Insisting that he was widely respected, Trump invoked the support of Viktor Orbán, the far-right prime minister of Hungary, who has dissented from Nato’s support for Ukraine in its war with Russia and shares much of the former president’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.
“Viktor Orbán is known for destroying Hungarian democracy using techniques Trump has tried to copy,” said David Driesen, a constitutional law professor at Syracuse University, who has written on the capture of democratic institutions by autocratic leaders. “It was surreal to hear Trump cite Orbán’s praise as validation of his own leadership.”