(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) President Joe Biden declined to invite Hungarian officials to his “Summit on Democracy” for the second year in a row, due to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s alleged “totalitarian” rule.
The event is being co-hosted by Costa Rica, the Netherlands—which has had its fair share of totalitarian rulings lately—South Korea and Zambia.
According to the Daily Wire, Biden called out Orban on the campaign trail, singling out the nation as one of several “ris[ing] totalitarian regimes in the world,” due to the country’s laws against gay adoption and refusal to legalize gay marriage.
"You see what's happening in everything from Belarus to Poland to Hungary and the rise of totalitarian regimes in the world and this president embraces all the thugs in the world," said @JoeBiden at his town hall event last night pic.twitter.com/Ix8R8bhQNc
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) October 16, 2020
More recently, Orban administration officials announced their intent to defend a 2021 law banning the use of school materials that push gender ideology in the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Orban himself spoke at CPAC, reenforcing his support for traditional families and distaste for gender ideologues.
“We must take back the institutions in Washington and in Brussels,” he said in his speech. “To sum up, the mother is a woman. The father is a man, and leave our kids alone, full stop, end of discussion.”
Hungarian officials hit back at the Biden administration as well, calling out American legislators for their open vitriol against another nation and lack of leadership.
“The woke sect that has taken over the Democratic Party does not like the pro-Western stance of our government,” said Zoltan Koskovics of the Budapest Center for Fundamental Rights. “We need a strong America in a dangerous international situation. But not a woke America.”
The Hungary for All Movement, Orban’s biggest political opponent, received millions in funding from the United States in the 2022 Hungarian election, confirming American interference via a nonprofit called Action for Democracy. Action for Democracy also targeted Italian, Brazilian and Polish governments in attempts to covertly overturn conservative movements.
A total of 120 countries received invitations to the Summit, including Bosnia, Gambia, Honduras, Ivory Coast, Lichtenstein, Marutania, Mozambique and Tanzania.
Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will speak at a pre-summit event to discuss his vision for a “just and lasting peace in Ukraine.”
