Hungary for VP Vance?
Vice Presidential Travels and Travails
VP Vance has had quite a week. He campaigned for MAGA’s favorite European, Viktor Orban, in Hungary. Orban lost, hugely. Then the vice president flew to Islamabad to conduct negotiations with Iran to end the war. The negotiations failed. Vance will be at the University of Georgia tomorrow for a Turning Point USA rally. So we can bet that incumbent Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff will retain his seat in the midterms. If the young and telegenic Ossoff wins big, Vance may have to face him in the 2028 presidential election.
Orban’s defeat and the failure of the Iran talks aren’t really on VP Vance. But VPs aren’t teflon, association with administration losses will stick. We’ll take a quick look at the Iran talks (which I wrote about on Friday), before turning to Vance’s campaigning in Hungary. Both say something about the vice presidency and the direction of U.S. and global politics.
Negotiations or Ultimatums?
I described the vice president’s negotiations with Iran as high-risk/high-reward. Vance avoided both the worst and best-case scenarios. The highest risk for Vance would have been negotiating a deal with the Iranians and having Trump publicly reject it. The highest reward would be ending the war in a way favorable to U.S. interests. That negotiations failed is not the worst outcome for Vance, since war with Iran is popular with the GOP base. Despite the noise from Tucker Carlson and his ilk, only a third of Republicans oppose the war. It isn’t popular with the rest of the country, but Vance’s failed negotiations probably won’t increase the blame on the VP since Vance established himself as the administration skeptic of the war with Iran.
Based on their delegation, the Iranians were ready to deal. The large delegation had over 70 people. Lead negotiators included the Speaker of Parliament, the Foreign Minister, the Central Bank Governor, and several active and retired military officials. This was an experienced team able to discuss the technical issues around sanctions, military deconfliction, and of course Iran’s nuclear program—as well as manage the politics back home. The American team, led by Vance, included Kushner and Wittkoff and had a few technical experts—but nothing like the depth and experience of their Iranian counterparts.
Deputy National Security Adviser Andrew Baker, a Farsi speaker who had previously been Vance’s National Security Adviser was also there.
The disparity in delegation depth didn’t no matter. It doesn’t appear that Vance had much leeway to negotiate. Americans came to accept an Iranian surrender.
Both Iran and the U.S. think they have the better hand. Eventually one side will fold, but the stakes keep getting higher.
I wrote before that a vice president has never led a formal negotiating process. Since it doesn’t look like the U.S. was really prepared to negotiate, that is still—in a sense—true.
Campaigning in the Global Midterms
Vance can’t be blamed for Orban’s crushing defeat. Orban had been in office for 16 years so even if he had been a wise Solon, voters would have gotten tired of him. But Orban’s rule had not been good for Hungary, which saw economic stagnation, massive kleptocracy, and encroachment on civil liberties. That Orban asked for the U.S. to weigh in reeked of desperation.
It’s more interesting that the administration responded in the affirmative by sending Vance.
The U.S. has covertly interfered in elections. U.S. political consultants have played roles in elections in other countries. Sometimes this is mercenary, sometimes it is ideological. Presidents have lightly touched on political issues in other countries. But generally American presidents have not openly endorsed or campaigned for candidates in democratic nations.
Trump has thrown this norm out completely.
Trump has endorsed candidates in Japan, Europe, and Latin America. He threw big money at Argentina on the condition that voters supported his ally, President Javier Milei’s party in the midterms. The administration is building links to far-right parties throughout Europe like the AfD in Germany, Le Pen in France, and Nigel Farage in the UK. Trump also put tariffs on Brazil in response to Brazil’s treatment of the Bolsonaro clan. Expect Vance to go to Brazil and campaign for Flavio Bolsanaro before Brazil’s general election in October. Given Vance’s record, bet on the incumbent Lula da Silva.
All this as Vance stood alongside Orban and railed against foreign interference in Hungary’s election. The vice presidency is an awkward office at the best of times, but being Trump’s VP requires the flexibility of a master yogi.
MAGA: Hungry for Hungary
But Hungary held an exalted place in the MAGA firmament. Orban campaigned on all of Trump’s pet issues, particularly immigration. For the MAGA intellectuals, Orban spoke of preserving Western civilization, and funded them generously. Intellectuals and party-building are cheap, even a poor, small state can fund a fair amount of these activities—and Orban did.
Diplomatically Hungary carried the administration’s water within the EU, blocking aid to Ukraine and keeping cozy relations with Putin.
Politically, Orban showed how an elected leader could disassemble democracy and hold onto power. He provided a playbook for gerrymandering, gutting institutions, and cracking down on the media and universities. Making MAGA hearts swoon, Orban forced a university founded by George Soros out of the country.1
The Value of Norms
The idea of international partisan movements, in which elected parties in different states are openly allied, is the epitome of Trump’s short-term thinking. There are advantages to having closely allied parties in power in other countries. Hungary shows how it can be politically useful and personally remunerative.
But there’s a reason why it hasn’t been a standard practice, besides its odor of corruption.2 In a democratic system, the other party wins eventually. If your country is closely associated with a deeply unpopular party in an ally, that will hurt your relationship to that country when the opposing party wins—as it eventually must. Trump has illustrated some of these costs. He has made Lula more popular when he bullied Brazil over tariffs and Lula stood up to him. Trump’s deep unpopularity in Europe has enabled European politicians to gain standing by pushing back on the United States.
Finally, in practical political terms, if an administration keeps putting its political capital on the line in foreign elections and loses, the stink of losing will stick. And nothing stinks like a loser.
Fun fact, in 1989 Orban received a Soros Foundation grant to study at Oxford.
Also, getting your political affairs to heavily intertwined with that of another country creates all kinds of problems and accusations of foreign influence. I write this as a deep friend of Israel—but they ways in which U.S. and Israeli politics are entangled isn’t good for either country.