Hungary’s Orbán Backs Trump After Guilty Verdict: ‘Keep Fighting, Mr. President’
Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán declared his support for Donald Trump after guilty verdicts were handed down in his New York City trial on Thursday.
Orbán hailed Trump as a “man of honor” and urged Americans to “make their verdict in November” at the ballot box.
“I’ve known President Donald Trump to be a man of honor. As President, he always put America first, he commanded respect around the world and used this respect to build peace,” Orbán wrote on social media platform Twitter.
“Let the people make their verdict this November! Keep on fighting, Mr. President!” Orbán said, echoing Trump’s own response to the verdict.
Orbán is a longtime friend and ally of Trump who has outspokenly supported his 2024 bid to return to the Oval Office. In March, after meeting with Trump at the latter’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Orbán wholeheartedly endorsed Trump for president.
“We need leaders in the world who are respected and can bring peace. He is one of them! Come back and bring us peace, Mr. President!” Orbán wrote on Twitter at the time.
Trump responded on his own social media program, Truth Social, by hailing Orbán as a “Great Leader, respected all over the World.” Democrats have not yet gotten around to indicting Trump for his improper use of capital letters.
“Hungary is a Safe Country because of his Strong Immigration Policies, and as long as he is in charge, it always will be!” Trump proclaimed.
President Joe Biden seethed over Orbán’s meeting with Trump in Florida, because Orbán stopped in Washington D.C. first, but made a point of not visiting the sitting president.
“You know [who Trump is] meeting with today down at Mar-a-Lago? Orbán of Hungary, who stated flatly he doesn’t think democracy works,” Biden grumbled at a campaign event in Pennsylvania later on the day of the Trump-Orbán meeting.
“He’s looking for dictatorship,” Biden said of Trump. “That’s who he’s meeting with. I see a future where we defend democracy, not diminish it.”
Orbán has said that only Trump can bring peace to Ukraine. In an interview last August with Tucker Carlson, Orbán said Ukraine cannot hope to defeat the “far stronger” and “far more numerous” Russians, so replacing the ineffectual Biden with Trump is the “only way out” of the war.
“Call back Trump,” Orbán advised. “Trump is the man who can save the Western world.”
In an interview with Hungarian state television after his return from Mar-a-Lago in March, Orbán said Trump has “quite detailed plans” about ending the war in Ukraine – beginning with an end to the limitless funding and military support for Ukraine, which Orbán felt has pointlessly prolonged the brutal conflict.
“He will not give a penny into the Ukraine-Russia war and therefore the war will end,” Orbán said of Trump.
“If the Americans do not give money and weapons, and also the Europeans, then this war will be over. And if the Americans do not give money, the Europeans are unable to finance this war on their own, and then the war will end,” he explained.
Orbán cheerfully defended his position in April when he was approached by a hostile interviewer from the left-wing UK Guardian. Asked if he was worried about Hungary becoming diplomatically isolated from the rest of Europe, Orbán denounced that talking point as a “leftist interpretation of foreign policy which is totally fake.”
When the Guardian pushed ahead by asking how Orbán planned to improve relations with the United States, he replied, “Waiting for Donald Trump!”
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