Vthe loss of iktor Orbán in yesterday’s election, it was the defeat of Donald Trump and his vice-president, JD Vance, similar to the defeat of the overthrown Hungarian hero. Rarely have American leaders meddled so openly in foreign elections, and rarely has their favorite candidate done so badly. Trump has a way of distancing himself from people who disappoint him. Last night, when reporters asked him about the Hungarian result, he turned and walked away. But tied so tightly to Orbán, he may find it unusually difficult to separate himself from the prime minister’s downfall.
Red Make America Great Again hats and other pro-Trump symbols filled Orbán’s campaign rallies. But the opposition party—led by Péter Magyar, a conservative supporter who had broken away from Orbán’s inner circle—chose a different image: Jubilant crowds on the streets of Budapest to welcome the end of the prime minister’s 16-year rule displayed fireworks, flags, face paint, and banners. And along the banks of the Danube, the Hungarian tricolor mingled with the emblem of the European Union.
Trump has generally lost US international leadership, except for the gun barrel variety. But he still fancies himself the head of the international far-right bloc, and he enjoyed an exalted view of his own power in the mirror Orbán held up to him. Strategically and stylistically, the two leaders are similar. The Prime Minister was the first EU head of state to endorse Trump in 2016, and the Republican nominee’s victory continued to inspire populist parties around the world.
In the decade that followed, no foreign leader worked harder than Orbán to translate ideological politics into a plan for border control. He turned Hungary into a testing ground for the practices that Trump is now implementing in America, including the expansion of executive power and attack on universities and other elements of civil society. Orbán has developed a network of think tanks and other government-backed institutions that both focus on existing MAGA and foster new ones. He put a Vance ally, and a so-called post-liberal voter, over him payment in Budapest. In Washington, meanwhile, the second Trump administration brought in experienced young aides to pro-government institutions in Budapest.
A few weeks before the election, I asked representatives of the opposition party, Tisza, how they would deal with this ecosystem of state-backed institutions. Union representatives told me that the new funding will stop immediately, and that the government will find ways to return the money that has been promised through long-term subsidies. Magyar, who is likely to become Hungary’s next prime minister, confirmed this at a press conference today, saying that the funding structure amounts to a criminal offense and promising to launch an investigation. Most thought leaders, one aide told me, “will quit soon.” That could be the prelude to a broader identification of the Washington-Budapest relationship that has animated right-wing circles over the past decade.
Csuspicions of foreign influence explained the Hungarian election. Orbán tried to portray Magyar as a secret agent of Brussels; Magyar accused Orbán of secretly collaborating with Russian security services to stay in power. There was nothing secret, meanwhile, about the US government’s efforts to gain support for the prime minister.
Consider the time and effort Trump and Vance invested in the election. Trump announced many of the proposals on social media and recorded a video that was played at the Conservative Political Summit in Budapest. Before traveling to Islamabad for Saturday’s failed peace talks with Iranian leaders, Vance spent two days in the Hungarian capital campaigning with the prime minister, at the expense of American taxpayers. One wondered, as Trump warned of the end of Iranian civilization, if his vice president might have better things to do.
Trump treated Orbán’s re-election bid as a domestic political contest, with all the implications for his political capital. “We love Viktor,” the president said last summer, standing before fellow European leaders. “You’re beautiful, right? I know a lot of people don’t agree with me, but I’m the only one who matters.” As the election approached, his endorsement of Orbán was indistinguishable from his intervention in a competitive US congressional race, complete with his unorganized capital. Orbán, he wrote, would protect “LAW AND ORDER!” Trump’s eldest son dispelled any lingering doubt about the stakes, when he weighed in over the weekend, addressing Hungarian voters at the X. “We hope you will vote for my father’s friend and partner,” Donald Trump Jr. he wrote. “One leader in Europe has a direct line to the White House, I hope you will support Viktor Orban!”
Vance made the contest more personal by flying to Budapest to capture the prime minister. Standing beside him, Vance called the Hungarian leader by his first name and expressed confidence in his victory. At a press conference, the vice president predicted, “Viktor Orbán will win,” then turned to him and asked, “Viktor, right?” Western diplomats in Budapest suggested to me that Vance’s visit could have negative consequences. They saw that Trump’s war in Iran was unpopular in Europe and that welcoming any foreign leader contradicted Orbán’s argument that he was in charge of Hungary. (A spokeswoman for the vice president did not respond to a request for comment.)
Trump didn’t just send personal envoys to Budapest; he also involved the United States Department of State in the election. Before Vance’s appearance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled to the Hungarian capital in February. The visit had a diplomatic purpose—to sign a civil nuclear cooperation agreement between the two counties—but the political overtones were clear. “Your success is our success,” Rubio told Orbán.
Trump absorbed more US support at the eleventh hour. Two days before the election, he went to Truth Social magazine and suggested that the re-election of Orbán would make it possible to strengthen economic relations between the two countries. “My Administration is ready to use the full Economic Power of the United States to strengthen the Hungarian Economy, as we have done with our Major Partners in the past, if Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the Hungarian People ever need it,” he wrote. There’s a story here: People familiar with the situation told me that the Hungarian government has been seeking broad economic support of the kind the Trump administration had offered to Argentina just before the country’s last fall election. He never extended such hospitality to Hungary, and the vague, last-minute promise never materialized as planned. According to an analysis shared with me by Redpoint Advisors, an intelligence and geopolitical-risk consulting firm, Hungarian-language responses on social media to Trump’s promise revealed a deep lack of confidence in the president’s intentions. Negative mentions of Trump, which have been on the decline, spiked following the announcement, rising 47 percent in the hours after his pledge.
I thought that Orbán he would lose—or at least he thought he would—when I attended his last rally, on the eve of the election, in the heart of the capital’s Castle District. Not enough of his supporters showed up to fill the public square, and some of those who attended were disappointed that the campaign had not set up a screen so that people in the back of the crowd could see the speech. There was, however, a beautiful view of the Matthias Church, with its impressive landscape and rocky cliffs.
The prime minister seemed desperate, even defensive. He didn’t have much good news to share with his followers; the economy was in a slump, and people knew it. One bright spot, which he highlighted, is that, “the United States made it clear that they support us.” How special it is to be supported by “the most powerful country on Earth.”
I don’t know if it was the stage lights or the cigarette smoke, but the scene took on an artificial quality, like when extra frames are added to a film to soften the image, in what is sometimes called a “soap opera effect.” Bad filmmaking was also on the mind of Ferenc Németh, an international relations expert, when I reached him by phone over the weekend. Németh once worked at a foreign policy institute in Budapest but left after it came under the control of the prime minister’s office. He is now a visiting researcher at Georgetown, looking at life in America as it is in Hungary.
“What is happening here is the same thing that was happening in Hungary 15 years ago,” Németh told me. “I saw this movie once, and I gave it zero stars on Letterboxd,” he added, referring to the social media service that allows users to rate movies. “But now I’m forced to watch it again.”
Hungary is a small country that fired its prime minister in large part because of its domestic economic situation. The wider importance of the country lies in open model has shipped abroad. The model has champions at the top of the US government who seem to prefer to intervene, boldly, in foreign campaigns. Next year, elections will be held in many European countries whose population is greater than that of Hungary, including France, Italy, Poland and Spain. One measure of their significance will be if MAGA hats show up at victory parties.
