Did Trump lose Viktor Orban his election?

Summary

Podcast Summary: Did Trump lose Viktor Orban his election?

Podcast: The Story (The Times)
Episode Air Date: April 14, 2026
Host(s): Manveen Rana
Guest: Oliver Moody, Central Europe Correspondent for The Times and The Sunday Times

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Overview

This episode investigates Hungary’s historic 2026 election, which saw Viktor Orban, Hungary’s long-serving far-right prime minister and a darling of the Trumpian right, decisively ousted by Peter Magyar’s upstart TISA party. The discussion dives into why Orban lost after 16 years in power, what the result means for Hungary and Europe, and whether Donald Trump's overt support for Orban actually backfired, signaling waning US MAGA influence in Europe.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Night Viktor Orban Lost (01:05–03:35)

• Celebratory scenes in Budapest followed the announcement that Peter Magyar’s TISA party had toppled Viktor Orban after 16 years.
• Trump’s administration intervened at unprecedented levels, personally endorsing Orban, dispatching Vice President J.D. Vance and other US officials to support the campaign.

2. Understanding the Election Shock (03:35–05:43)

• Significance of the Defeat:
  Oliver Moody calls it a "symbolically powerful defeat" and a result that could “make a very big difference to the way power works in the European Union.” (03:59)
• Election Mechanics:
  In Hungary, results trickle in rather than being announced all at once, building suspense throughout the night (04:32).
• Historic Turnout & Result:
  • Nearly 80% turnout, the highest since universal suffrage in Hungary.
  • Peter Magyar’s TISA: 53% of the vote and 138 out of 199 parliamentary seats—enough for a “constitutional supermajority” to potentially undo “a lot of the reforms that Orban has put in place over the last 16 years.” (05:39)

3. Who is Peter Magyar? (07:22–09:05)

• Former Fidesz party official; held various government and diplomatic roles; previously married to Orban’s justice minister, Judit Varga.

• Rose to prominence amid a scandal involving pardons for child abuse cover-ups, leading him to break from Orban and transform TISA from a “nonentity” into a major force in under two years.

  "He has effectively single-handedly built (TISA) up into a serious political force in the space of less than two years.” — Oliver Moody (08:48)

4. Why Did Magyar Win? (09:05–11:36)

• Economic Issues:
  Magyar campaigned on Hungary’s stagnant economy and declining living standards, successfully framing it as “a story about government corruption.”
• Personal Magnetism:
  Magyar’s credibility—knowing “where all the bodies were buried”—became a campaign asset.
• Foreign Policy Factors:
  Leaked audio incriminated Orban and his foreign minister as subservient to Russia, further fueling Magyar’s narrative of Orban as “foreign stooge.”

  "Orban telling Putin last year that he was at Putin's service, likening himself to the mouse in the Aesop fable that nibbles away the hunter's nets around the Russian lion." — Oliver Moody (10:37)

5. What Now for Orban and Urbanism? (11:36–13:50)

• Orban hints he’ll fight from opposition, not retire (12:06).
• “Urbanism”—Orban’s brand of illiberal democracy—has influenced right-wing thought globally, but Moody thinks it will “have legs not just in Hungary, but across Europe and beyond.” (13:40)

6. Magyar’s Agenda: Reform and Europe (13:53–16:57)

• Purges and Reforms:
  Magyar immediately called on Orban’s “puppets to resign at their own volition.” (14:21)
• Supermajority Opportunity:
  A major constitutional majority gives him a rare shot to implement sweeping reforms—if used “swiftly and decisively.” (15:29)
• Re-establishing EU Ties:
  Magyar will unblock Hungary’s veto on an EU loan to Ukraine as an opening to unlock €35 billion in frozen EU funds. (16:36)

7. Is This the End of "Orbanism"? (17:13–18:16)

• Not a Liberal Revolution:
  Magyar is “a pretty dyed in the wool conservative… but he’s a pragmatist… and a much more constructive partner than Orban,” which is what EU leaders crave after years of illiberal confrontation. (17:32, 18:05)
• Immediate EU Reaction:
  Ursula von der Leyen tweeted congratulations within 17 minutes. Emmanuel Macron framed it as a “chance to build a more sovereign Europe.” (18:38)

  "After 20 years of working with Orban, European leaders would take, you know, a stick in a sock if it was offered to them in his place." — Oliver Moody (18:05)

8. What Went Wrong for Trump and MAGA? (21:50–27:12)

• Trump’s Overt Interventions:
  • Public endorsements on Truth Social.
  • Sent Secretary of State Marco Rubio and multiple Republican Congressmen.
  • Vance appeared at Orban rallies, promising U.S. economic assistance. (25:10–26:49)
• Effect Backfired:
  • “The bear hug from Washington didn’t help him.” — Oliver Moody (27:51)
  • Polls dipped after high-profile MAGA visits.
  • The Iran war and associated energy crisis made close ties to Trump unpopular amid mounting costs for Europe. (28:08)
• Ukraine Factor:
  • Orban’s antagonism towards Ukraine was both a domestic electoral strategy and aligned with Russian interests.
  • Catchy opposition slogan: “Russians go home!” (19:10)

9. The Right Distances from Trump Across Europe (30:23–34:42)

• Contagion Spreading:
  • French National Rally openly rejects U.S. meddling.
  • Alternative for Germany now sees MAGA ties as “electorally toxic,” even calling for U.S. troop withdrawal. (32:00)
  • Italy’s Giorgia Meloni refuses U.S. access to bases, criticizes tariffs.
• Emerging Divide:
  • “The worm has turned… In the countries where the radical right has yet to make that shift, they're suffering by association with Trump.” (32:44–32:57)
  • MAGA and European right still share broad ideology, but foreign policy crises (esp. Iran and Ukraine) have pushed European right to seek independence from U.S. influence. (33:55)

10. Final Reflections

• Symbolic End of Trump-Led Populist Influence?:
  Orban’s loss signals the start of a new era. The right in Europe is rethinking its strategy, and the previously powerful draw of the "Trump template" may have reached its limit.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Orban’s Leadership:
  “He’s put so many caltrops on the road for the opposition to come anywhere close to power. Would he really cede defeat if he lost the popular vote? And the answer, to his credit, has turned out to be resoundingly yes. So far.” — Oliver Moody (06:38)
• On What EU Wants:
  “After 20 years of working with Orban, European leaders would take, you know, a stick in a sock if it was offered to them in his place.” — Oliver Moody (18:05)
• On MAGA’s Influence:
  “The bear hug from Washington didn’t help him.” — Oliver Moody (27:51)
• On the New Reality for Europe’s Far-Right:
  “Alternative for Germany...has now really got cold feet and it’s become electorally toxic [to be] associated with Trump...” (31:44)
• Global Impact:
  “Urbanism is going to have legs not just in Hungary, but across Europe and beyond. On the other side of the Atlantic too.” — Oliver Moody (13:40)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |---------------------------------|------------------| | Election night and Orban’s ousting | 01:05–03:35 | | What made the outcome possible | 03:35–05:43 | | Who is Peter Magyar? | 07:22–09:05 | | Reasons for Magyar’s win | 09:05–11:36 | | Orban’s future and Urbanism’s legacy | 11:36–13:50 | | Magyar’s reform agenda & pledge to restore EU ties | 13:53–16:57 | | Is Hungary becoming liberal? | 17:13–18:16 | | How Trump and MAGA failed Orban | 21:50–27:12 | | The European right’s shift away from MAGA | 30:23–34:42 | | Notable quotes (selected) | See above |

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Conclusion

The episode offers a detailed account of Orban’s defeat, positioning it as a watershed for Hungary and European politics. It explores how US-style populism—once seen as a winning model—became a liability for Orban, potentially marking a turning point in the international influence of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. The Hungarian result sends ripples across the European right, forcing a reconsideration of their alliances and strategies.

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For Listeners Who Missed It

You’ll come away with an in-depth understanding of a historic election, the key players and forces, and how the logic of the global right-wing populist movement may be shifting before our eyes—reshaping Europe’s future and its relationship with the US.

Transcript

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[Manveen Rana]

From the Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story. I'm Manveen Rana. On Sunday evening, thousands of jubilant Hungarian voters took to the banks of the Danube river in Budapest to welcome the beginning of a new era.

[Oliver Moody]

Tisa and Hungary won this election. Together we replaced the urbanism.

[Brookfield Advertiser]

Together we liberated Hungary. We took back our country.

[Manveen Rana]

Viktor Orban, the far right prime minister

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

who led Hungary for 16 years, had

[Manveen Rana]

been ousted in an election that drew a record turnout. The landslide was not only a blow to Orban, but also to President Trump, who'd thrown his support behind him in the elections.

[Donald Trump]

I love Hungary and I love that victor. I'll tell you, he's a fantastic man. We've had a tremendous relationship and he does a job. Remember this, he didn't allow people to storm your country and invade your country like other people have and ruin their countries, frankly.

[Manveen Rana]

He'd even parachuted in The Vice President, J.D. vance to Budapest to join the campaign.

[J.D. Vance]

You're fighting for your freedom. You're fighting for your sovereignty. And I am here because President Trump and I wish for your success. And we are fighting right here with you.

[Manveen Rana]

But Maga's attempts to help appear to have backfired. So what does Peter Magyar's victory mean for Hungary and for Europe? And is Donald Trump's influence on European politics waning? The story today Did Trump lose Orban his election?

[Oliver Moody]

Viktor Orban has been really, I think, one of the most important figures in

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

contemporary European political history, certainly since the

[Oliver Moody]

End of the Cold War.

[Manveen Rana]

That's Oliver Moody, Berlin correspondent for the Times and the Sunday Times, who also covers Central Europe.

[Oliver Moody]

So this is a symbolically powerful defeat certainly. But it also is a result that potentially makes a very big difference to the way power works in the European Union.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And Oli.

[Manveen Rana]

Even though the polls had indicated that

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Orban could lose this, it still came

[Manveen Rana]

as a real shock after so many years in power.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

So take us back to Sunday, Talk us through the election. How did it all play out?

[Oliver Moody]

Well, there's no kind of official exit

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

poll in Hungary, so unlike in, in

[Oliver Moody]

the UK where Big Ben goes bong

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

and then you find out the Conservatives or Labors want a landslide. It all kind of trickles in over the course of the evening with everyone desperately trying to infer swings from tiny little variations in the results at local constituency level. But it's a remarkable election.

[Oliver Moody]

First of all, turnout just short of 80%, probably the highest that it has ever been at a Hungarian election since

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

the country adopted the universal franchise. The TISA opposition party of Peter Magyar

[Oliver Moody]

won 53% of the vote compared to 38% for Viktor Orban, the incumbent Prime

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

Minister and his Fidesh party.

[Oliver Moody]

And that 53% translates to 138 of

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

the 199 seats in the Hungarian national

[Oliver Moody]

assembly, which is significant because that is a constitutional supermajority. So that allows Magyar as Prime Minister to start undoing a lot of the

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

reforms that Orban has put in place over the last 16 years.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

So a really significant win. Was that expected? You know, we know the polls had indicated this might not be his election, but was this foreseen?

[Oliver Moody]

It had been kind of expected. The, the thing is that in Hungary the Poles fall into two camps. There are institutions that are either funded by or in other ways subordinate to Fides. And they showed surprise, surprise that Fidesz

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

was on course for a stonking majority.

[Oliver Moody]

And then you have a kind of

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

independent or opposition aligned pollsters.

[Oliver Moody]

And one of the big open questions

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

was how trustworthy their data was.

[Oliver Moody]

Most of the kind of independent analysts believed that Marjol would win and that

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

Tiso would get a majority. They did not necessarily expect quite such a big majority.

[Oliver Moody]

And the other big uncertainty ahead of the election day was, you know, Orban has styled himself as a post liberal or illiberal democrat. What does the democrat mean in there? You know, he's put so many cull traps on the road for the opposition

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

to come anywhere close to power.

[Oliver Moody]

Would he really see defeat if he

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

lost the popular vote.

[Oliver Moody]

And the answer, to his credit, has

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

turned out to be resoundingly yes. So far.

[Viktor Orban]

The election results are painful for us, but clear we were not given the responsibility or the opportunity to govern. I congratulated the winning party.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, and this is a man who had defied the polls in the past too, so anything might have happened. We did an episode last week which was a profile of the new leader of Hungary, Peter Magyar. And if you haven't heard that episode, do go back and have a listen. But Ollie, just in a nutshell, give us the Cliff Notes version of who he is.

[Oliver Moody]

So Peter Modyar is described usually as a former Fidesz party official. And that's because he's done such a broad range of kind of general Orban

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

dogsbody stuff that it's quite difficult to summarize. He's done some diplomatic stuff in Brussels. He's worked at a state owned bank.

[Oliver Moody]

He was married until 2024 to his

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

much better known wife, Judith Waga, who was Orban's Justice Minister and one of the faces of the administration.

[Oliver Moody]

And then the wheel starts to fall off when there was a scandal about the president issuing a pardon to a guy who had covered up for paedophilia

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

at a state owned children's home.

[Oliver Moody]

And so Magyar quit Firus and he took over Tisa at a time when the party was a complete nonentity in

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

the Hungarian political landscape.

[Oliver Moody]

And he has effectively single handedly built it up into a serious political force

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

in the space of less than two years.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And you know, as you say, he came from within the Orban administration to set up this rival party. What is it that he stands for? What is it that made him the winner of this election?

[Oliver Moody]

So I think the really interesting comparison is with the last election in 2022, where the opposition parties rallied behind a single candidate, Peter Makizay, who was a kind of moderately charismatic conservative figure in quite the same way that Magyar is and still lost. And what is different here is fundamentally two things. First of all, Marjal was campaigning on the fact that Hungary has had virtually no real economic growth in the last few years. There's a great piece on this by my colleague Lili Rutai for the Times that I very strongly recommend reading. But there has been a desperate shortage of jobs. Living standards have been slowly eroding. And what Marja was able to do was to turn this into a story about government corruption and to present himself as the guy who knew where all the skeletons in the closet were, who

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

knew where all the bodies were buried.

[Oliver Moody]

The campaign also ran to a considerable

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

extent on Magyar's personal magnetism.

[Oliver Moody]

And in the final weeks, we also saw Russia and Ukraine become a significant dividing line. This was after Viktor Orban had blocked a really crucial 90 billion euro loan from the EU to Ukraine. And we got these leaked audio recordings, really remarkable conversations. One of Orban telling Putin last year that he was at Putin's service, likening himself to the mouse in the Aesop fable that nibbles away the hunter's nets

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

around the Russian lion.

[Oliver Moody]

And there was another one of the Hungarian Foreign Minister, Peter Sijato, talking to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in a way that was just, frankly, subservient.

[Unidentified Hungarian Official]

We are trying to get. To get hold of the exact document, but I send it to you, it's not a problem. Okay, Peter, if you can send me the document, I would appreciate this. I immediately. I immediately do it. I send it to my embassy in Moscow and my ambassador will forward it to your chief of staff. And then you. It's. It's at your. It's at your disposal.

[Oliver Moody]

And basically offering to procure him sensitive EU documents and acting generally like an intelligence asset. And Modjo was able to instrumentalise those very clearly, to characterise Orban and his

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

administration as essentially foreign stooges.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Now that he's succeeded with that campaign, Orban has lost. What happens to Viktor Orban, the man who had led the country for 16 years?

[Oliver Moody]

Well, he's sort of cryptically hinted overnight that he would go back to campaigning from opposition.

[Viktor Orban]

We do not yet know what tonight's election result means for the fate of our country and our nation, nor what the deeper or broader significance will be. Only time will tell. But whatever the outcome, we are going to serve the Hungarian nation and our homeland from opposition as well.

[Oliver Moody]

And it's not completely unrealistic. I mean, he's only 62. He's seven years younger than Friedrich Melts, the German Chancellor.

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

He's 17 years younger than Donald Trump. It's totally plausible that he could try and stage another comeback.

[Oliver Moody]

He'd also been Prime Minister before, in

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

1998-2002, so it wouldn't even be the first time he's come back to power.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

So he's not. His career is not necessarily over. What about urbanism? Is that likely to continue in Hungary with any kind of gusto?

[Oliver Moody]

There's a fascinating British dimension to this story in that Orban has provided a

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

home in Budapest for all kinds of

[Oliver Moody]

British conservative thinkers, most notably the late philosopher Roger Scruton. But also John o', Sullivan, who was Thatcher's speech writer, to come and essentially use Hungary in the way that socialists

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

used to use Lenin's Soviet union in

[Oliver Moody]

the 1920s, as a kind of living proof of concept that this vision of right wing Western values can be done. And it could.

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

It is a recipe for holding on to power.

[Oliver Moody]

And in that sense, urbanism is going to have legs not just in Hungary, but across Europe and beyond.

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

On the other side of the Atlantic too.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And how much of that will last under the new administration in Hungary? I mean, what are we expecting to see from Magyar? How much will he come in and want to change?

[Oliver Moody]

Well, in kind of terms of the practicalities, a lot. His really defining promise has been to essentially cleanse the Augean stables of corruption.

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

And just on the morning after the

[Oliver Moody]

election, he's called for what he described

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

as Orban's puppets to resign at their own volition and clear the way for him.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

So a huge purge across public life. How much will he be doing? Interchange the rules, the sort of, the structures that Orban has constructed over the last decade and a half, tbc, I mean, I mean, things like freedom of the press, for example. I mean, how much is likely to change?

[Oliver Moody]

I think the best way to answer

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

this is to look at what has

[Oliver Moody]

happened in Poland since Donald Tusk came back to power and cleared out a

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

right wing government at the end of

[Oliver Moody]

2023 with very similar promises that just ran into the extreme difficulty of implementing this kind of sweeping institutional reform in

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

the teeth of opposition.

[Oliver Moody]

And the Polish example, I think, does

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

augur well for Marjor's chances of getting this through.

[Oliver Moody]

That said, he does have this huge

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

gift of a supermajority.

[Oliver Moody]

So if he can use this momentum and this sense of historic opportunity cleverly and get moving swiftly and decisively, I

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

wouldn't completely write off his chances.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

One of the big pledges, as you've said, that he made to the Hungarian public was to return Hungary to its place in Europe. How is he going do that? How is he going to build bridges with the eu?

[Oliver Moody]

Well, the most obvious bargaining chip that

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

he's got is that about a month

[Oliver Moody]

ago, the European Union had, through dent

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

of enormously painful compromise diplomacy, hammered out this 90 billion euro loan to Ukraine,

[Oliver Moody]

which Kyiv desperately, desperately needs, if it's

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

not going to run out of money

[Oliver Moody]

as soon as this summer. And then Orban turned around just as

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

the campaign was getting into its hot

[Oliver Moody]

face and said, well, you know, we might have agreed for this, agreed to this.

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

Up to now.

[Oliver Moody]

But now the Ukrainians are slow walking

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

the repair of this Russian oil pipeline, so we want out, and he blocked it.

[Oliver Moody]

And Module has made it very clear that he will lift that veto as a kind of opening gambit towards normalising relations with Brussels and unlocking anything up to 35 billion euros in frozen funds for his country.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

He's the great white hope for the more liberal part of the Hungarian electorate. He's seen as this great democrat. He did come from within the Orban administration, though. That's where he originated. And Orban, when he first came to

[Manveen Rana]

power, wasn't seen as being quite such an authoritarian. Is there much hope that this is going to be a very different Hungary?

[Oliver Moody]

I mean, look, Peter Modyar is not a liberal, at least in the kind

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

of left liberal American understanding of the word.

[Oliver Moody]

The guy is a pretty dyed in the wool conservative. But what his fellow European leaders will be gambling on is the fact that,

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

more importantly than that, he's a pragmatist.

[Oliver Moody]

And he has shown himself to be ideologically flexible and constructive and to know fundamentally how to use power. And as a result, the general assumption is that he will just be a

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

much more constructive partner than Orban is.

[Oliver Moody]

And frankly, at this stage, after 20 years of working with Orban, European leaders would take, you know, a stick in a sock if.

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

If it was offered to them in his place.

[Manveen Rana]

What has the response been from. From European leaders?

[Oliver Moody]

Well, Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, waited for all of 17 minutes before tweeting out what was very obviously a kind of carefully

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

prepared tweet, including a translation into Hungarian, rejoicing in the results.

[Oliver Moody]

Friedrich Meltzer and Emmanuel Macron stressed that this was, you know, not just a moment for Europe to become more cohesive, but, in Macron's words, a chance to

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

build a more sovereign Europe, kind of hinting that he hopes for model support

[Oliver Moody]

in reforming the institutions of the EU

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

to make them more robust and independent

[Oliver Moody]

of the US and Russia. And I would like to put in a word again here for Donald Tusk, who just said Russky kaza, which means Russians go home. And this has been one of the

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

slogans of the opposition movement where people were chanting on the Budapest metro last night when the results came in.

[Manveen Rana]

But while EU leaders and Magyar's Hungarian supporters will all still be celebrating, the White House certainly won't. What does Viktor Orban's landslide defeat mean

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

for Trump's strategy in Europe? That's in just a moment,

[Unidentified Hungarian Official]

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[Manveen Rana]

Ollie, you've been telling us about the jubilant reaction across Europe and European leaders to Viktor Orban's defeat in a Hungarian election.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

One place that won't be quite so welcomed will be in the White House. Just explain why Donald Trump has become such a big Orban fan.

[Oliver Moody]

I think there are several strands to this and one of them is just that Game knows game and as a politician who has been very clever in positioning himself against a liberal establishment and Trump sees something of himself in Orban

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

in a way that he doesn't in many European leaders.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Here's a template.

[Oliver Moody]

Well, he's an ideological template as well. So Trump has and the Marco movement

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

at large have looked to Orban as a kind of intellectual forefather of this

[Oliver Moody]

vision of the west as a fundamentally conservative Christian entity that is being besieged

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

from the outside, particularly by Islam.

[Oliver Moody]

And this image Orban has often conveyed

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

of himself as a kind of captain

[Oliver Moody]

manning the walls of Christendom against the invading hordes from the east is something

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

that has been taken over by Maga ideologues with great enthusiasm.

[Oliver Moody]

And you know, Orban didn't invent these ideas, but his was the first long term stable government that gave them a home and really put them into practice

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

over a substantial duration.

[Oliver Moody]

And I think the third reason why

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

Orban has mattered for The Trump administration,

[Oliver Moody]

and this is more about people like J.D.

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

vance, the Vice president and possible successor

[Oliver Moody]

to Trump, is that Orban has been the linchpin of this American Europe strategy,

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

of what they call cultivating resistance.

[Oliver Moody]

This idea that we Europeans have become decadent and rotten and we've lost our way, and we need to be guided

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

back to the kind of original principles of Western civilization.

[J.D. Vance]

The threat that I worry the most about vis a vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.

[Oliver Moody]

And that the way to do that is for America to really intervene in our politics in a very muscular and aggressive fashion and hold up Orban as the.

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

The example of what happens if the Europeans do their homework correctly.

[Oliver Moody]

And the fact that he has gone, I think, coincides with a moment when that strategy is really falling to pieces.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And it did seem as if the Trump administration was doing all it could

[Manveen Rana]

to try and shore it up.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I mean, just remind us of how they've tried to intervene in this election.

[Oliver Moody]

I'm really struggling to think what more

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

Trump and his allies could have done.

[Oliver Moody]

So Trump himself had repeatedly and vociferously

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

endorsed Orban via Truth Social.

[Oliver Moody]

He sent Marco Rubio, his Secretary of State, over in February on a European tour that I think just consisted of

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

stops at the Munich Security Conference and then in Budapest.

[Marco Rubio]

We are entering this golden era of relations between our countries, and not simply because the alignment of our people, but because of the relationship that you have with the President of the United States. I don't think, you know, it is any mystery, and should not be a mystery to anyone here, how the President feels about you, how he interacted with you in his first term as president, and now in the second term as president, that relationship's grown even closer. And it's important to understand how important the relations between leaders are to the relations between countries.

[Oliver Moody]

He sent some Republican congressmen to speak at a Budapest edition of cpac, the kind of most prominent Republican conference. And then the week before the vote, he sent over Vance himself to go and speak at a campaign rally alongside Orban.

[J.D. Vance]

We stand for sovereignty, we stand for Hungary, and we stand shoulder to shoulder with the man who has done more to defend those values than anyone else,

[Oliver Moody]

and then promised on social media that he would use all of America's economic

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

might in inverted quote marks to try and revive the Hungarian economy.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And yet none of that Seems to have helped.

[Oliver Moody]

Yeah. This is fascinating. I mean, you could even look at the polls slightly dipping in the aftermath

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

of the Wernz visit.

[Oliver Moody]

Although it's not clear whether that was

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

just pure correlation or that was a result of Vance's arrival. Cause there were a lot of other things going on at the time.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Why do you think that is? Why did Trump support Vance's visit? Why didn't that play out better with the Hungarian electorate?

[Oliver Moody]

I think the answer is, first of all, that being a foreign stool pigeon is just generally not considered a good

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

look by European electorates at the moment.

[Oliver Moody]

And that is why the, the leaked recordings of those conversations with Putin and Lavrov played against Orban. And that, I think is also why the, the kind of bear hug from

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

Washington didn't help him.

[Oliver Moody]

But then the other, the other factor

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

I think that explains why Trump's endorsement

[Oliver Moody]

was a bit of a poison chalice for Orban is the Iran war. And the fact that precisely at this

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

moment, when Hungary's energy costs are already

[Oliver Moody]

going through the roof, the airstrikes on Iran have unleashed a fossil energy crisis, and generally looks set to drag Europe into some kind of recession, has really, really not give. Made this a favorable moment to be

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

too close to the Trump administration.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, you can see how the very

[Manveen Rana]

real costs of the Iran war would

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

make it a good time to distance yourself from Maga rather than celebrate the links. Was there also an element of Ukraine in this? You described how one of the slogans of the election was Russians go home. J.D. vance is somebody who has been associated

[Manveen Rana]

with Valensky in the White House. Would that have been an unfortunate reminder?

[Oliver Moody]

The reality is that Orban has consistently pursued policies that are antagonistic to Ukraine and hindered the EU's efforts to help Ukraine, not just because it serves Russian

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

interests, but because it serves his own domestic political interests.

[Oliver Moody]

A lot of Hungarian voters have the

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

impression that there is a fundamental tension

[Oliver Moody]

between what is good for them and

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

what is good for Ukraine, which has something to do with unresolved historical tensions over the border between the two countries,

[Oliver Moody]

but also has a lot to do with hard economic reality in that Ukraine joining the European Union would undeniably have

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

a lot of adverse consequences for Hungarians.

[Oliver Moody]

A lot of EU funding that is currently, at least theoretically, destined for Budapest would flow to Kyiv instead. And as a result of that, a lot of Hungarian voters are pretty skeptical about Ukraine. There is a constituency that is quite idealistic about Ukraine's struggle for survival, but that does not add up to a strong enough part of the electorate that support for Ukraine would, on its own

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

be an election winning issue.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Ollie, the sort of distancing you describe between parties of the right in Europe who want to succeed and how maga, if anything, probably made Viktor Orban's chances worse, is that something you're seeing across Europe? Are leaders on the right, are they getting more anxious about their associations with Donald Trump?

[Oliver Moody]

I really think you can see this. So it's been most obvious with the National Rally, the Rassemble national in France,

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

where figures like Jourdan Bardella, the number

[Oliver Moody]

two in the party, have been extremely open and explicit, even before the start of the war on Iran, about American meddling, even if it's in their favor, being profoundly unwelcome in their country. And since Trump's threats towards Greenland and since the outbreak of the Iran crisis, that trend, I think, has spread in greater or lesser degrees to a lot of other European radical right wing parties. So here where I am in Germany, the Alternative for Germany party, the AfD, which had previously been super enthusiastic about MAGA and Trump and had cultivated very

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

close links with power brokers in the

[Oliver Moody]

Republican Party, has now really got cold feet and it's become electorally toxic as an issue for them. And we've reached the point where one of their national leaders has come out

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

and called for all American troops to be withdrawn from German soil.

[Oliver Moody]

So that is really a 180 degree rhetorical turn.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Wow.

[Oliver Moody]

You also see it in Italy, where Giorgio Meloni, the Prime minister, again really stylized and perceived as one of the European leaders who had a great intuitive

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

understanding of how Trump ticked and a

[Oliver Moody]

fantastic personal rapport with him has started to back off. She's denied the US the use of a airbase on Sicily for the strikes on Iran. She's criticized the tariff policy. So I think you can really see in a lot of European countries that

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

the worm has turned on this one.

[Oliver Moody]

And in the countries where the radical right has yet to make that shift, they're suffering by association with Trump. And that is what we've seen in Hungary, and I think it's what we

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

can also see with the Law and Justice Party in Poland.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Ah. Is there a clear divide emerging between sort of Trumpian MAGA populist right and a sort of a European version that doesn't want to have anything to do with that?

[Oliver Moody]

That's a really, really good question, because I think the ideologies of MAGA and a lot of European radical right wing parties still overlap pretty strongly. The divergence has essentially been on foreign and security policy issues. With three big wedges, one being Jody Vance's famous speech at the Munich Security

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

Conference conference last year.

[Oliver Moody]

With this doctrine of active interference in Europe's domestic politics, there is a certain kind of European nationalist to whom that

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

sort of thing is anathema.

[Oliver Moody]

Then the next turning point was the Greenland crisis at the start of this year, and then the third has been the war on Iran and the ensuing energy crisis. And as a result the favorability ratings not just of Trump himself, but of the US in general have plummeted, even in places like Poland, which have been

[Oliver Moody (continuation or analyst)]

congenitally atlanticist ever since 1990.

[Manveen Rana]

That was Oliver Moody, Central Europe correspondent for the Times and the Sunday Times. The producers today were Michaela Arneson and Julia Webster. The executive producer was Tim Walklate. Sound design was by Tom Burchell and theme composition was by Malicetto.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

If you can do Leave us a review or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Manveen Rana]

Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.

[Barclays Brief Host]

Today's Markets move fast. Get the insights you need in 10 minutes with the Barclays Brief, a new podcast from Barclays Investment Bank. Through sharp dialogue and scenario based analysis, our leading experts analyze key market themes each week. So whether you're managing a portfolio or leading a business, the Barclays Brief podcast can help you make smarter decisions today. Stay sharp, stay briefed. Find Barclays Brief wherever you get your podcasts.

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