Orbán encourages Trump to ‘fight for his own truth’ at CPAC event in Hungary

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán encouraged former President Trump to “fight for his own truth” during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Hungary. 

The European Union’s longest-serving leader defended Trump during the third annual CPAC Hungary in Budapest. Dutch party leader Geert Wilders and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) were also in attendance.

“If necessary, they will use government agencies against us — as my American friends say, ‘weaponizing state institutions,’” Orbán said Thursday at the event, according to The Associated Press. “This happens to us Hungarians constantly in Brussels. This is what is happening to President Trump in America, and we encourage him to fight for his own truth not only in the elections, but also in the courts.” 

The Hungarian prime minister appeared to allude broadly to the criminal indictments Trump faces in the U.S. The trial over the first indictment, for a hush money case in New York, is underway.

The former president faces 34 felony counts in the New York case of falsifying business records in connection to reimbursing then-fixer Michael Cohen for payments made to porn actor Stormy Daniels to stay quiet about an alleged affair with Trump.

Orbán, who has been embraced by the American right in recent years, said the upcoming U.S. elections and those slated for June in the European Union are an opportunity to “triumph” and “replace” the “progressive liberals” on both fronts. 

“These elections coincide with major shifts in world political and geopolitical trends,” he said, according to the AP. “The order of the world is changing, and we must usher our cause to triumph in the midst of these changes. Progressive liberals feel the danger. Replacing this era means replacing them.”

Trump has met with a bevy of foreign leaders as he campaigns for a second term in the White House. The former president hosted Orbán at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, in early March. Orbán said during the visit that he and Trump take the same stance on the war in Ukraine. 

Apart from speaking at a two-day political conference this week, Orbán was previously a keynote speaker at CPAC hosted in the U.S.