Former US President Trump met on Friday with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, as the potential Republican presidential nominee continued his embrace of authoritarian leaders who are part of the global resistance to democratic traditions.
Orban has become an icon for some conservative populists for his advocacy of what he calls “illiberal democracy,” rife with restrictions on immigration and gay rights. He also suppressed the press and judiciary in his country and reshaped Hungary's political system to keep his party in power while maintaining the close relationship with Russia among the EU countries.
In the United States, Trump's allies in the Republican Party have embraced Orban's approach. On Thursday, as foreign dignitaries toured Washington, D.C., ahead of President Biden's State of the Union address, Orban skipped the White House and instead spoke at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank overseeing Project 2025, the effort to create a governing government. A blueprint for a possible second term for Trump.
“Supporting families, combating illegal immigration, and defending the sovereignty of our countries. “This is the common ground for cooperation between conservative forces in Europe and the United States.”
He then flew to Florida, where he met with Trump late Friday afternoon at the former president's beachfront compound, Mar-a-Lago. Orban posted on his Instagram account a video clip of him and his team meeting with Trump and his staff, and then the Prime Minister appears walking into the complex and handing Melania Trump a large bouquet of flowers.
In the video, Trump praised Orban in front of a crowd, drawing laughter: “He's a non-controversial figure because he says, 'This is the way it's going to be,' and that's the end of it. Right? He's the leader.”
The Trump campaign said late Friday that the two men discussed “a broad range of issues affecting Hungary and the United States, including the critical importance of strong, secure borders to protect each nation’s sovereignty.”
During his election campaign on Friday in Pennsylvania, Biden said about Trump: “Do you know who he will meet today at Mar-a-Lago? Hungary's Orbán, who has categorically stated that he does not believe democracy works, is looking for dictatorship.
Biden added: “I see a future in which we defend democracy, not diminish it.”
Dalibor Rohak, a fellow at the center-right American Enterprise Institute, said Orban's approach appeals to Trump's type of conservatives who have abandoned their embrace of limited government and free markets for a system that aligns with their own ideology.
“They want to use the tools of government to reward their friends and punish their opponents, which is what Orban did,” Rohak said.
The meeting also comes as Trump continues to embrace autocrats of many ideological stripes. He praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and North Korean President Kim Jong Un. Orban's government responded in kind, repeatedly praising the former president.
On Friday, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó posted an online message from Florida, in which he praised Trump's “strength” and noted that the world would be more peaceful if he remained president.
“If Donald Trump had been elected President of the United States in 2020, the war in Ukraine, now in its third year, would not have broken out, and the conflict in the Middle East would have been resolved much more quickly,” he wrote.
Orbán has been prime minister of Hungary since 2010. The following year, his party, Fidesz, used a two-thirds majority in the legislature to rewrite the country's constitution. It changed the retirement age for judges, forced hundreds of them into early retirement, and assigned responsibility for appointing new judges to a single political appointee who was widely accused of working on behalf of Fidesz.
Later, Fidesz wrote a new media law and created a nine-member council to serve as the country's media regulator. All nine members are appointed by Fidesz, which media watchdogs say has facilitated a significant decline in press freedom and pluralism.
Analysts say the country's legislative lines have been redrawn to protect Fidesz members, and there are no longer any major media outlets critical of Orbán's government, making it almost impossible for his party to lose the election.
Orban supported Trump's reelection efforts and has had frosty relations with the Biden administration, which did not explicitly invite Hungary to a democracy summit it organized after the president took office. Hungarian officials accused Biden's ambassador to Budapest, former human rights lawyer David Pressman, of interfering in internal government affairs.
Earlier this week, Hungary objected to Biden's selection of a former Dutch prime minister as NATO's new commander, which could stall the appointment.
The Hungarian leader also enthusiastically boosted Trump's latest presidential campaign, posting a message encouraging Trump to “keep fighting” after he was hit with one of four criminal cases against him last year. Last week, Orban declared that a victory for the former president would be the “only serious chance” to end the war in Ukraine.
A video of the Heritage appearance posted by Orban's political director showed the prime minister speaking with Vivek Ramaswamy, the pharmaceutical businessman who ran for the Republican presidential nomination before withdrawing and endorsing Trump. The Hungarian leader also met with Stephen K. Bannon, a former Trump White House adviser who remains an outspoken ally of the former president and is active in global populist circles.
Orban's visit this week comes after he signed a new national sovereignty law that penalizes any foreign support for political actors in Hungary, part of the prime minister's long-running battle against the European Union and international nonprofits that criticize the erosion of democracy in Hungary.
“Orban is putting up this huge barrier to anyone interfering in Hungarian elections, but Orban is interfering in all kinds of other countries’ elections,” said Kim Szpiele, a sociologist at Princeton University and an expert on Hungary.
Orban is one of a small group of foreign conservative populist leaders who have publicly aligned themselves with American conservatives trying to oust Biden in November. Last month, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and Argentine President Javier Miley spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington. Orban was a featured speaker at a CPAC event in 2022, and later met with Trump at the former president's golf course in New Jersey.
Several conservative populists have won European elections in recent years, including in Italy and Sweden. But leaders in those countries have remained staunch opponents of Putin's invasion of Ukraine and have not clashed with the EU government or taken steps that would worry pro-democracy advocates as Orban has done.
Schebelle said the similarities between Trump and Orban go beyond ideology. She noted that Orban is not very religious but has become a hero to Christian conservatives because of his hard-line positions, like Trump.
She added that the two men also face a similar electoral dilemma.
“They're having the same problem,” Schebelle said. “How do you leverage a really strong base, which is not an actual majority, at election time?”
Associated Press writers Riccardi reported from Denver and Spike reported from Budapest. AP Political Writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.
