They Gave MAGA a Safe Haven. Now They’re in Retreat.

Marc Felix Serrao is a correspondent with the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, of which POLITICO is part. BUDAPEST — Not too long ago, Balázs Orbán was one of the most powerful men in Hungary. The 40-year-old lawyer worked at the center of the former prime minister’s government and helped oversee Hungary’s courtship of the American right. MAGA celebrities like Tucker Carlson and JD Vance made appearances at events sponsored by the institute he chaired, in some cases, more than once. This morning, however, he arrives alone to meet me. His government power is gone, and the institution he once chaired is fighting for survival. The former prime minister, Viktor Orbán (no relation) was defeated in a landslide in April elections. In the months since, pressure has built not only on his own Fidesz party but on an extensive web of think tanks, talent programs and conferences that turned Budapest into a hub for the international right, especially MAGA adherents and pro-Trump intellectuals. One of those, arguably the most influential of the bunch, was the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, and Balázs Orbán was its chairman. MCC and the rest of the network really took off when President Donald Trump was out of office after his first term and Hungary offered American conservatives a political role model and a welcoming base abroad, and it remained one after Trump returned to the White House in 2025. Now the MAGA-Hungary relationship faces a test of reciprocity: Will MAGA continue to support the Hungarian partners who stood by it in the political wilderness? Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party were in power for 16 years, and the loss was not a narrow one. Péter Magyar’s Tisza party won 141 of parliament’s 199 seats, securing the two-thirds majority needed to amend the constitution. A few days ago, his new government raided Fidesz party offices as part of what appears to be a corruption investigation. It is 8 a.m. on a July morning in Budapest, already oppressively hot under a steel-blue sky. Balázs Orbán has suggested meeting at the House of Hungarian Music, a striking contemporary building near Heroes’ Square, which commemorates the founding of Hungary. It does not open until 10 a.m., so we sit outside at an empty table. “Hungary remains important for conservatives everywhere because we have developed a language and a way of governing that offers an alternative to the supranational and hyper-liberal mainstream,” he says. Fidesz is trying to evolve from being a ruling party to being an ordinary, out-of-power opposition party. For his part, Balázs Orbán is set to take up a seat in the European Parliament and says he will now focus on the struggle over the future direction of the EU. If Balázs Orbán feels diminished by the setbacks, he does not show it. “Our fight continues,” he says. “It is no longer just for Hungary, but for Europe.” Trump first received Viktor Orbán at the White House in 2019. Two years later, Tucker Carlson — then one of the most influential hosts on Fox News and now an independent media entrepreneur whose foreign-policy views have moved sharply against the Republican establishment — took his TV show to Budapest for a week. On the first evening, with the illuminated city behind him, Carlson told his audience: “We’re coming to you this evening from Budapest.” Then he explained why: “If you care about Western civilization and democracy and families, and the ferocious assault on all three of those things by the leaders of our global institutions, you should know what is happening here right now.” That same summer, Dennis Prager, the veteran American radio host and co-founder of PragerU, a media organization known for its short videos that present a MAGA-friendly version of American history, spoke at an MCC event. “If Western civilization is saved, it will be saved by Eastern Europe,” he told the audience at “MCC Feszt” in Esztergom, a historic city on the Danube in northwestern Hungary. MCC Feszt was organized annually by the