Hungary’s Orbán predicts Trump win: ‘A change would be good for the world’

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said over the weekend there is a “very, very high chance” President Biden will not be reelected in November and praised former President Trump as a “man of peace.”

“I’m sure that a change would be good for the world,” Orbán said in an interview Sunday with Axel Springer media outlets, including Politico.

He applauded Trump as a “self-made man” with a “different approach to everything,” stating his return to office “will be good for the world politics.”

“He [Trump] is the man of peace. Under his four-year term he did not initiate a single war, and he did a lot in order to create peace in old conflicts in very complicated areas of the world,” Orbán said, per Politico.

Orbán, who has been widely criticized for his friendly relations with Russia amid its war with Ukraine, called out the Biden’s administration’s approach toward the Russia-Ukraine war as Washington continues to mount financial and military support for Kyiv.

Trump, who has repeatedly claimed that he could end Russia’s war in Ukraine in just 24 hours if he were the president, was reportedly shown a plan in recent months that would make U.S. assistance conditional on Ukraine entering peace talks with Russia, Reuters reported last month. Moscow would also be warned any refusal to negotiate would prompt increased U.S. support for Ukraine.

When asked about this plan, Orbán said, “I think new leadership will provide new chances.”

Orbán came under criticism from Washington and other European allies last week for his trip to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“We’re concerned that Prime Minister Orbán would choose to take this trip to Moscow, which will neither advance the cause of peace, nor will it promote Ukrainian sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence,” a senior Biden administration official said on a call with reporters ahead of this week’s NATO summit in Washington.

“Look, at the end of the day, we believe that Russia could end this war today by ceasing its aggression against Ukraine,” the official added.

Prior to his trip to Moscow, Orbán met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, saying he was pitching a “a deadline-bound cease-fire, that could provide an opportunity to speed up peace negotiations.”

Zelensky said Orbán’s visit was “a clear signal to all of us of the importance of unity in Europe and taking collective steps.”

Orbán said Sunday that peace talks would be possible in the Russia-Ukraine conflict if the U.S., China, Europe and the nations at war would sit together at the negotiating table.

He largely blamed Washington for why these talks have not happened, Politico reported.

“China has a peace plan. America runs a war policy,” he said. “And Europe, instead of having our autonomous strategic approach and position, we are simply copying the American position.”

“The job for me now is not to say … who is good, who is bad. The situation is obvious,” he said, explicitly stating that Russia invaded Ukraine. “But I would not like to be indulged [in] a kind of measurement, who is responsible for what, and so on. My duty is to concentrate on how we can create peace.”

The Hill reached out to the White House and Biden and Trump’s reelection campaigns for comment.

The NATO summit is set to take place Tuesday to Thursday. Allies are expected to outline new financial and military commitments for Ukraine in its war against Russia since Putin launched a full-scale invasion against the country in February 2022.

Other summit deliverables include the alliance announcing new NATO commitments to Ukraine to deepen ties and to lay the groundwork for Kyiv to eventually join the alliance.