Viktor Orban and Donald Trump — © EPA-EFE
US President Joe Biden criticized his Republican rival Donald Trump on Friday for his upcoming meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. According to Biden, Orban wants to establish a dictatorship.
Orban will meet his “good friend” Donald Trump on Friday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. The Hungarian prime minister is one of the few leaders in Europe to wish the Republican presidential candidate victory in the presidential elections in November.
“Do you know who he’s meeting today at Mar-a-Lago?” Joe Biden told his supporters at a campaign rally. “Orban from Hungary, who has said outright that he does not think democracy works and is looking for a dictatorship. But I see a future in which we defend democracy, not weaken it,” emphasized the president, who has made that theme one of his campaign arguments against Trump.
Putin
In the same speech, Biden also again denounced Trump’s comments encouraging Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade NATO countries. Hungary is the only member of the European Union that continued to maintain close ties with the Kremlin, despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Orban refuses to send military aid to Ukraine and regularly calls for a ceasefire, believing that Ukraine cannot win. Similarly, Trump is pressuring his supporters in Congress to block a $60 billion U.S. military aid package for that country championed by President Joe Biden.