Vice President JD Vance told Fox News he has no regrets about flying to Budapest to campaign for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, even though Orbán was swept from power five days later in the most decisive election result Hungary has seen in a generation.
Péter Magyar's Tisza party claimed 136 of 199 parliamentary seats in preliminary results, a supermajority that hands the incoming government the power to rewrite Hungary's constitution and dismantle the legal architecture Orbán spent 16 years building. Orbán, who conceded what he called a "painful" result, now governs only in a caretaker role until Magyar is sworn in.
The outcome left Vance defending a two-day trip that critics on the left immediately seized as a miscalculation. But the vice president framed the visit as a matter of loyalty, not polling.
Speaking on Fox News, Vance called Orbán a "great guy" who had done a "very good job" and described him as "one of the few European leaders we've seen who's been willing to stand up to the bureaucracy in Brussels." He expressed confidence that the United States would "work very well" with whatever government Hungary produces next.
Just The News reported a fuller version of Vance's rationale:
"We didn't go because we expected Viktor Orbán to cruise to an election victory. We went because it was the right thing to do to stand behind a person who had stood by us for a very long time."
That framing matters. Vance did not claim he was blindsided. He acknowledged the race was difficult and cast the trip as a statement of principle, the kind of thing allies do for one another, win or lose. Whether that explanation satisfies Washington's scorekeepers is another question.
Before the election, Vance had been far more bullish. During his Budapest visit, the Washington Times reported that Vance told supporters, "Viktor Orban is going to win the next election in Hungary," and added, "I want to help as much as I possibly can the prime minister as he faces this election season." He framed Orbán as a defender of Western civilization, sovereignty, strict migration policy, and traditional values.
That confident prediction did not age well. With 93 percent of votes counted, Magyar's Tisza party held more than 53 percent support compared to 37 percent for Orbán's Fidesz.
The incoming Hungarian leader moved quickly to consolidate his position. Magyar urged President Tamás Sulyok to convene parliament as soon as possible and then resign, suggesting he could become prime minister by May 5, or even sooner. Sulyok, who invited the three party leaders holding parliamentary seats to meet on Wednesday, has until May 12 to formally recommend a new prime minister. His office told Hungarian media he would not resign.
Magyar also fired an early shot at the state media apparatus Orbán had used for years to dominate Hungary's information landscape. He said he would appear on public radio and television on Wednesday, noting he had never been allowed on public TV while leading the opposition. When state broadcasters invited him on Monday morning, hours after the results became clear, he refused. Instead, he pledged to suspend all news coverage on public TV and radio until unbiased coverage could be guaranteed.
That pledge signals the depth of the institutional overhaul Magyar has in mind. His government, he said, will create an Anti-Corruption Office and a National Asset Recovery and Protection Office, and will begin the process of joining the EU's European Public Prosecutor's Office. Magyar described Hungary as "the poorest and most corrupt member of the European Union," a country "robbed bare" by corruption on an "industrial scale."
Winning two-thirds of the 199-seat parliament gives Tisza the constitutional muscle to follow through. Orbán-era constitutional changes, the very ones Western critics spent years denouncing, can now be reversed without opposition cooperation.
Brussels wasted no time either. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she spoke with Magyar on Tuesday and declared there was "swift work to be done to... restore the rule of law [and] realign with our shared European values." Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who met Magyar earlier this year in Munich, stressed that aid to Kyiv should be released "very quickly" now that Hungary's government is changing hands.
The financial stakes are significant. An estimated €17 billion ($14.8 billion) in EU funds for Hungary has been suspended over concerns about rule of law and democratic backsliding under Orbán. Another €16 billion in defense loans is waiting to be approved. And in the weeks before the election, Orbán imposed a veto on €90 billion in aid to Ukraine, a move EU leaders are now pressing the new government to overturn. Hungary was one of three countries that opted out of a loan to Ukraine last December.
For the EU establishment, Magyar's victory is a chance to bring a wayward member state back into the fold. For Orbán's allies abroad, it is a reminder that even leaders who tilt the playing field can still lose when voters grow tired enough. AP News noted that Harvard politics professor Steven Levitsky framed the result bluntly: "Oppositions can win despite a tilted playing field."
Magyar himself pushed back on the vice president's visit, warning last week that "no foreign country may interfere in Hungarian elections." But by Monday, his tone shifted. He called the United States a "strong and important" NATO partner and said he would talk to President Donald Trump or anyone else if called. He did, however, describe Orbán as a "puppet", a label aimed more at the outgoing prime minister than at Washington.
Democrats predictably pounced. Representative Ro Khanna posted online: "Your ally Orban conceded. In 2028, will you @JDVance follow suit if you lose?", a taunt designed to link the Hungarian result to domestic anxieties about democratic norms.
The left's framing treats the Budapest trip as a diplomatic embarrassment. But Vance's own explanation, that the administration stood by an ally who had stood by them, is a coherent position, even if the optics are unflattering. Allied leaders campaign for each other. Sometimes their side loses. The question is whether the relationship with Budapest survives the transition, and on that front, Magyar's willingness to engage with Washington suggests the door is not closed.
What is worth scrutinizing is the prediction Vance made before the vote. Telling a crowd that Orbán "is going to win" was not a statement of loyalty, it was a statement of confidence. And it was wrong. In politics, bold predictions carry a price when they miss, and Vance will wear this one for a while.
Orbán governed Hungary for 16 years. He built a media ecosystem that amplified his message, restructured institutions to favor his party, and cultivated powerful allies from Moscow to Mar-a-Lago. None of it was enough when inflation, war fatigue, and a credible challenger converged at the same moment. BBC News reported that Orbán's government had become "infamous for a system of cronyism", a reputation that Magyar weaponized effectively on the campaign trail.
For American conservatives who admired Orbán's willingness to challenge progressive orthodoxy on immigration, gender ideology, and EU overreach, the result is a cautionary data point. The policies may poll well in theory. But voters also care about corruption, economic pain, and whether the people in charge are enriching themselves. Orbán's defeat did not happen because he was too conservative. It happened because Hungarians concluded he had been in power too long and taken too much.
Magyar now inherits a country with billions in frozen EU funds, a constitutional supermajority, and the expectation of sweeping reform. Whether he delivers or becomes another disappointment is Hungary's problem to solve.
Vance's problem is simpler: he bet publicly on a friend, and the friend lost. That is not a scandal. But the next time the vice president flies overseas to rally a crowd, he might want to check the polls first.