Balazs Orban has accused the Democrats of trying to jail their political opponents and import migrant voters
Balazs Orban, a senior advisor to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has argued that Hillary Clinton should look in the mirror before accusing Orban of undermining democracy.
Clinton took to X on Wednesday to criticize former President Donald Trump for praising Orban during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris the previous night. Clinton labeled Orban a “democracy-killing Hungarian dictator,” referencing a 2018 article that argued his restrictive immigration policies, controversial judicial reforms, and expulsion of liberal financier George Soros’ Open Society Foundations NGO amounted to “soft fascism.”
Balazs Orban responded soon after.
“Dear Mrs. Clinton,” he wrote on X. “May I share with you what I think the death of democracy is: the desire to imprison your political opponents, the failure to organize elections transparently, and the attempt to replace dissatisfied voters with migrant voters. Which country do you think this applies to?”
“Every reasonable person thinks of this when reading your remarks: ‘first take the log out of your own eye’,” he concluded.
Viktor Orban has publicly supported Trump, endorsing his presidential campaign and meeting with him in Florida earlier this year. The Hungarian leader has praised Trump as the only American politician capable of ending the Ukraine conflict, claiming on several occasions that the conflict never would have started had Trump been in the White House in 2022.
Balazs Orban’s criticism of Clinton echoes Trump’s own disputes with the Democratic Party. The former president has characterized the multiple criminal cases against him as Democrat-led attempts to “weaponize” the justice system and prevent him from being elected this November. He has also accused Democrats and sympathetic local officials of “rigging” the 2020 election for Biden, and of allowing millions of illegal immigrants to enter the country “because they want to sign these people up to vote.”
Clinton was less critical of Orban during her tenure as secretary of state under President Barack Obama. During a visit to Budapest in 2011, Clinton stated that the US was “strongly supportive of the prime minister’s commitment to rebuild and strengthen Hungary’s economy,” and commended his efforts to “eliminate corruption that discourages foreign investors and entrepreneurs.”