Hungarian MEP Balázs Orbán has called on all those who want peace to support US Vice President JD Vance, arguing he is the only potential Republican presidential candidate who can be trusted to avoid a world war.
In a lengthy post on X, the Fidesz politician wrote: “JD Vance may be our only chance to avoid World War III.” He said he hoped Vance would ultimately decide to enter the 2028 race.
Balázs Orbán, who is not related to the former Hungarian prime minister, served as Viktor Orbán’s political director from 2021 and ran Fidesz’s campaign for the April 12 general election. Fidesz lost that vote to Péter Magyar’s Tisza party and Balázs Orbán took up a seat in the European Parliament in July.
He wrote that choosing a nominee was a matter for the American right. Viewed from Europe, though, the key question was who could be trusted with the world’s most powerful military as America’s challengers grew stronger.
He warned that the coming years would bring upheaval, collapsing states, hunger and poverty, and with them the temptation of military intervention abroad and direct confrontation with rival powers.
That temptation had to be resisted, he wrote, because the real task was for nations to put their own countries back in order. He also invoked the Thucydides Trap, the risk of war when a rising power challenges an established one.
Among the possible Republican contenders, he said, only Vance truly understood that connection. Others might talk about it, he wrote, though he had seen no evidence they could stick to those principles for years given the differing interests of their backers.
He dismissed the Democrats as offering no credible alternative, describing the party as still captive to the so-called deep state.
The post followed the US midterm elections of November 3, in which NBC News projected that Democrats had won control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The result raised questions over Vance’s standing as front-runner for the 2028 nomination, though he had not declared a candidacy.
On November 4, Vance blamed the war on Iran, which the US and Israel launched on February 28, for the defeat. “The reason we lost is the war,” he wrote on X.
Vance travelled to Budapest days before the Hungarian election to campaign for Viktor Orbán, accusing the European Union of interfering in the vote. Fidesz built that campaign around warnings that the Ukraine War could escalate into a wider conflict.
During the visit Vance spoke at the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), the foundation Balázs Orbán chaired until he stepped down in June in protest at the new government’s plans for Fidesz-era foundations.
