presidential nominee continued to deliver a speech. The embrace of an autocratic leader Those participating in the global outcry against democratic tradition.
Orbán became like this icon to some conservative populists who defend what he stands for. “Illiberal democracy” full of restrictions immigration and LGBTQ+ rights.But he's also been busted press readjusted his country's judiciary and national institutions political system to keep what's his political party in power While maintaining the closest ties with Russia among all European Union countries.
In the United States, President Trump's allies are accepted Mr Orbán's approach. As foreign dignitaries paraded through Washington, D.C., ahead of President Joe Biden's State of the Union address on Thursday, Prime Minister Orban skipped the White House and instead spoke at the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank overseeing the 2025 project. did. Blueprint for the next Trump administration.
“We will support families, fight against illegal immigration and stand up for national sovereignty. This is the common ground for cooperation between conservative forces in Europe and the United States,” Orbán wrote on X (formerly Twitter) after his appearance on Heritage. Ta.
He then flew to Florida and met with Trump late Friday afternoon at the former president's beachfront mansion, Mar-a-Lago. Orbán posted a video on his Instagram account of himself and his staff meeting with Trump and the former president's staff, followed by the prime minister walking through the grounds and handing Melania Trump a huge bouquet of flowers.
In the video, Trump praised Orbán to laughter from the audience. “He's the uncontroversial person, because he just says, 'This is what's going to happen,' and that's it. Right?” President Trump said of the Hungarian prime minister. “He is his boss.”
The Trump campaign said late Friday that the two men discussed “a wide range of issues affecting Hungary and the United States, including the paramount importance of strong and secure borders to protect our nations' sovereignty.”
Campaigning in Pennsylvania on Friday, Mr. Biden said of Mr. Trump: “Do you know who you're meeting at Mar-a-Lago today?” Hungary's Mr. Orban has said flatly that he does not believe democracy works and that he wants a dictatorship.
“I see a future that protects democracy, not undermines it,” Biden added.
Dalibor Roach, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said Mr. Orbán's approach is a brand of Mr. Trump, who is abandoning his support for limited government and free markets and seeking a system that supports his ideology. He said it appeals to conservatives.
“They want to use the tools of government to reward their friends and punish their opponents, and Mr. Orbán is doing that,” Roach said.
This meeting comes as President Trump continues to: accept the authoritarian All ideological stripes. He praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korea's Kim Jong Un. In response, the Orbán government praise repeatedly Former president.
On Friday, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjarto posted from Palm Beach, praising President Trump's “strength” and hinting that the world would be more peaceful if he were still president.
“If Donald Trump had been elected president of the United States in 2020, the Ukraine war, now in its third year, would not have erupted and the Middle East conflict would have been resolved sooner,” he wrote.
Orbán has been Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010. The following year, his party Fidesz used its two-thirds majority in parliament to rewrite the constitution. It changed the retirement age for judges, forced hundreds of judges into early retirement, and placed the responsibility for appointing new judges on a political appointee who was widely criticized as acting on behalf of Fidesz.
Fidesz later drafted a new media law and established a nine-member council to act as the country's media regulator. All nine members are Fidesz appointees, which media watchdogs say fosters a significant decline in press freedom and plurality.
The country's legislative boundaries have been redrawn to protect Fidesz members, and with no major media outlets remaining critical of Orbán's government, the chances of Orbán's party losing the election have become nearly impossible. Analysts believe that there is.
Mr. Orbán supports Mr. Trump's re-election efforts and has a cold relationship with the Biden administration, which reportedly did not invite Hungary to a democracy summit it hosted after taking office. . Hungarian authorities have accused Biden's ambassador to Japan, former human rights lawyer David Pressman, of interfering in their internal affairs.
Earlier this week, Hungary objected to Biden's choice of a former Dutch prime minister as NATO's new commander, potentially delaying the appointment.
The Hungarian leader also posted a message encouraging Trump to “keep fighting” after being hit with the first of four criminal lawsuits against him last year, and also criticized Trump's recent presidential campaign. We are enthusiastically supporting these activities. Last week, President Orbán declared that the former president's victory was certain. “The only serious chance” To end the war in Ukraine.
A video of the Heritage appearance posted by Prime Minister Orbán's political director shows him saying: Vivek Ramaswamy, a pharmaceutical entrepreneur who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination, then withdrew and supported Trump.He also met with the Hungarian leader steve bannona former adviser to President Trump who remains a vocal ally of the former president and active in global populist circles.
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's visit this week comes as part of his long-standing battle with the European Union and international nonprofits that he criticizes for eroding Hungarian democracy, and a new round of reforms punishing foreign support for Hungarian political activists. This was done after signing the National Sovereignty Act.
Kim Schepere, a sociologist and Hungary expert at Princeton University, said: “While Mr. Orbán has put up big barriers to anyone interfering in Hungary's elections, Mr. It's interfering.”
Mr. Orbán is one of a small group of conservative populists. publicly aligned himself with US conservatives seeking to oust Biden in November. Last month, El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele and Argentina's President Javier Milei spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington. Mr. Orban was a featured speaker at the 2022 event and later met with Mr. Trump at the former president's golf course in New Jersey.
Conservative populists have won a number of European elections in recent years, including in Italy and Sweden. But the leaders of these countries remain staunchly opposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, and have taken steps to quarrel with European Union governments and alarm democracy defenders like President Orbán. I have not given any lectures.
Schepere said the similarities between Trump and Orbán go beyond ideology. She noted that Mr. Orbán is not very religious, but like Mr. Trump, his hard-line stance has made him a hero to Christian conservatives.
Both men face similar electoral predicaments, she added.
“They have the same problem,” Schepere said. “How do you leverage a really solid base that’s not an actual majority in an election?”
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Riccardi reported from Denver and Spike from Budapest. Associated Press political writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.
