At a meeting of world leaders Monday, President Donald Trump claimed he is “the only one that matters” while heaping praise on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
“We love Viktor,” Trump said onstage at a Gaza “peace summit” in Egypt, where he told the prime minister, “You are fantastic, alright?”
“I know a lot of people don’t agree with me,” Trump went on, “but I’m the only one that matters when—. You are fantastic.”
Trump continued to honor the Hungarian prime minister, who has indeed earned his fair share of critics for striving to dismantle liberal democracy in his country. Since taking office in 2010, Orbán has seized control of independent governmental institutions, curtailed press freedoms, and targeted his political opponents, immigrants, and LGBTQ+ people.
“He’s a great leader,” Trump said. “I endorsed him the last election he had, and he won by 28 points. So you’re going to do even better this time if you have another election,” he added, assuring him, “We’re behind you 100 percent.”
With parliamentary elections taking place next spring, Orbán’s ruling party, which has dominated Hungarian politics for 15 years, appears to be trailing a new opposition party in public opinion polls. As the Center for European Policy Analysis notes, this has raised concerns—which may ring familiar here in the U.S.—that if Orbán were to lose, he may refuse to accept defeat and instead challenge the integrity of the vote.
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