All of Orbán’s former allies swiftly abandon him? Trump praises Péter Magyar: “He’s a good man!”

US President Donald Trump has said he had no concerns about outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s election defeat, and added that he liked the future Prime Minister Peter Magyar, in an interview with ABC News on Tuesday, local time.

Orbán is also a good man, Trump says

“I think the new man’s going to do a good job — he’s a good man,” Trump said. He also said that he did not know if it would have made a difference if he had gone to Hungary instead of Vice President JD Vance. “He was behind substantially,” the president said, adding that “I wasn’t that involved in this one. Viktor’s a good man, though.”

Ukraine loan

All of outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s allies have sent congratulations to the incoming Tisza government, Peter Magyar, the party’s leader, told public news channel M1 on Wednesday, adding that he has invited these leaders to attend the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of Hungary’s 1956 revolution.

Noting Orbán’s approval of the European Union’s 90 billion euro loan package for Ukraine in December, Magyar said the Hungarian prime minister had then taken an “unprecedented step in the EU” by refusing to formally endorse the already agreed proposal at a technical level during the election campaign.

He said Orbán had simplified the problems around the Druzhba pipeline to “no oil, no money”. However, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pledging to resume oil deliveries by the end of April and Orbán’s government still in a caretaker role for the next 30 days, Magyar said he expected Orbán to drop his technical veto, just as Slovakia has done.

Péter Magyar: ‘All of Orban’s allies have congratulated us’

Magyar said congratulations had also come from Orban’s allies, including Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis. “All of Viktor Orbán’s allies have congratulated us. I also spoke with the Turkish president yesterday,” Magyar added.

All these leaders have been invited to Hungary to jointly commemorate the 70th anniversary of the 1956 revolution, he said, celebrating the Hungarian people’s decision to make their country a sovereign, free, and independent nation, rather than “a Russian puppet state”.

If you missed:

• Orbán already the past for Trump only 48 hours after his devastating defeat? Here’s what the President said
• New Constitution: Orbán can never again become premier; live updates from Péter Magyar’s international press conference