European leaders downplay Orban's praise of Trump as they defend Biden's gaffes: 'slips of the tongue'

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban appeared to endorse Donald Trump and raised doubts about President Biden’s fitness to run for a second term in a move that has continued to upset leaders across Europe. 

"We continued the peace mission in Mar-a-Lago," Orban wrote on his official social media account on X. "President @realDonaldTrump has proved during his presidency that he is a man of peace. He will do it again!" 

"It was an honour to visit President @realDonaldTrump at Mar-a-Lago today," he wrote in a separate post that labeled the visit "Peace mission 5.0." "We discussed ways to make peace. The good news of the day: he’s going to solve it!"

Orban unexpectedly departed from the NATO summit in Washington, D.C., on Thursday to visit Trump in Florida – another in his flurry of visits since Hungary assumed the rotating presidency of the European Union last week. 

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While the role is mostly clerical in nature, Orban has booked it to Russia, Ukraine and China in the past 10 days. Orban has framed the trips as part of a mission to seek peace, but European leaders have repeatedly reiterated that Orban does not represent the views of the bloc. 

European Council President Charles Michel stressed that "the rotating presidency doesn’t represent the EU at the external level." 

"There’s a clear position," Michel told EuroNews. "This visit, paid by the prime minister of Hungary, was not a visit on behalf of the EU." 

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Orban continued to make headlines after it emerged that during the NATO summit he had told other leaders at a formal dinner on Wednesday that NATO allies who still thought Biden could win the upcoming presidential election "were like people on the Titanic playing violins as the ship went down," The Financial Times reported.

Before Biden gave a press conference Thursday night – billed throughout the week by his team as the "big boy" press conference – he made a gaffe when he referred to the president of Ukraine as "President Putin" rather than Zelenskyy. In the press conference, he referred to the good work by "Vice President Trump."

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban with Donald Trump during his visit to Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, July 11, 2024. (@PM_ViktorOrban)

"If I slow down and can’t get the job done, that’s a sign I shouldn’t be doing it," Biden insisted. "But there’s no indication of that yet." 

Other leaders dismissed the "pessimism" about Biden and argued that the president was "fully present" during the summit, according to the outlet, with many rallying around him in an effort to boost his image. 

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French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer praised the president, saying that he was "in charge" and "on good form" as he spoke "clear on the issues he knows well," the BBC reported. 

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, U.S. President Joe Biden and NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg participate in a meeting of the heads of state of the North Atlantic Council at the 2024 NATO Summit on July 10, 2024, in Washington, D.C.  (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

"I saw him as always a president who is in charge, clear on the issues he knows well," Macron said. "We all make slips of the tongue sometimes. It has happened to me before, it will probably happen to me tomorrow."

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also dismissed the gaffes as "slips of the tongue" and argued that "if you always monitor everyone, you will find enough of them."

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Finnish President Alexander Stubb said that he had "absolutely no concern about the capacity of the current President of the United States to lead his country and to lead our fight for Ukraine and to lead NATO," but admitted that he is worried about the "toxic" and "polarizing" political climate in the U.S.

Russian media seized on Biden’s mistakes, with one outlet using it as an excuse to label Biden as "senile" while asking, "What’s more dangerous: A monkey with a grenade or a shaking hand on the nuclear button?"