BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungary’s nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said in a sprawling interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the only path to ending the war in Ukraine would be the reelection of Donald Trump to the presidency. “Trump is the man who can save the Western world,” he said in the interview, which prompted a “thank you” from Trump on Truth Social. (Watch the video here)
The four-times-indicted former president shared a segment of the conversation.
Orbán praised Trump’s foreign policy while blasting the administration of President Joe Biden and its approach to the war in the interview, posted Wednesday on Carlson’s page on X, formerly known as Twitter.
He said that Trump’s return to office would be “the only way out” of the conflict, and that any suggestion that Kyiv could win the war against Russia was “a lie.”
“The Russians are far stronger, far more numerous than the Ukrainians,” Orbán said. “Call back Trump. … Trump is the man who can save the Western world ― and probably the human beings in the world as well.
The 30-minute video interview, filmed Aug. 21 on the opulent terrace of the prime minister’s office overlooking Budapest, was the second in two years between Carlson and the right-wing leader. While visiting Hungary in 2021, Carlson’s program on Fox News broadcast for a week from the capital, where he praised Orbán’s self-styled “illiberal democracy” — a system that eschews traditional liberal values in favor of conservative Christian rule — as a model for the United States to follow.
Then-President Donald Trump shakes hands with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban during a meeting in the Oval Office on May 13, 2019. MARK WILSON VIA GETTY IMAGES
“To use the justice system against the political opponents — in Hungary, I think it’s impossible to imagine,” he said. “That was done by the Communists. It’s a very Communist methodology to do that.”
He also bemoaned efforts by Biden’s State Department to get Hungary’s government to improve its rule-of-law and human rights record, saying that despite Hungary being a NATO member and U.S. ally, “we are worse treated than the Russians. What’s that about?”
