In his bizarre speech at the Republican National Convention last week, Donald Trump strayed from his prepared text to share some thoughts about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. “Hungary, strong country,” the Republican said. “Run by a very powerful, tough leader. He’s a tough guy. The press doesn’t like him because he’s tough.”
In reality, of course, it’s not just “the press” who has concerns with Orbán — and “tough” seemed like a ridiculous adjective given the circumstances.
As my MSNBC colleague Zeeshan Aleem has explained, the Hungarian strongman has taken a series of steps in recent years to undermine democratic institutions, “through measures like consolidation of hundreds of media outlets under the control of political allies, gaming elections and using emergencies like the coronavirus pandemic to dramatically expand executive power.”
Vox published a related report in 2018 on “how democracy died in Hungary.” It noted a vote from the European Parliament, which labelled Orbán’s government a “systemic threat to the rule of law.”
Closer to home, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said just a couple of weeks ago that Orbán is also “completely in bed with the Chinese and the Russians.”
And yet, Trump can’t seem to shake his affection for the Hungarian leader, which leads to a related question: Does the former president admire Orbán despite the apparent fact that he’s “completely in bed with the Chinese and the Russians” or because of it?
The question returned to the fore over the weekend, when Trump spoke in Michigan and reiterated his praise for foreign autocrats. As a Newsweek report noted:
Trump doubled down on his praise for leaders that the Biden administration and other U.S. officials have condemned as dictators. He spoke positively about Chinese President Xi Jinping, describing him as a “brilliant man” who controls 1.4 billion people with an “iron fist.” … Acknowledging the scrutiny his praise of Xi often draws in the press, Trump remained undeterred, even expanding on his comments. He went further by describing both Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin as “smart” and “tough.”
Trump clearly wasn’t kidding.
By popular request, here's Trump's full riff from yesterday's rally in Michigan on President Xi being "brilliant" because he "controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist" & why he thinks authoritarians more broadly are "smart" & provide the type of leadership we need in the US pic.twitter.com/s2rsNOe4Pq
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 21, 2024
“Orbán was right,” Trump continued. “We have to have somebody that can protect us.”
When the political world looks at the Republican as a candidate who’s hostile toward democracy, part of the focus is on his failed White House term, when he was routinely indifferent to legal limits and constitutional boundaries, culminating in an effort to claim illegitimate power after an election defeat.
There’s a related focus, of course, on his 2024 platform: Trump, a candidate who’s talked about “terminating” parts of the U.S. Constitution that stand in the way of his ambitions, has repeatedly raised the prospect of creating a temporary American “dictatorship.” He’s also vowing to reject election results he doesn’t like, created militarized camps, issue pardons for politically aligned criminals, and fire federal officials who are deemed insufficiently loyal to Trump’s ideological ambitions. But just as important is Trump looking to authoritarians as models worthy of emulation. Ahead of the 2016 elections, the then-GOP candidate was on record praising Saddam Hussein, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and even China’s handling of the Tiananmen Square massacre. (Seeing images of brave Chinese democrats standing in defiance in front of tanks, Trump sided who deployed the tanks.) Ahead of the 2024 elections, he’s doing it again. Trump offers gushing admiration for Beijing’s “ruthless” control over China’s population. He struggles to contain how impressed he is with his benefactor in Moscow. He celebrates Orbán “because he says, ‘This is the way it’s going to be,’ and that’s the end of it. … He’s the boss.” He heralds Kim Jong Un as an “absolute leader.” He asks his followers to believe, “It’s nice to have a strongman running the country.” This keeps happening for a reason: Trump expresses public admiration for dictators, not despite their authoritarian control, but because of it. In the process, the former president keeps raising the stakes in the 2024 race. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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