DALLAS (AP) – Hungary’s autocratic Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Thursday urged American conservatives to encourage “reclaiming the institutions,” adhere to tough positions on gay rights and immigration and fight for the upcoming US presidential election as a key moment for his beliefs.
The rapturous applause and standing ovation at the Conservative Political Action Conference for the far-right prime minister, who has been criticized for undermining his own country’s democratic institutions, showed the growing embrace between Orban and Republicans in USA
He mocked the media in this country and in Europe. And in a speech he titled “How We Fight,” Orban told the crowd gathered in a Dallas convention ballroom to focus now on the 2024 election, saying they had “two years to prepare.” , although he did not endorse any candidate or party.
“Victory will never be found by taking the path of least resistance,” he said during a keynote session at the three-day CPAC event. “We must recover the institutions of Washington and Brussels. We must find friends and allies in each other.”
Referring to liberals, he said, “They hate and slander me and my country, just as they hate and slander you for the America you represent.”
His entrance received a bigger welcome than Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, received moments earlier on the same stage. From there, the applause continued as Orban wove attacks on LGBTQ rights, boasted about reducing abortions in Hungary and celebrated hardline immigration measures at home.
Other speakers will include former President Donald Trump, who met with Orban earlier this week and will address the meeting on Saturday, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Republican candidates who just won Tuesday’s primaries republicans
Orban’s visit to the United States came amid backlash at home and in Europe over anti-immigrant remarks in which he criticized Europe becoming a “mixed-race” society. One of his closest aides compared his comments to Nazi rhetoric and resigned in protest. Orban told the crowd in Texas that the media would portray him as a racist strongman and dismissed those who would call his government racist as “idiots”.
His invitation to CPAC reflects conservatives’ growing embrace of the Hungarian leader, whose country has a one-party government. Orban is also considered Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest European Union ally.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Thursday that President Joe Biden had no plans to speak with Orban while he was in the United States. Asked if the administration had any concerns about CPAC inviting such a leader to speak at the high-profile conference, Kirby demurred. .
“It comes with a private invitation,” Kirby said. “Mr. Orban and the CPAC, can talk about his visit”.
Trump praised Orban, who has been prime minister for 12 years, after their meeting this week in Florida.
“Few people know as much about what’s happening in the world today,” the former president said in a statement after the meeting.
For some attendees at the three-day conference, Orban is a model leader who makes an impression beyond Hungary with his policies and personality.
He was praised for his border security measures and for offering financial subsidies to Hungarian women, which Orban has described as an effort to counter Hungary’s shrinking population. Lilla Vessey, who moved to Dallas from Hungary with her husband, Ede, in the 1980s, said what she hears in Hungary is that Orban is not anti-democratic.
“I don’t know how it happened that the Conservatives discovered it,” said Ede Vessey, 73. “It supports traditional values. It supports the family.”
Scott Huber, who met with Orban along with other CPAC attendees at a private event hours before the speech, said the prime minister expressed hope that the United States would “moderate some of the far-left influences ” in the mid-term elections in November. The 67-year-old Pennsylvanian said he would not disagree with descriptions of Orban as autocratic and that he has altered democratic norms, but said he thought that would change over time.
As for why Orban is winning over so many conservatives, Huber pointed to Orban’s attacks on George Soros, the American-Hungarian billionaire and philanthropist who is a staunch critic of Hungary’s government and a supporter of causes liberals
“That’s why I was so interested in seeing him,” Huber said.
Through his communications office, Orban declined an interview request from The Associated Press ahead of his speech in Dallas.
The AP and other international news organizations were also barred from covering a CPAC conference held in Budapest in May, the group’s first conference in Europe. During that meeting, Orban called Hungary “the bastion of conservative Christian values in Europe” and urged US conservatives to defeat “the dominance of progressive liberals in public life.”
He has defined himself as a defender of what he calls “illiberal democracy”.
Orban served as Hungary’s prime minister from 1998 to 2002, but it is his record since returning to office in 2010 that has sparked controversy and raised concerns that Hungary is slipping into authoritarian rule. He has presented himself as a defender of European Christendom against Muslim migrants, progressives and the “LGBTQ lobby”.
Last year, his right-wing Fidesz party banned the depiction of homosexuality or sex reassignment in media aimed at under-18s. Information about homosexuality was also prohibited in school sex education programs or in films and advertisements accessible to minors.
Some of the biggest cheers during Orban’s speech came when he described Hungary’s family framework.
“Bottom line, mom is a woman, dad is a man, and leave our kids alone, period,” he said.
Orban has consolidated power over the country’s judiciary and media, and his party has drawn legislative districts in a way that makes it very difficult for opposition parties to win seats, somewhat similar to the efforts of partisan maneuvering for state legislative and congressional seats in the US. The process currently favors Republicans because they have more control over the state legislatures that create these limits.
Orban’s moves have led international political observers to label him as the face of a new wave of authoritarianism. The European Union has launched numerous legal proceedings against Hungary for breaking EU rules and is withholding billions in recovery funds and credits for violations of rule of law rules and insufficient anti-corruption safeguards.
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Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.