Republican elected officials and GOP candidates came together in Dallas this week for CPAC Texas, which is a spinoff of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), and welcomed Hungary's autocratic leader Viktor Orban who addressed the summit attendees.
Prime Minister Orban met with former U.S. President Donald Trump just days before as he welcomed Orban to his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Trump's Save America PAC shared a statement from Trump after the visit writing, "Great spending time with my friend, Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary. We discussed many interesting topics — few people know as much about what is going on in the world today. We were also celebrating his great electoral victory in April," the Washington Examiner reported.
Trump is scheduled to give the closing speech for the multi-day conference.
Orban, though, remains one of the more controversial invites to the conference as he has been embraced by American conservatives. Hungary's prime minister is a European nationalist who has promoted restrictive immigration policies and has been accused of undermining democracy in his country.
During a visit to Romania, Orban made remarks about the Nazi's use of gas chambers. Those comments, condemned by the Auschwitz Committee, were said to have been interpreted as if he was trying to make a joke.
Orban also said, "This is why we have always fought: We are willing to mix with one another, but we do not want to become peoples of mixed race."
Prime Minister Orban has accused the U.S. government of wanting to cut Russian gas supplies to Europe to be able to sell its own petrol to the continent.
"The Americans are able to impose their will because they are not dependent on energy from others; they are able to exert hostile pressure because they control the financial networks … for sanctions policy; and they are also able to exert friendly pressure, meaning that they can persuade their allies to buy from them," Orban was quoted as saying by the BBC.
Other guests to CPAC Texas this year are Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Fox News host Sean Hannity and a list of other high-profile conservative names.
