Former President Trump touted his foreign policy record during Tuesday night's presidential debate, pointing out the strong relationships he forged with leaders of adversaries and allies during his term, particularly European “strongman” Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary.
“He's a tough guy, he's a smart prime minister of Hungary,” Trump said, adding that Orban argued “the people were afraid of him” and that “we need to bring Trump back as president.”
“China was afraid. I don't want to use the word afraid, but I'm just quoting him,” Trump said. “China was afraid of him. He said Russia was afraid of him.”
“Look, Viktor Orban said, 'The man who is most respected and most feared is Donald Trump.' And there was no problem when Trump was president,” Trump added.
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Trump also claimed that Harris “respects dictators and wants to be a dictator from day one” and that she “exchanged love letters with Kim Jong Un.” He responded by pointing out that Russian President Vladimir Putin endorsed her last week and said he wanted her to win because “it's absolutely incredible what he's accomplished.”
Then-President Trump shook hands with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at the White House on May 13, 2019. (Andrew Haller/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Trump said the Russian invasion of Ukraine would never have happened during his time in office, noting that he knows Putin “very well.”
Trump then slammed Biden for damaging the XL pipeline, handing Russia a win over “the world's largest pipeline” that runs through Germany and across Europe.
Then-President Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the second summit in Hanoi, Vietnam on February 28, 2019. (Vietnam News Agency/Distribution/Getty Images)
Trump has repeatedly compared the Biden administration's foreign policy to his own record, bringing Harris in as part of that policy and pointing to the more interventionist approach the Biden administration has taken, including using force as a deterrent against Iran and meeting with Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to ensure stability in a region facing uncertainty.
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Under the Trump administration, Trump and Orban enjoyed a rosy relationship and were often photographed smiling and shaking hands together, in contrast to Orban's low-key meetings with Biden.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban attends the NATO summit in Washington, DC on July 11, 2024. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
Orban made headlines this summer for early withdrawal from a high-level NATO summit in Washington, D.C., to meet with Trump in Florida at a time when doubts were being raised about Biden's eligibility to serve as president and whether he would seek a second term. Orban met separately with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to call for a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
“We continued our peace mission at Mar-a-Lago,” Orban wrote on X's official social media account after the meeting. “President @realDonaldTrump has proven himself a man of peace during his presidency and he will do so again!”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met with former President Trump during a visit to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida on July 11, 2024. (@PM_ViktorOrban)
“It was an honor to visit with President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago today,” he wrote in another post, labelling the visit “Peace Mission 5.0.” “We discussed how to make peace happen. The good news today is that he's going to figure it out!”
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Orban, who took over as European Union president as part of a six-month rotating leadership plan, joked at the time that Hungary would “make Europe great again” and warned that “the next US president will not be the same as the current one.”
He told fellow leaders at a NATO official dinner that allies who still believe Biden will win the next presidential election are “like passengers on the Titanic playing the violin while the ship is sinking.” The Financial Times reported..
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During a visit to the United States in March, Orban met with Trump, but not Biden, to explore possible U.S. foreign policy options and spoke on a panel with the head of the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation.
