(Philadelphia) – US President Joe Biden on Friday criticized his Republican rival, Donald Trump, over his meeting with Viktor Orban, saying that the Hungarian Prime Minister seeks to establish a “dictatorship.”
Viktor Orban met with his “dear friend” Donald Trump, on Friday, in his stronghold in Florida, and the Hungarian Prime Minister is one of the rare leaders in Europe who hopes that the Republican candidate will win the presidential elections in November over Democrat Joe Biden.
“Do you know who he will meet today at Mar-a-Lago?” Joe Biden told his supporters during a campaign rally. “Hungarian Orban, who has openly declared that he does not believe that democracy works and that he seeks (to establish) a dictatorship.”
“I see a future where we defend democracy, not where we weaken it,” the 81-year-old Democrat insisted, having made this issue one of his campaign arguments against Donald Trump.
On Friday evening, Viktor Orban posted on Facebook a photo of himself alongside the former president, captioning it with Trump's slogan: “Make America Great Again.”
Gladen Babin, a collaborator with Orban, said, “The visit focused on building relations between American and Hungarian conservatives, and on the benefits that could result from the election of President Trump in November.”
For his part, Joe Biden once again denounced the statements of the 77-year-old former president, which, he said, encouraged Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade NATO countries.
Hungary is the only EU member to have maintained close relations with the Kremlin despite Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Viktor Orban refuses to send any military support to Ukraine and regularly calls for a ceasefire, convinced that Kiev cannot win.
Likewise, Donald Trump is pushing his supporters in Congress to block $60 billion in US military aid to Kiev, which President Joe Biden has championed.
“We are not playing dice, the only thing is that counting on the return of President Donald Trump is the only reasonable approach for Hungary,” Viktor Orbán declared at the beginning of the week.