President Donald Trump on Tuesday heaped praise on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán after Vice President JD Vance called his boss from the stage of a political rally at a soccer stadium in Budapest.
“I love that Viktor, I’ll tell you, he’s a fantastic man, we’ve had a tremendous relationship,” Trump said as Vance held his phone’s speaker up to a microphone on the stage.
The efforts by Trump and Vance, who traveled to Hungary for the first time as a public official to boost Orbán’s candidacy, came as polls show the incumbent leader is set to lose his upcoming election.
Orbán, a conservative nationalist whose closeness with Russian President Vladimir Putin throughout the war in Ukraine has made him an outlier among European leaders, has long been a favorite of Trump.
“Remember this, he didn’t allow people to storm your country and invade your country, like other people have, and ruin their countries,” Trump told the Hungarian crowd via speakerphone. “He’s kept your country good. He’s kept Hungarian people in your country, and he’s done a fantastic job.”
