“I would like to point out — since Vance is complaining about the EU’s alleged interference in the election — that the U.S. vice president was in Hungary just a few days before the election. This fact alone speaks for itself as to who is interfering,” he added.
Standing next to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Budapest on Tuesday, Vance argued that “what has happened in this country, what has happened in the midst of this election campaign, is one of the worst examples of foreign election interference that I’ve ever seen or even read about.”
Vance also slammed “the bureaucrats in Brussels, who have done everything that they can to hold down the people of Hungary, because they don’t like the leader, who has actually stood up for the people of Hungary.”
After delivering a full-throated endorsement of Orbán, the vice president faced immediate criticism from Hungary’s opposition for trying to put his thumb on the scale in another country’s election. The White House views Orbán and his so-called illiberal democracy as a key ideological ally in Europe.
U.S. President Donald Trump has endorsed Orbán multiple times during the campaign, marking an unusual show of support from the U.S. for a European leader who is battling for reelection.
Opposition leader Péter Magyar criticized Vance’s visit on X. “No foreign country may interfere in Hungarian elections,” he wrote. “This is our country. Hungarian history is not written in Washington, Moscow, or Brussels — it is written in Hungary’s streets and squares.”