Trump Showers Public Love on Orban in His Hour of Maximum Need

Trump Showers Public Love on Orban in His Hour of Maximum Need

 

With Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban facing his toughest electoral challenge since returning to office 16 years ago, the Trump administration is pulling out all the stops to keep the authoritarian leader and Russian ally in power.

President Trump reaffirmed his “complete and total endorsement” in a video shown at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Hungary a couple of weeks ago. “The prime minister has been a strong leader whose shown the entire world what’s possible when you defend your borders, your culture, your heritage, your sovereignty and your values,” remarked the president.  

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Other top administration officials are also weighing in.  Marco Rubio conducted a joint press conference with the Hungarian prime minister in which the secretary of state declared, “Your success is our success.”  J.D. Vance is scheduled to visit Hungary this week in advance of Sunday’s Hungarian elections to further sing Orban’s praises.

An American president’s explicit public endorsement of one of the candidates in any foreign election is of course highly unusual. This endorsement stands out even more because Orban’s formidable opponent, Peter Magyar, the leader of the center/right Tisza Party, has pledged to pull Hungary away from Putin’s orbit.  A former ally of Orban and member of his Fidesz party, Magyar is no left-winger, but he explicitly rejects the prime minister’s demonization of Zelensky.  He is going after Orban on his democratic backsliding, the widespread corruption under his rule, and the poor performance of the Hungarian economy.

Any traditional understanding of the United States’ interests and values would have the administration at least quietly rooting for Magyar. yet President Trump is joining Russia in continuing to enthusiastically champion Orban. That is because for the president and too many others on the American right, Orban’s authoritarianism in the service of a fierce blood and soil nationalism that paints all immigrants with a broad negative brush is not something to be opposed; it is to be celebrated.  His use of the state to dominate Hungary's media, limiting-- if not-- silencing opposition voices, as well as his bare-knuckled electoral manipulation are not to be decried; they are to be admired as a successful model of wielding power.

Orban’s defeat would be a resounding victory for the democratic values we used to champion around the world, admittedly imperfectly. "Budapest is the headquarters of illiberal democracy in the world,” Michael Ignatieff, former rector of the Central European University, which was forced out of the Hungarian capital in 2019, told the BBC. "This is not just an election. This is a referendum on that whole model of authoritarian rule that Orban represents."   As Kevin Roberts, the architect of Project 2025 and a Trump administration ally, put it, “Modern Hungary is not just a model for conservative statecraft, it is the model.”

The extent to which this authoritarian model is admired by President Trump can be seen in his administration’s failure to say one negative word about Orban’s current use of Hungary’s veto to block a $100 billion European Union loan to Ukraine. This is a direct flouting of the United States’ professed policy of the Europeans assuming most of the costs of aiding Ukraine.

For those who want to minimize or deny the authoritarian ambitions of President Trump, some of his advisors, and an influential corner of the American right, the public endorsement of Orban is staring them right in the face.