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| "Here, Donald, let me show you how it's done." |
At that time he was a new Prime Minister and head of a coalition government. Following that, however, he was shunned by major US politicians for his "extreme far center" policies. At least until this week, when President Trump finally welcomed him back to the White House.
As a common sense nationalist, who believes in preventing mass illegal immigration -- with walls if necessary -- and who favours encouraging higher birth rates among Hungarian women, Orban is routinely presented as an "extreme far-right" "tyrant" by much of the West's globalist establishment and media. But the fact is he is a populist centrist whose policies simply reflect what most Hungarians want, which is why they vote for him.
Trump therefore did a good thing when he finally welcomed Orban back to the White House after a nearly 20-year gap.
As reported by the Guardian:
Sitting alongside Orbán in the Oval Office, Trump declared it a “great honour” to host Orban, who he claimed was “highly respected all over Europe”, particularly for his anti-immigration policies.
“You’re respected all over Europe. Probably, like me, a little bit controversial, but that’s OK,” Trump said. “You’ve done a good job and you’ve kept your country safe.”
Orbán said his government and the Trump administration were aligned on some global issues.
He said: “I would like to express that we are proud to stand together with United States on fighting against illegal migration, on terrorism, and to protect and help Christian communities all around the world.”
Trump quickly picked up on his visitor’s last claim, saying: “You have been great with respect to Christian communities, you have really put a block up. And we appreciate that very much” – an apparent reference to the barrier the government has erected along Hungary’s border with Serbia and Croatia.
Actually the Guardian is getting the wrong end of the stick here because Orban's remarks about protecting Christians clearly refer to Christians overseas in places like Syria, Egypt, and Sri Lanka, where they have been repeatedly murdered by Muslim terrorists. Also, Trump's comment about "putting a block up" is unclear, and would not make sense if referring to the border barrier that Orban has constructed on Hungary's Southern border.
The Dems, of course, were pissed by Orban enjoying White House hospitality. A group of congressional Democrats, led by Eliot Engel, the head of the House foreign affairs committee, sent a letter denouncing the visit.
"Orban represents so many things that are antithetical to core American values," Engel's letter read. "He has overseen a rollback of democracy in his country, used antisemitic and xenophobic tropes in his political messaging, and cozied up to Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. It troubles us to see the president of our country, which has historically supported the protection and promotion of democracy and human rights worldwide, meeting with a man who so regularly disregards these values."
By the way, Engel is a dual-citizen Israeli-American who vehemently supports the state of Israel. He never criticises human rights abuses by the Israeli Defence Force and is a supporter of Israel's policies of ethnic cleansing. Shortly after entering Congress in 1988, he sponsored a resolution declaring Jerusalem the undivided capital of Israel.
While Mr. Engel's positions on Israel may be justifiable from an ethnocentric point of view, they place his criticisms of Viktor Orban in a hypocritical light.
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