By Zoë Richards and Dan De Luce -
NBC News
Former President Donald Trump met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at Mar-a-Lago this Friday, prompting swift criticism from President Joe Biden during his election campaign.
Details of Trump's meeting with the authoritarian leader, including how long they talked and what they talked about, were not immediately known.
A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment Friday evening.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban speaks in Dallas, Texas, on August 4, 2022.LM Otero / AP file
Orbán, who has sought to turn his country into an “illiberal state” while resisting NATO expansion and additional aid to Ukraine, has faced criticism for efforts
to undermine democracy in Hungary
by weakening of the judiciary and the repression of independent media.
He has also strengthened ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Biden sharply criticized Trump's meeting with Orbán during a speech at a campaign event in Pennsylvania, in which he insisted on his message that the November elections are about freedom and democracy.
“Do you know who he's meeting at Mar-a-Lago today?
With Hungarian Orbán, who has flatly stated that he does not believe democracy works,” Biden declared.
[Trump seals his control of the party with the election of two leaders he trusts to head the Republican National Committee]
“I see a future in which we defend democracy, not diminish it,” he added.
Orbqi, who has been prime minister since 2010, posted videos to his Instagram account on Friday in which he appeared with Trump and former first lady Melania Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
A day earlier, Orbán visited the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, in an event to which the press did not have access.
In a message posted on the social network X after his visit, he wrote: “Support families, fight against illegal immigration and defend the sovereignty of our nations.
“This is the common ground for cooperation between conservative forces in Europe and the United States.”
Skeptical about sending weapons to Ukraine, vehemently anti-immigrant and hostile to what he calls woke culture and LGBTQ rights,
Orbán is a favorite of many pro-Trump Republicans
who see his government as a model of Christian nationalism.
Orbán “is exactly the type of strong leader that Trump feels an affinity for,” Karen Donfried, who was undersecretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs in the Biden Administration and is now a fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, told NBC News. , from Harvard University.
[Trump posts $91 million bail in defamation case against writer E. Jean Carroll]
He noted that it is very unusual for a head of state to travel to the United States and meet with a political opponent of the president without also meeting senior White House officials.'
Given a possible Trump victory in November, Donfried stated that Orbán wants to “strengthen a relationship that is already quite good.”
Last month, Trump posted a video on the Truth Social platform in which
Orbán praised him during his State of the Union address
, and expressed his hope that he would return to the White House.
In 2022, Trump supported Orbán months before he was re-elected for a fourth term.