JD Vance – destined to fail?
US Vice President JD Vance tried to drum up support for Viktor Orbán at a campaign rally – which did the veteran prime minister no favours at all. Commentators are now speculating that it was precisely Vance's intervention that led to Orbán's crushing defeat and cite further examples of failed initiatives by Trump's second-in-command.
He scares people off
Whatever JD Vance touches backfires, Jyllands-Posten observes:
“Orbán was clearly given the final push into the electoral void by the American vice president, whose grotesque election campaign tour in support of Orbán managed to turn even more Hungarians against the strongmen telling them who to vote for. ... This, it seems, has become Vance's trademark. After his visit to the Pittufik base last year, Greenlanders were more convinced than ever about where they belong – and the vice president put the cherry on top of the whole fiasco when he then travelled to Islamabad in Pakistan for 'peace talks' with Iran. After 21 hours behind closed doors he had to fly home without any trace of an agreement with the Ayatollah regime.”
Orbán bet on the wrong horse
Correio da Manhã also sees Vance's appearance in the Hungarian election campaign as an error:
“How could these people believe that the presence of JD Vance on the campaign trail could benefit them in any way? ... Even Trump participated by telephone in election campaign events. The moment Orbán played the 'American friends' card was the moment his opponent began to gain even more ground. ... Perhaps Trump's real role in contemporary history is to defeat the European far right, restore democratic ideals and revive the dream of the European project before it destroys itself.”