A few weeks ago, Viktor Orbán reminisced about the election of the current American president before a cheering crowd at a conference in Budapest organized by ultra-conservative American political operatives. “I remember one year ago, we jointly celebrated the victory of President Donald Trump. It was a fabulous success for the patriotic forces of the world,” Hungary’s prime minister, the leader of the right-wing nationalist Fidesz party, told CPAC Hungary, according to an English translation of his remarks.

However, he warned, the global expansion of Trump’s MAGA movement still faces threats, such as his opposition in Hungary’s upcoming parliamentary elections who — despite Orbán’s systematic warping of the electoral system since 2010 to keep himself in power — stand a real chance of ousting Orbán and his Fidesz majority. His loss would be a major MAGA setback, Orbán said, because it would give a resounding victory to the progressive policymakers in Brussels and beyond, along with their so-called “gender propaganda” and “green madness.”

The group behind the Budapest conference, the American Conservative Union, has hosted annual Conservative Political Action Conferences in the U.S. since 1974, and been closely linked to Trump and MAGA since Trump’s first rise to the presidency in 2016. In recent years, under the leadership of current chair Matt Schlapp, the group has been quietly spawning CPAC offshoots across Europe and Latin America with the explicit goal of influencing national elections.

Mapped: The UK Reform-Orbán Network

Ahead of elections in both countries, DeSmog has catalogued the connections between Hungary’s autocratic government and the UK’s right-wing populist Reform party.

International CPAC leaders are now counting on the movement’s assistance to “take out” left-leaning politicians in Colombia and Brazil, while aiding the political campaigns of Europe’s staunchest Trump allies, including Orbán’s re-election efforts in Hungary, according to audio recordings from recent CPAC events obtained by DeSmog.

“Dear Matt,” Orbán said during his speech, addressing Schlapp, who was sitting near the front of the audience, “you mean a lot to us. Not only due to your organizational work. Everyone knows about that and acknowledges and they respect you for it. But here in Hungary, to us, you are more.”

With the support of Schlapp and the other powerful conservatives linked to CPAC, “we shall win these elections,” he said, vowing to “Make Europe Great Again.” 

‘Take Out’ Leaders in Latin America

Trump was powered to a second presidential term in 2024 by vowing to pursue “America First” policies that would supposedly put U.S. citizens first by cutting federal spending, strengthening the country’s economy, and improving its national security. Since taking office at the start of 2025, he and his adherents in government claim they’ve put those ideas into action with moves like setting off global trade chaos with tariffs, and abruptly defunding foreign aid programs that helped feed and provide health care for poor people worldwide. 

These policy moves have been accompanied by an agenda of supporting Trump allies internationally, such as Orbán, that CPAC now refers to as the “Freedom First Movement.” At the latest U.S. CPAC in Dallas, Texas, which took place just two days after CPAC Hungary, leaders from this movement celebrated political victories in other countries that have largely gone unnoticed by most major U.S. and European media.

An “international summit” at the conference featured Mercedes Schlapp, wife of Matt Schlapp and a former director of strategic communications in the first Trump White House, who claimed that CPAC is “making great advances” in Latin America. 

Schlapp celebrated the electoral victories of conservative political leaders including Argentina’s Javier Milei and Chile’s newly elected far-right president José Antonio Kast, whom she called “one of our dear friends.” She praised the Trump administration for “working so hard” to “take out” former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, who the U.S. forcibly removed from power during a surprise military raid in January. Maduro and his wife are currently imprisoned in New York City, awaiting trial on federal “narcoconspiracy” charges.

“So we’ve had great success in Latin America,” Schlapp said.

She also outlined upcoming elections where CPAC’s offshoots hope to influence the outcome. That list included Colombia, which is currently led by President Gustavo Pedro, described by TIME as “the former guerrilla turned climate crusader”  who has halted new oil drilling projects and vowed to phase out fossil fuels across the country.

“We’re also looking to have CPAC Colombia to take out President Pedro,” Schlapp said. The goal in the country’s upcoming late May presidential election, Schlapp explained, is to “really have a right wing candidate win there in Colombia.”

Schlapp also referred during her speech to Flávio Bolsonaro, son of Brazil’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who is in a reportedly tight race for president against the country’s current left-leaning leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. “CPAC will be very involved in helping Flávio down in Brazil,” Schlapp said.

At another panel, Flávio Bolsonaro himself elaborated on the support he hopes to receive from his conservative allies in the U.S. “We don’t want interference in the Brazilian elections,” he said. “I’m going to win because it’s the will of my people.”

“My appeal here, not only to the United States, but to the entire free world is this: Watch Brazil’s elections with enormous attention,” said Bolsonaro. “Learn and understand our process. Monitor our people’s freedom of expression and apply diplomatic pressure so that our institutions function properly.”

The goal is for “free and fair elections based on values of American origin,” he said.

A Far-right Victory in Poland

Similar language appeared on the U.S. State Department website last year to describe American involvement in Hungary’s upcoming election. “We’re watching it very closely. We want to see a free and fair election,” said Samuel Samson, a senior adviser within the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor,during a December online press briefing about meetings with “very key partners of the United States and the administration” in Central Europe, including Hungary.

Samson, who last year called for using U.S. taxpayer money to support French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, said that he was “very pleased” about the positive relationship between Trump and Orbán. “We’re very excited to continue our collaboration as we go into a very important year for the Hungarians.”

Despite being accused of “mass voter intimidation”, Orbán’s party Fidesz is currently trailing in the polls to rival right-wing party Tisza, which has pledged to fight corruption, accusing Orbán and his allies of enriching themselves at the country’s expense.

In advance of a visit by Vice-President JD Vance to Budapest on April 7, during which he heaped praise on Orbán and accused the European Union (which includes Hungary) of “foreign interference” in the election, Tisza leader Peter Magyar posted on X that “Hungarian history is not written in Washington, Moscow, or Brussels — it is written in Hungary’s streets and squares.”

Panelists at CPAC Dallas outlined examples of how MAGA has already influenced European elections. Michał Rachoń, a journalist with TV Republika, which was described at the event as the “Newsmax or Fox News of Poland”, said that last year’s CPAC Poland “significantly helped conservative president Nawrocki win the election.” 

The senior Trump administration officials who attended CPAC Poland in 2025 included now-former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who urged voters to support the far-right candidate Karol Nawrocki. “So this was a very important step towards maintaining the conservative powers,” Rachoń said.     

MAGA Misses in Europe

The “Freedom First Movement” has not been universally successful in its attempts to influence European elections.

The Heritage Foundation – the group that convened Project 2025, the influential right wing policy blueprint for Trump’s second term – failed in its effort to secure a victory for Sali Berisha’s conservative Democratic Party in last year’s Albanian election.

CPAC in Dallas also heard from George Simion, a far-right Romanian politician who received MAGA’s support for his failed 2025 run for president. Simion framed the upcoming Hungarian election as a crucial battleground in the broader Trump-aligned war for conservative political values in Europe. “We are all fighting to keep common sense, to keep the Christian civilization and the roots of our continent,” he said.

“And we will prevail because we here in CPAC are fighters.”

Addressing the crowd gathered in Dallas, he said, “Congratulations for the great work that you are doing.”