Hungarian Prime Minister Orban Receives Standing Ovation at US Conservative Conference

US  media is report­ing that Hun­gar­i­an Prime Min­is­ter and Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Vik­tor Orbán deliv­ered his await­ed speech last Thurs­day at the Con­ser­v­a­tive Polit­i­cal Action Con­fer­ence in Dal­las, Texas. A POLITICO report char­ac­ter­ized the speech as “an invi­ta­tion for the Amer­i­can right”:

August 4, 2022— Vik­tor Orbán took the stage at the Con­ser­v­a­tive Polit­i­cal Action Con­fer­ence in Texas with an invi­ta­tion for the Amer­i­can right. “I’m here to tell you that we should unite our forces,” said Orbán, the Hun­gar­i­an prime min­is­ter who has found him­self increas­ing­ly alien­at­ed from demo­c­ra­t­ic coun­tries in Europe, as he has opposed immi­gra­tion and lib­er­al views on fam­i­ly and gen­der — and increas­ing­ly close with the MAGA-aligned Amer­i­can right. Touch­ing on his sig­na­ture issues, the far-right leader railed against immi­gra­tion, glob­al­ism and gen­der flu­id­i­ty as he declared that the “West is at war with itself,” describ­ing an ide­o­log­i­cal “bat­tle for West­ern civ­i­liza­tion” he said would be fought in Wash­ing­ton and Brus­sels. “The glob­al­ists can all go to hell,” Orbán said to enthu­si­as­tic applause. “I have come to Texas.” One of the very first guests to speak dur­ing the three-day con­fer­ence, Orbán’s speech at CPAC comes amid swift inter­na­tion­al blow­back for the prime min­is­ter over his July 23 com­ments that Hun­gary must not become a “mixed-race” coun­try, point­ing to oth­er nations in Europe with large immi­grant pop­u­la­tions. One of Orbán’s top aides resigned over his com­ments, say­ing his speech sound­ed as if it were giv­en by a “Nazi.”

Read the rest here.

Watch the full speech here.

The Con­ser­v­a­tive Polit­i­cal Action Con­fer­ence (CPAC) is an annu­al polit­i­cal con­fer­ence attend­ed by con­ser­v­a­tive activists and elect­ed offi­cials across the Unit­ed States and beyond. Oth­er US media report­ed that the CPAC crowd cheered and gave the prime min­is­ter a stand­ing ova­tion at the event. Short­ly before the CPAC meet­ing, an Orban polit­i­cal aide pub­lished a sim­u­lat­ed tweet from Don­ald Trump lav­ish­ing praise on Orban:

Great spend­ing time with my friend Vik­tor Orbán, the Prime Min­is­ter of Hun­gary. We dis­cussed many inter­est­ing top­ics– few peo­ple know as much about what is going on in the world today. We were also cel­e­brat­ing his great elec­toral vic­to­ry in April.

Short­ly after the elec­tion, the GIOR report­ed that Fox News star Tuck­er Carl­son had con­tin­ued his long­stand­ing sup­port and defense of Hun­gary and Vik­tor Orban. In a recent broad­cast, Carl­son attacked crit­ics of Orban’s reelec­tion by mak­ing a fatu­ous com­par­i­son with the recent con­tro­ver­sy in the US over mail-in elec­tion bal­lots. In anoth­er broad­cast, Carl­son claimed Hun­gary was being crit­i­cized because the Hun­gar­i­an gov­ern­ment “con­scious­ly tries to serve the needs of its own peo­ple. The GIOR report also detailed how US nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive Rod Dreher tried to link Orban’s vic­to­ry to the increas­ing accu­sa­tion in US rightwing cir­cles that crit­ics of anti-gay and anti-trans leg­is­la­tion are some­how sex­u­al­ly indoc­tri­nat­ing school children.

Orban has been becom­ing increas­ing­ly author­i­tar­i­an over the years and was described by a US media report as “the Russ­ian Pres­i­den­t’s clos­est friend inside the EU and NATO.” Time Mag­a­zine described how under Orban’s lead­er­ship, the Hun­gar­i­an gov­ern­ment has become strong­ly pro-Russian:

Despite a pop­u­la­tion that is adamant­ly pro-EU, Hungary’s gov­ern­ment under Orban has strong­ly leaned toward the Krem­lin. Where­as Orban’s inter­na­tion­al mes­sag­ing empha­sized Hungary’s neu­tral­i­ty, domes­tic state media has been par­rot­ing Putin’s jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the inva­sion. Orban has refused to denounce Putin by name, but instead only oppos­es “war” in Ukraine. He has also refused to allow NATO weapons to be trans­port­ed through his ter­ri­to­ry to Ukraine. Although Orban didn’t oppose E.U. sanc­tions on Russ­ian klep­to­crats or insti­tu­tions, he has vowed to block any tar­get­ing of Russ­ian oil or gas.

Orban, as well as Carl­son and Dreher, have fig­ured promi­nent­ly in a new and devel­op­ing alliance between US con­ser­v­a­tives and Euro­pean nation­al­ists, a poten­tial means for Rus­sia to exert covert influ­ence in Europe and the US, using Hun­gary as a plat­form. GIOR recent­ly pub­lished a report on this alliance titled “The Nation­al Con­ser­vatism Alliance: An Oppor­tu­ni­ty for Russ­ian Influ­ence?” The GIOR report details the role that Vik­tor Orban and the Hun­gar­i­an gov­ern­ment have been play­ing in the Nation­al Con­ser­vatism Alliance.

The full report can be down­loaded here.