Biden Slams Trump After Hungarian PM Visits Mar-A-Lago: "Sucking up to Dictators All Over the World"

President Joe Biden blasted his predecessor, Donald Trump, and his affinity with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán after the European autocrat visited with the former president at his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort, per HuffPost.

“You know who he’s meeting with today down at Mar-a-Lago? Orbán of Hungary, who stated flatly he doesn’t think democracy works, he’s looking for dictatorship. That’s who he’s meeting with,” Biden slammed Trump while speaking at a rally near Philadelphia, slamming his affinity with authoritarians. “I see a future where we defend democracy, not diminish it. I see a future where we defend our freedoms, not take them away.”

Orbán shared a photo of himself and Trump outside what looked to be Trump's Mar-a-Lago home on Facebook. “Make America great again, Mr President!” Orbán wrote in English, per The Guardian.

While campaigning in Georgia to get the support of political action groups that represent Asian, Black, and Latino voters—another stage on the route to the Democratic nomination—Biden again aimed at Trump for meeting Orbán. Biden criticized Trump, pointing out he launched his campaign in Georgia along with authoritarian Orbán. “He called him a fantastic leader. Seriously,” Biden said. “He’s been sucking up to dictators all over the world.”

The far-right leader Orbán, who has attacked LGBTQ+ rights and called immigrants "poison," visited Mar-a-Lago in Florida on the same day that Biden made his comments, and the former president called him "fantastic." Trump said of the Hungarian leader, “There’s nobody better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán,” said Trump, adding, “He’s a noncontroversial figure because he says, ‘This is the way it’s going to be and that’s the end of it,’ right? He’s the boss. No, he’s a great leader.”

Trump's meeting with Orbán at Mar-a-Lago arrived the day after the Hungarian delivered a speech at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think organization serving as the driving force behind Project 2025. According to one CNN source, the meeting between Trump and Orbán was “friendly,” and according to another, the Hungarian prime minister requested to meet with the former US president.

The Hungarian prime minister did not request a meeting with Biden, and neither did the White House or the Democratic president, an official from the Biden administration told the network. Biden responded to a reporter's question earlier on Friday, asking whether he would be “concerned” that Trump was meeting with Orbán. “If I’m not, you should be,” he replied.

The president reiterated themes from his State of the Union speech in his speech to the Georgia audience on Saturday, including the need for civic values, raising taxes on billionaires, and restoring Roe v. Wade as the supreme abortion legislation. Biden said, “We see a future where we define democracy and defend it, not diminish it. We must remain the beacon of the world.”