Vance visits Hungary ahead of election that threatens Orbán’s authoritarian hold on power
U.S. Vice President JD Vance meets with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on April 7, 2026 in Budapest, Hungary. (Photo by Jonathan Ernst – Pool/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President JD Vance is in Hungary on Tuesday, meeting with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, an ally of President Donald Trump, ahead of the country’s April 12 election which could threaten Orbán’s long hold on power.
Orban faces criticism over the decline of democracy in the country as he and his allies have destroyed checks and balances and taken control of the country’s media.
He faces a strong challenge from opposition leader Peter Magyar, who was once part of the prime minister’s party but launched his own in 2024 and began attacking Orbán’s Fidesz party over alleged corruption.
The authoritarian leader has long been a close ally of Trump and was among the first European leaders to endorse him in the 2016 presidential election. Orbán’s nationalist party has become a model for MAGA populists, particularly for its aggressive stance on immigration.
Orban met with Trump three times in 2024, one of those visits coming after Trump won the 2024 election. Orbán has spoken several times at the Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC.
Most recently, Orbán, also an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, visited Trump at the White House in November, where he received a special exemption from sanctions imposed on Russian oil because of its invasion of Ukraine. Hungary is a major importer of Russian energy and the sanctions would have impacted the country’s already weakening economy.
While Hungary is a member of the European Union, Orbán has repeatedly attacked it and clashed with his European counterparts on several issues, including Russia’s war in Ukraine, using his veto power to try to block the EU’s efforts to support Ukraine.
Trump has already endorsed Orban in his reelection bid and has praised him, calling him “strong and powerful.”
During his visit, Vance will hold bilateral meetings with Orbán and publicly deliver remarks on the U.S.-Hungary partnership.
In a statement to ABC News, a spokesperson for Vance said that the vice president is looking forward to his visit and building “on the progress President Trump and Prime Minister Orbán have made on many key issues, including energy, technology, and defense.”
Vance’s trip to Hungary follows Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit in February, during which he reinforced the Trump administration’s support of the embattled Orbán.
“I can say to you with confidence that President Trump is deeply committed to your success because your success is our success, because this relationship we have here in Central Europe through you is so essential and vital for our national interests in the years to come,” Rubio said then.
In early 2025, Vance delivered blistering remarks at the Munich Security Conference, where he made the argument to European lawmakers to pay attention to the interests of conservative voters, take stronger actions on immigration and that Europe was moving towards censorship and away from Democracy.
Vance’s remarks were not well received by many European allies, with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius saying at the time that it appeared that Vance was comparing parts of Europe to “authoritarian regimes,” calling it “unacceptable.”
Justices of the US Supreme Court during a formal group photograph at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, Oct. 7, 2022. (Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Nearly two years after the Supreme Court’s monumental 2024 decision granting President Donald Trump sweeping immunity from prosecution, the ruling’s broader impact on American government is beginning to come into focus as Trump and his lawyers repeatedly invoke the case in an effort to get the justices to endorse expansive presidential power.
“That’s not a coincidence, it’s a strategy,” said James Sample, a constitutional scholar at Hofstra Law and ABC News legal contributor. “They’re not just invoking a precedent, they’re building an architecture.”
An ABC News review of the unprecedented 29 Trump emergency applications to the Supreme Court in his second term found that nearly a third directly cited Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion in the immunity case, Trump v. U.S.
Trump attorneys reference portions of the court’s immunity decision at least 21 times to argue for “unrestricted” presidential power to fire executive branch employees; unreviewable control over “matters related to terrorism, trade and immigration;” and absolute authority as commander-in-chief to deploy troops to aid domestic law enforcement.
The Constitution “creates an ‘energetic, independent executive,’ not a subservient executive,” Solicitor General John Sauer wrote the court, quoting Roberts, in a September request to allow Trump to remove Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook.
“These aren’t random citations,” Sample said. “The White House Counsel’s Office has read that opinion very carefully, and they are using it methodically.”
The court is still crafting a decision in the Cook case but has generally embraced the administration’s broad view of presidential authority to remove federal employees and supervise agencies.
Since January 2025, however, the justices have not referenced Trump v. U.S. to justify any of its decisions in favor of the Trump administration, leading some court analysts to question why the conservative majority has avoided explicitly invoking its own precedent.
“We just don’t know yet what this case means, and it will be up to a future Supreme Court to define it,” said Sarah Isgur, SCOTUS blog editor and ABC News legal contributor.
On several occasions, Trump appeals relying on the immunity decision have been rejected.
The court declined to embrace Trump administration claims in April 2025 that the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia was interwoven with the president’s “important foreign relations responsibilities,” which Roberts had indicated in the immunity decision were off limits for judicial review.
A majority of justices also rejected Trump’s argument that a lower court block on his National Guard deployment in Chicago infringed on core constitutional powers as commander-in-chief, which were detailed in Roberts’ opinion in the immunity case.
“They have been making a more powerful president — with more complete control over the executive branch and its employees,” said Isgur of the high court’s conservative majority, “but also a weaker presidency that has to go back to Congress if it wants to move the law in any meaningful way.”
Some legal scholars note the Trump v. U.S. decision also broke new ground by putting in writing the idea that the president has exclusive authority to enforce federal law and unchecked prosecutorial discretion — an endorsement that some say has had at the very least a psychological impact on the president and his team.
Roberts’ opinion enshrines the idea that “investigation and prosecution of crimes is a quintessentially executive function” and that the president has “exclusive authority and absolute discretion to decide which crimes to investigate and prosecute.”
“The Justice Department will likely use [the ruling’s] discussion of the exclusive power over prosecution and investigation to push the bounds of this discretion,” wrote Harvard Law professor and former assistant attorney general during the George W. Bush administration Jack Goldsmith in a recent law review article.
Trump has asserted himself as the nation’s top law enforcer in his second term, personally directing the attorney general and other top officials on whom to investigate and whom to prosecute.
Trump has pushed indictments of many of his perceived opponents, including former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, California Sen. Adam Schiff, and former special counsel Jack Smith.
When six Democratic members of Congress posted a video telling military service members that they had the right not to carry out unlawful orders, Trump said the “traitors” should be “arrested and put on trial.” Efforts to secure an indictment subsequently failed.
The Supreme Court’s opinion in the Trump immunity case explicitly enshrines the president’s right to active involvement in the cases and others like them.
“The president may discuss potential investigations and prosecutions with the Attorney General and other Justice Department officials to carry out his constitutional duty to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,'” Roberts wrote, quoting Article II of the Constitution. Later, Roberts adds on behalf of the court, a president has “exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials, and the president cannot be prosecuted for conduct within his exclusive constitutional authority.”
“Those quotes are also just true as a matter of the Constitution,” Isgur said. “That’s what a president is supposed to do. What’s new is using criminal prosecutors for partisan purposes — and there’s no quotes about that in the case.”
A majority of Americans, 55%, believe Trump is using the Justice Department to file unjustified criminal charges against his opponents, according to a November 2025 Marquette Law School poll; 45% think the charges have been justified.
At the same time, most Americans — 56% — disapprove of the way the Supreme Court is handling its job, compared with 44% who approve, the Marquette poll found.
“The Court has traditionally proceeded cautiously and carefully when marking out exclusive presidential power because the president is known to run hard when the Court recognizes such power. But it did the opposite in Trump v U.S.,” Goldsmith argues.
“The Court issued an incautious and overly broad ruling on exclusive presidential powers that presidents will use to their advantage against the other branches,” Goldsmith wrote, “until the Court, in more considered reflection, acknowledges its imprudence and alters course.”
Chairman Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) delivers an opening statement during a confirmation hearing for U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) to be the next Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 18, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s confirmation hearing began with a personal confrontation between fellow Republican Sen. Rand Paul as Mullin seeks to take over the Department of Homeland Security from its embattled leader, Kristi Noem.
“You told the media that I was a ‘freaking snake’ and that you completely understood why I had been assaulted,” Paul said.
Paul also pointed to Mullin’s previous public confrontations and said Mullin had “low impulse control.”
“Tell the world why you believe I deserve to be assaulted from behind, have six ribs broken and a damaged lung. Tell me to my face why you think I deserved it. And while you’re at it, explain to the American public why they should trust a man with anger issues,” Paul said.
Paul questioned, “I just wonder if someone who applauds violence against their political opponents is the right person to lead an agency that has struggled to accept limits of the proper use of force.”
Before his opening statement, Mullin fired back at Paul.
“I said I could understand, because of the behavior, you were having, that I could understand why your neighbor … did what he did,” Mullin said. “As far as my term of ‘snake in the grass,’ sir, I work around this room to try to fix problems. I’ve worked with many people in this room. It seems like you fight Republicans more than you work with us.”
Mullin, who President Donald Trump earlier this month tapped to take over the agency from Noem, asked Paul to let him earn his respect and that he will be secretary for all Americans.
Paul later played a montage of Mullin challenging people to a fight, including a tense moment at a November 2023 Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing when Mullin stood up from his seat and appeared to prepare to physically fight Teamsters Union President Sean O’Brien.
“I get it it’s about character assassination for you,” Mullin said to Paul. “That’s the way this game is played. I understand it. And you are making this about you, which is fine.”
Mullin noted that O’Brien came to the hearing on Wednesday as a “close friend.”
“As you can notice over my shoulder is my good friend, Sean O’Brien. Both of us have had conversations and shaken hands and agreed we could have done things different,” Mulin said. “Sean has become a close friend. We talk all the time. I have been on his podcast. It is how you handle your differences. Not like this, chairman.”
Lawmakers on the Senate Homeland Security Committee are expected to grill Mullin through the day as the department he’s seeking to lead remains shut down due to a funding stalemate, with no clear end to that shutdown in sight.
Parts of DHS — from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the Transportation Security Administration — are shut down amid a funding fight over Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Democrats have said they will fund the department only if changes are made to the agency in the wake of the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal law enforcement in Minneapolis earlier this year.
Mullin may also face questions about threats to the homeland after DHS warned of potential lone-wolf and cyberattacks amid the ongoing strikes in Iran, according to a law enforcement bulletin obtained by ABC News.
The Senate Homeland Security Committee is scheduled to vote on his nomination on Thursday. After that vote, if his nomination is confirmed, it would then head to the Senate floor where he could be confirmed as soon as next week.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Kevin Warsh, former governor of the US Federal Reserve, walks to lunch during the Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, US, on Wednesday, July 9, 2025. The annual event has been a historic breeding ground for media deals and is usually a forum for tech and media elites to discuss the future of their industry. (Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump announced conservative economist and former Fed governor Kevin Warsh as his pick to be the new Federal Reserve chairman.
In a post on Truth Social early Friday morning, Trump said that he has “known Kevin for a long period of time, and have no doubt that he will go down as one of the GREAT Fed Chairmen, maybe the best.”
“He will never let you down,” Trump continued.
Warsh previously served on the Fed’s board of governors from 2006 to 2011. He was a top adviser to then-Fed chairman Ben Bernanke during the 2008 financial crisis, serving as a liaison between the central bank and Wall Street. During that time, he was an inflation “hawk” — skeptical of the Fed’s ultra-low interest rate policy. But in more recent interviews, Warsh has heaped praise on Trump and called for “regime change” at the Fed.
On Thursday, Trump said that he had “chosen a very good person” while walking the carpet at the Kennedy Center ahead of the premiere of the documentary about first lady Melania Trump.
Trump said his pick to replace current Chairman Jerome Powell is an “outstanding person and a person that won’t be too surprising to people.”
“A lot of people think that this is somebody that could have been there a few years ago,” Trump went on. “It’s going to be somebody that is very respected, somebody that’s known to everybody in the financial world. And I think it’s going to be a very good choice.”
Trump has repeatedly attacked Powell over the past year for his cautious approach to lowering interest rates.
Powell’s term as chairman expires in May.
Earlier this month, in an extraordinary escalation of the months-long attack on the independence of the Federal Reserve, Powell announced that federal prosecutors had launched a criminal investigation related to a multi-year renovation of the Fed’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Earlier this week, at its first meeting since news of the investigation surfaced, the Federal Reserve voted to hold interest rates steady.
Trump said that the Fed governors who voted earlier this week to pause interest rates will change their minds once there is a new chair.
“If they respect the Fed chairman, they’ll be with us all the way,” Trump said. “They want to see the country be great.”
