Published: 12:45 AM, 18 February 2026
An implausible attempt to indoctrinate western societies with far-right ideologies
The growing willingness of the White House - amid new Trump claims that the US election system is plagued by fraud ahead of the midterm elections - to insert itself into the domestic politics of foreign countries. Getty Images
US President Donald Trump often seems frustrated that many Americans don't appreciate that they are living in his "golden age."
But that's not stopping him from trying to export his ideology by intervening in politics and elections abroad to promote or preserve right-wing populist leaders, reports CNN. This explains US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's mission this week to bolster Hungary's pro-Russia Prime Minister Viktor Orbán ahead of April's general elections.
Orbán, a populist strongman, was MAGA (Make America Great Again) before MAGA existed. His politicizing of the justice system, hardline immigration policies, empowerment of sympathetic oligarchs and attacks on the press are a blueprint for Trump's second term. But he's facing his biggest political challenge in 15 years of uninterrupted power.
Rubio's visit to Orbán - who often seeks to undermine EU policy on Ukraine, regulating US tech giants and energy policy - is a rebuke to those Europeans who tried to convince themselves that his respectful tone at the Munich Security Conference at the weekend represented a taming of transatlantic tensions.
It is also the latest step in a personal evolution important to Rubio's job security in the Trump administration and future political prospects in a changed GOP. In 2019, the then-Florida senator joined bipartisan colleagues in bemoaning "significantly eroded" democracy under Orbán.
But on Monday, Rubio told Orbán, "We are entering this golden era of relations between our countries - and not simply because of the alignment of our peoples, but because of the relationship that you have with the president of the United States."
But more than Rubio's personal ambition is at stake. The Trump administration's backing of Orbán in Hungary's election is the latest sign of an institutionalized shift to the right in US foreign policy., and a rejection of traditional stances. Some Europeans now regard their longtime protector as a growing political threat.
