PM Orbán and Donald Trump praise each other in Mar-a-Lago
March 12th, 2024A left-wing columnist thinks PM Orbán is playing Russian roulette by befriending Trump, while his pro-government counterpart suggests Trump is the better choice for Hungary.
When Prime Minister Orbán paid a visit to Donald Trump in the latter’s mansion at Mar-a-Lago in Florida on Friday, Mr Trump said ’There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán. He’s fantastic.’ PM Orbán, for his part, said if Mr Trump had been re-elected in 2020, there would be no war in Ukraine. Upon his return, Mr Orbán told Hungarian state television that Hungary is respected in the United States because it stands up for family values, while in Western Europe, ’everybody speaks about LGBTQ vagaries’.
In Népszava, Gábor Horváth accuses both Trump and Orbán of being power maniacs. He criticises the Hungarian Prime Minister for pinning his hopes on Mr Trump’s electoral victory. Hungary’s real interests, he writes, would require the government to entertain ’correct relations’ with the US administration, regardless of who the President is. Instead, he continues, Mr Orbán is playing roulette. ’He won in 2016 when Donald Trump was elected President; lost in 2020 and is now staking all on black again’.
In Magyar Nemzet, László Szentesi Zöldi believes that Mr Viktor Orbán is not the only leader within the European Union to root for Mr Trump. A great many of his colleagues would also prefer a real statesman instead of the ‘mentally impaired’ Joe Biden, he claims, although they cannot say so out of fear of ‘decapitation’ in their countries. ‘We support Trump’, he writes, ‘because we want to see in America what we have been experiencing in Hungary for the past 14 years’ – real free speech, and the protection of Christian and family values.