Fidesz communications director Bertalan Havasi said on Thursday that no meeting was scheduled between former prime minister Viktor Orbán and US President Donald Trump during Orbán’s current visit to the United States. ‘The rumours that he will meet Donald Trump are not true; there is no such plan,’ Havasi told MTI.
Orbán’s next scheduled meetings and appearances, he said, were a Fidesz leadership and parliamentary group meeting on 21 July and his Tusnádfürdő speech on 25 July.
The statement was prompted by remarks from Fidesz deputy group leader and deputy chairman of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee Zsolt Németh, who alleged that Orbán would meet Trump in the coming days, adding that Orbán could still influence Hungarian–American relations. Asked whether the meeting was certain, he replied: ‘That is what we have heard.’
Given their long and close relationship, a meeting between Orbán and Trump would not be out of the ordinary. Orbán was the first European leader to endorse Trump in 2015 after he announced his presidential ambitions. Trump, similarly, endorsed Orbán many times during both the 2022 and 2026 election campaigns.
Orbán visited Washington, DC, in 2025 for a bilateral meeting with Trump, which resulted in several mainly informal agreements over Russian sanctions affecting Hungary’s oil imports from Moscow, a currency-swap deal to protect Hungary’s economy from external impacts, and other matters. Additionally, Vice President JD Vance travelled to Hungary during the final stage of the campaign, endorsing Orbán for re-election, which ultimately did not happen.
The loss of power inevitably influenced the relationship between Orbán and Trump. Speaking to reporters days after the crushing defeat of his ally, Trump called Orbán’s successor, Péter Magyar, ‘a good man’ who would ‘do a good job’, while acknowledging Orbán’s legacy in protecting Hungary’s borders. During the brief interview, Trump spoke about the former prime minister in the past tense, stating that ‘he was a friend of mine’.
Orbán Abroad as Fidesz Faces Its Deepest Crisis
Orbán’s current trip to the United States to attend the World Cup semi-finals and the final on 19 July has already drawn criticism, with the Fidesz leader accused of turning his back on both his party and his voters as the political community faces the gravest crisis in its almost 40-year history.
Orbán left Hungary on 13 July as Parliament adopted the 17th amendment to the Fundamental Law, pushed by Péter Magyar and the Tisza Party. It set in motion President Tamás Sulyok’s removal, imposed a retrospective 12-year term limit on MPs, restructured constitutional institutions, and gave constitutional status to the National Asset Recovery and Protection Office, an unusually powerful anti-corruption super-agency intended to ‘dismantle the economic and political mafia of the Orbán system’, according to Prime Minister Magyar.
Fidesz’s parliamentary group boycotted the vote, describing the amendment as the ‘beginning of tyranny’. Orbán himself posted on Facebook in reaction to the vote’s passage, claiming that democracy had died in Hungary—hours before he and his relatives were spotted in the live stream of viral football streamer IShowSpeed.
While Orbán is spending his vacation in the United States, Fidesz continues to lose many of its important members. Citing the 12-year term limit, the party’s parliamentary group leader, Gergely Gulyás, resigned on Monday. He allegedly informed Orbán on Friday, while the group learned the news only on Monday. His successor will be chosen on 21 July, after Orbán returns to Budapest, with former EU affairs minister János Bóka reported as the leading candidate.
Two days later, one of the defining figures of Orbán’s 16 years in power, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó, resigned his parliamentary mandate to join the international leadership of Chinese electric-vehicle manufacturer BYD.
On the same day, former Fidesz MP and space commissioner Orsolya Ferencz announced the launch of a ‘strong political community’ based on ‘morality, the rule of law, work and knowledge’. Ferencz, who has been among the most vocal critics within Fidesz since the 12 April election, also said that this community would extend beyond Fidesz and Tisza, making the announcement more ambiguous. Tibor Navracsics, who served as a minister in several of Orbán’s governments, shared the statement. No party has formally been announced so far, although analyst Gábor Török called it the possible beginning of Fidesz’s ‘formal disintegration’.
‘The former prime minister’s disapproval rating stands at 69 per cent among the total population’
Responding to Ferencz, Havasi said that ‘every party member was free to voice even internal criticism without seeking approval’. ‘No one in Fidesz has to ask permission to post their political opinion, nor do they have to coordinate it in advance if they do not want to. This naturally also applies to self-critical or internally critical opinions,’ Havasi stressed, adding that the party respected ‘the opinions and comments of all our party colleagues, even if they contain unfair or hurtful statements’. Havasi also emphasized that Ferencz ‘remains a respected member of our Fidesz community’ who continues to share ‘our successes, our joys, our failures and our responsibility’, claiming that the leadership does not regard her initiative as a formal break with the party.
Besides Fidesz, Orbán himself is also facing an unprecedented crisis in his decades-long political career. According to a recent survey published on 16 July by Medián, the former prime minister’s disapproval rating stands at 69 per cent among the total population, with only 27 per cent welcoming him in any ‘important political role’. Regarding party voters, Fidesz supporters still overwhelmingly stand by Orbán, with 94 per cent approving of him—a figure that falls to just 2 per cent among Tisza voters—while 47 per cent of supporters of parties other than the two main forces reject him.
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