The landslide defeat of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán carries lessons across the ocean for Donald Trump and both MAGA and non-MAGA Republicans. Trump pulled out all the stops for his ally, sending Vice President J.D. Vance to Hungary for a three-day endorsement tour and promising the day before the vote to “use the full Economic Might of the United States to strengthen Hungary’s Economy” if Orbán won.
Well, he didn’t, and the Democrats are in full gloat mode after Orbán’s Fidesz party fell from 135 seats in parliament down to just 55. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer quickly made a comparison to the US, writing on X: “Pay attention, Donald Trump. Wannabe dictators wear out their welcome. November 2026 can’t come soon enough.”
If Republicans who rail against ‘waste, fraud and abuse’ are shown to have been complicit in its growth, they could see many of their core voters stay home
Of course, the US economy is in far better shape than Hungary, where Orbán’s anti-free market policies have resulted in four years of stagnation.
A poll this month by the European Council on Foreign Relations found Hungarian voters listed the economy as their most important issue at 20 percent. But corruption was second at 17 percent. Among opposition voters, however, corruption was first at 31 percent. And, on the other side of the Atlantic, that’s what should concern Team Trump most.
International rankings back up the view that Hungary has a problem. Even the pro-Orbán Heritage Foundation ranked Hungary’s government integrity score – which measures perceptions of corruption and the danger of “capture” of the state by elites – at 44 out of 100. In 2009, the last full year before Orbán returned to power as prime minister, Heritage’s index gave Hungary a score of 53 out of 100. The country has gotten worse under Orbán.
Republicans in Washington have long whispered about their worry that the public perception of corruption in the second Trump administration is far worse than the first. The Trump family has a tangled web of deals from cryptocurrencies to European resorts and Middle East ventures. And it’s undeniable that Trump appointees and MAGA circles include a fair share of grifters.
Republicans should be concerned because Orbán’s defeat is already encouraging Democrats to use the corruption issue in the midterm elections and beyond. Spurred on by demands from their base, more than 70 Democrats in Congress have called for either impeachment or the invocation of the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office.
But Democratic leaders are likely to be more cautious. If they win control of the House this fall, I believe they will delay initiating a third impeachment and focus on the soft underbelly of Trump appointees. House committees will issue a blizzard of subpoenas, holding oversight hearings on every nook and cranny of government and building a case to later impeach Trump on abuse of power. In some places, the Democrats will find a happy hunting ground.
Take Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager.
For 14 months, he served as an unpaid, part-time volunteer advising then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. He apparently exceeded work hour limits, piled up potential conflicts of interest, and was overhead by a reporter at Reagan National Airport discussing sensitive government contracts on his phone.
Nor was it his first brush with controversy. After Trump took office in 2017, Lewandowski co-founded a lobbying shop. He failed to register as a foreign or domestic lobbyist in 2017, despite publicly having several clients. His major client (at $300,000 a year) was the Venezuelan oil company CITGO, then controlled by the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro.
Lewandowski’s former boss, now Special Envoy Noem, is under investigation by an Inspector General for green lighting a $220 million ad campaign featuring her on horseback promoting border control. Safe America Media, a firm registered at a Republican consultant’s home and set up just seven days before the contract was awarded, got $143 million from the no-bid contract. A firm run by the husband of Noem’s chief spokesperson secretly received money as a subcontractor.
Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick is already under close scrutiny for his department’s $1.58 billion investment in the rare-earth mineral company USA Rare Earth, Inc. A beneficiary appears to be Lutnick’s former firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, which is now led by his two adult sons. Reuters reports that queries from congressional Democrats about the deal are “widely seen as a preview of the types of investigations Democrats could pursue if they regain power in Washington after the November midterm elections.”
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is under investigation for misuse of her travel funds and expenses. Three of her staff members have been placed on leave while allegations of unethical behavior are probed.
There are many other examples. Republicans who railed against Green New Deal scandals and the abuses of the Biden family have a choice to make. They can hope the allegations against Trump figures go away, an unsustainable wish if Democrats take the House. Or they can acknowledge the problem, privately press Trump to ease out his most troublesome appointees before they implode, and address the worst examples in their own oversight hearings.
Fear of risking the wrath of the White House has kept Republicans silent about the growing taint of corruption. But they have more to fear if they do nothing. One lesson of the Orbán defeat is that voters care about corruption. Allowing the issue to fester led to taxpayer losses while magnifying the resulting political damage. In the US, if Republicans who rail against “waste, fraud and abuse” in government are shown to have been complicit in corruption, they could see many of their voters stay home or abandon them in 2026 and 2028.
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