Trump Claims Viktor Orbán’s Critics Are ‘Jealous’: ‘Wish They Did What He Did’

President Donald Trump praised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Thursday while the two leaders met in the White House.

Orbán has been in power since 2010 and has been widely dubbed an authoritarian as he has cracked down on free speech and open elections in his country. Trump claimed during his remarks that Orbán’s European critics are simply “jealous” of him.

“But I told them they should respect this man. They can also learn from Viktor. Viktor has had a very hard stance on, more than anything else, immigration, or even illegal immigration. He literally has accepted no one over the years. Think of how much greater these countries would be if they didn’t have the tremendous crime that has come in with the immigration,” Trump said of European criticism of Orbán, adding:

People just flowing into Europe—they’ve got to stop it, and not only stop it, they have to reverse it. They have to get them out. We’ve done that here. We have zero people coming in now. The borders are closed. We take people, but we take them legally. But we’ve done it very strongly, and we’re moving hundreds of thousands, millions of people out. We had—of the 20 million people, 25 million, nobody knows even what the number is. They never knew. Biden had no idea.

He had no—I don’t believe he had any idea what was happening, because he wasn’t about open borders. But we had open borders, and we had millions of people come in, and they were coming in from jails. They were coming in from mental institutions. They were coming in as drug dealers. We had 11,888 murderers. Half of them committed more than one murder. We’re getting them all out. We’re getting them out. He doesn’t have that problem, but Europe does have that problem. Other parts of Europe have that problem.

So, you know, I tell them all the time, I stick up for Viktor Orbán. Not a lot of people do, because in many cases, they’re jealous. They wish they did what he did. They would have no problems if they did what he did. And I have a bigger heart than anybody, but you know, they’ve destroyed some of those countries. Some of those countries had no crime 10 years ago, and now they have quite a bit of crime. And I would say that I don’t know anything about your crime levels, but I would imagine they’re very low. Not too high, right?

“No, no. It’s very low, yeah. All of the best in Europe,” Orbán replied.

Orbán then added, “I’m not here to ask President Trump to manage my conflicts or our conflicts with the European Union. This is our matter. So we will do it. What we need is a golden age to open—a golden age of the United States-Hungary relationship. That’s the biggest help we can get from the United States. So inside the European Union, we will manage all of our affairs. To be the most humble guy possible, yeah, but I’m the longest-serving prime minister of Europe. I survived all the prime ministers who attacked us.”

Orbán has been widely scorned inside Europe and was blasted by EU parliamentarians last year when he addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg to kick off his country’s six-month turn presiding over the EU Council.

Moritz Körner, an EU parliament member from Germany, tore into Orbán in a floor speech following the Hungarian leader’s speech.

“You turned Hungary into a banana republic. You robbed your population and enriched your family and friends. Under your rule, Hungary has become one of the poorest and officially the most corrupt country in the EU. What a fraud. What a burden for your people. Mr. Orbán, please step down to make Hungary great again,” Körner said, speaking directly to the Hungarian leader.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.

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