- Vice President JD Vance traveled to aid Viktor Orbán's reelection campaign for Hungarian prime minister.
- Orbán is viewed as an ally for Donald Trump against liberal European politics.
- Vance praised Orbán as a model European leader and a "true statesman."
Vice President JD Vance arrived in Budapest, Hungary, on Tuesday to support Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s reelection bid, a sign that the Trump administration is all-in for an incumbent victory when Hungarians vote on Sunday.
The vice president will spend two days in Budapest to try to turn the tide in an election campaign where Orbán, a close Donald Trump ally, is currently trailing in the polls, per The Associated Press.
Orbán has been in power for 16 years and is running for his fifth consecutive term as prime minister. This is the toughest race that he and his nationalist-populist Fidesz party have faced in about two decades.
His challenger is Peter Magyar, the center-right leader of the Tisza party. A poll from Politico shows Magyar’s party having support from 49% of Hungarian voters while Orbán’s Fidesz Party has support from 39%.
During a news conference in the Hungarian capital of Budapest, Vance said: “Viktor Orbán is, of course, going to win.”
According to The New York Times, Orbán approved of Vance’s statement, saying “That is a fact.”
What Vance said about Viktor Orbán
Vance continued to heap praise on Orbán calling him “wise and smart” and a “statesman,” per The New York Times. The vice president also called out European Union “bureaucrats” who he said have “tried to destroy the Hungarian economy” to influence the election’s result “because they hate this guy.”
Vance also said that Orbán’s leadership can be a “model to the continent.”
Vance told people that he is not in Budapest to tell Hungarians how to vote, but his speech to the Hungarian capital contradicted that message.
“You have held on to the civilizational goods that make a country worth living in in the first place,” he said, listing these values as “sovereignty, prosperity, history, a sense of national community, the redemptive nature of bringing new life and new families into the world.”
According to NBC News, he also spoke about rejecting communism, saying Hungarians “have stood up to the nihilists — and now I wonder, will you do it again?”
He also asked Hungarians to stand up for “democracy, for truth and for the God of our forefathers: Go to the polls on the weekend, stand with Viktor Orbán, because he stands for you and he stands for all these things. God bless Hungary and God bless the United States.”
His conclusion received the biggest round of applause of the day with people on their feet and whooping in response to his message, according to NBC News.
As he openly endorsed Orbán saying he wanted to “help as much as I possibly can,” Vance also attacked EU leaders for what he said was “one of the worst examples of foreign election interference that I’ve ever seen or ever even read about,” per the AP.
Orbán’s opponent Magyar posted on X Tuesday about Vance’s visit to Budapest and endorsement of Orbán.
“No foreign country may interfere in Hungarian elections. This is our country. Hungarian history is not written in Washington, Moscow, or Brussels — it is written in Hungary’s streets and squares,” Magyar wrote.
A pivotal election and a Trump ally
This election is seen as the most consequential vote in the country since Hungary’s first free election in 1990, per The New York Times.
The vote comes at a time of a global energy crisis and war in the Middle East so Vance’s visit shows how important the election in a small country is to powerful nations across the world.
Trump sees Orbán as a European against the liberal politics that he and his followers disapprove of. Orbán is seen by both the Trump administration and Moscow as ally to their common antagonism toward Europe and hope the current polls are wrong.
Orbán has called out leaders in the European Union, saying that expressions of support for his opponent are meddling in the election and a break of Hungary’s sovereignty, per The Associated Press. Hostility for Ukraine has been at the center of Orbán’s election campaign.
Vance also called the prime minister “one of the only true statesmen in Europe” and told him that Trump “loves you and so do I,” according to The New York Times.
Orbán has become a main figure in the global far-right movement as critics accuse him of taking over Hungary’s institutions, overseeing entrenched political corruption and clamping down on freedom of the press.
Under his leadership Hungary has broken with most EU countries by refusing to assist Ukraine financially or with weapons during the war with Russia and has also continued to purchase Russian energy, per the AP.