US vice-president JD Vance bad-mouthed the EU on a pre-election visit to Hungary, overshadowed by president Donald Trump’s wild rhetoric on Iran.

For his part, the election front-runner, liberal Péter Magyar, complained that Vance’s arrival in Budapest on Tuesday (7 April) was outside interference in the vote on Sunday.

“No foreign country may interfere in Hungarian elections. This is our country,” said Magyar.

Two leading US commentators also saw it the same way.

“There is nothing American about having to fly to a foreign country to try to influence its election, so that your own career can continue as planned,” said US historian Timothy Snyder.

Historian Anne Applebaum said: “While interfering in Hungary’s election, Vance baselessly accuses other people of interfering in Hungary’s election”.

Vance arrived with his wife Usha to a red-carpet welcome, with a huge motorcade, and spent the day being filmed and photographed around town with populist prime minister Viktor Orbán.

“The president [Trump] loves you [Orbán] … good luck [on Sunday],” Vance said in one clip posted on X by Orbán.

“I’m here to help him [Orbán] in this election cycle … Viktor Orbán is going to win this election,” he also said in a press conference.

He described Orbán as a defender of “Christian civilisation and Christian values … the rule of law and minority rights”, as well as a “true statesman” seeking to end the Ukraine war, and as a top US economic partner.

His civilisational remarks were in line with a US national security strategy from last December to promote anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTI leaders in Europe.

His rule-of-law and minorities comments stood against Orbán’s storied democratic backsliding and demonisation of minorities.

And it was China, the US’ arch-rival, which was Orbán’s top foreign investor in 2025.

‘At your service’

Meanwhile, Orbán’s Russia statesmanship was punctured by a Bloomberg report on Tuesday, showing Orbán’s subservience to Russian president Vladimir Putin — the same day Russia killed a mother and her two-year-old child in Odesa as well as at least four civilians on a bus in Nikopol.

“In any matter where I can be of assistance, I am at your service,” Orbán told Putin in a phone call last October, according to Bloomberg’s leaked transcript.

Applebaum also said: “Orbán’s Hungary is one of the poorest countries, and certainly the most corrupt and least free country, in the EU”.

Vance attacked “Brussels bureaucrats” – a phrase he used four times – as having “tried to destroy the economy of Hungary” by stopping him from buying Russian oil and gas and for treating Hungarians like “children”, in having tried to curb hate-speech and disinformation on X.

“One of the worst examples of foreign interference in elections I’ve seen … all because they [EU officials] hate this guy Orbán,” said Vance.

Ukrainian intelligence had also tried to interfere, he alleged.

“It’s simply what they do,” Vance said, but stopped short of backing Orbán’s story that Ukraine had tried to blow up a gas pipeline to Hungary in Serbia, after this was discredited by Serbian intelligence on Monday.

Silent on Iran

The press briefing saw two softball questions to Orbán by pro-government media.

But the Washington Post and Reuters asked Vance about the Iran war, in which Trump had said “a whole civilisation will die tonight” in his latest ultimatum to Tehran.

Vance said nothing of substance on Iran, but Trump’s rhetoric might well have damaged the value of his Budapest trip by turning off voters.

Democratic politicians have been calling for Trump to be removed from office on mental-health grounds since Sunday, when he posted an expletive-filled rant on Iran.

And even Republican senators were becoming increasingly vocal in their concerns.

“These are not the words of a sane person. Calling for the elimination of a civilisation is a war crime,” said Republican congressman Jason Crow.

Orbán and Vance ended the day at a public rally, in which Vance repeated the same talking points, and which Trump joined by phone.

EU leaders “sneer at the normal, God-fearing people of Hungary”, Vance claimed.

“I love that Viktor, he’s a fantastic man,” said Trump.

“You are on with about 5,000 Hungarian patriots, and I think they love you even more than they love Viktor Orbán,” said Vance.