Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban will head to Mar-a-Lago to visit former President Donald Trump after the NATO summit.
The conservative European leader, who has held the office since 2010, has been a close ally with Trump, during and after his presidency. His closeness with Trump is matched by his distance from President Joe Biden, who has attacked him on several occasions. Orban’s planned visit to Mar-a-Lago, first revealed to the New York Times by a Trump campaign official, is his second of the year, the first occurring in March.
The March visit was unique as Orban didn’t meet with the sitting president during his visit to the United States, drawing rebuke from Biden.
“You know who he’s meeting with today and — down in Mar-a-Lago? Orban of Hungary, who stated flatly he doesn’t think democracy works,” Biden said. “I see a future where we defend democracy, not diminish it.”
Orban became the first world leader to effectively endorse Trump in this election cycle, saying his election would be “good for the world politics.”
“[Trump] is the man of peace. Under his four-year term he did not initiate a single war, and he did a lot in order to create peace in old conflicts in very complicated areas of the world,” he added.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Orban has a frosty relationship with other European leaders due to his conservative positions and neutrality on the war in Ukraine. He recently traveled to Russia and Ukraine in an effort to pursue a peace agreement to end the war, meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. His trip to Russia was met with disapproval from Ukrainian and European officials.
Though Orban is the only European leader to openly express support and favor for Trump, recent reports suggest that other NATO leaders believe Biden will lose the November election, especially after his debate performance, and have begun preparing for a Trump presidency.
