CPAC comes to Europe as alliance between the Trump White House and the international right grows
MAGA influencers and far-right leaders gathered in Poland and Hungary this week as the Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC, held two international events — a show of strength in the increasing trans-Atlantic alliance between the Trump White House and Europe's populist conservative movement.
On Thursday in Budapest, Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orbán was the keynote speaker for the country's CPAC event and hailed President Trump's first 100 days following his return to the Oval Office. "The Trump tsunami swept through the entire world," Orbán said. "It gave back hope to the world. We are no longer suffocating in the woke sea."
Prior to the Hungarian leader's speech, a video message from President Trump was played to those in attendance in which Mr. Trump praised the event and Orbán himself.
"You know how I feel about Hungary and you know how I feel about CPAC. I respect and love them both. I also want to pay special regard to the leader of Hungary, Viktor Orbán. He's a great man and a very special person," President Trump said in the video, which was later posted to social media by CPAC founder and chairman Matt Schlapp.
Orbán, who according to Human Rights Watch has used his party's supermajority in Hungarian parliament to undermine the independence of the judiciary, crack down on independent media, demonize migrants and discriminate against LGBTQ people, was among a number of notable right-wing international leaders in attendance.
Those leaders at the Budapest event included the leader of Germany's far-right AFD party Alice Weidel, the leader of the Dutch far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) Geert Wilders, and former U.K. Conservative Party prime minister Liz Truss, as well as American social media influencers Ben Shapiro and Jack Posobiec.
Poland's conservative presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki arrives at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, on May 27, 2025, in Rzeszow, Poland.
Alex Brandon / Getty Images
Notable speakers at Tuesday's events in Jasionka, Poland, included U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who gave the keynote address at the event.
"I do think it's good that we are collaborating with each other," Schlapp, a former White House political director, told CBS News on Friday. "I think what we're doing is what, in the old-fashioned days, you would have called it friendship building and diplomacy, and building relationships in order to have the prosperity in our countries."
Poland was playing host to CPAC for the first time earlier this week. Budapest was a venue for the event for the fourth year in row— underlining the growing relationship between MAGA Republicans and the country under Orban's ruling Fidesz Party. Many American conservatives have in recent years viewed Hungary — and Orbán — as an aspirational playbook for governance in the United States.
"I think their policies on the border and on immigration have changed the whole conversation in Europe," Schlapp said. "It's certainly between Orbán and Trump, that have normalized this idea that you don't just have to take an unspecific numbers of illegal migrants because some global institution tells you that you must."
A growing alliance on the right
The conference is happening amidst a backdrop of tension between President Trump and America's traditional allies in Europe.
While Mr. Trump recently announced that his planned 50% tariffs on European Union goods would be delayed until July, the trading block and its European allies have had an unsteady relationship with the White House since Mr. Trump's return to power in January.
Members of Trump's administration have at times broken the diplomatic norm by publicly weighing in on elections and policies in U.S.-allied nations.
Vice President JD Vance berated European leaders at February's Munich Security Conference and accused U.S. allies of political censorship of right-wing ideas within their own countries. The vice president cited laws in the U.K. which criminalize protests within a certain distance of abortion clinics and EU laws on online content moderations, among other examples.
That trend continued at Poland's CPAC event on Tuesday, where DHS Secretary Noem called for Poles to vote for right-wing presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki in the country's upcoming runoff election against liberal opponent Rafał Trzaskowski, the current mayor of Warsaw.
"I have watched over the years as socialists, and people who are just like this mayor of Warsaw, who is an absolute trainwreck of a leader, have destroyed our countries," Noem said, addressing attendees at the Jasionka event.
Kirsti Noem, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, during the CPAC Conservative Political Action Conference in Jasionka, Poland, on May 27, 2025.
Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The events this week also come just days after Samuel Samson, a senior adviser for the State Department's Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, wrote a blog post on the State Department's website which signaled a shift in the issues the U.S. is prioritizing in its traditional alliances in Europe.
"The suppression of speech, facilitation of mass migration, targeting of religious expression, and undermining of electoral choice threatens the very foundation of the transatlantic partnership," the post read.
The depth of the relationship between the populist right in Europe and President Trump was highlighted in the promotional description on CPAC Budapest's website.
"With the triumph of Donald Trump and the rise of the European Right, the Age of the Patriots of Western Civilization has begun — CPAC Hungary 2025 will be the hub of this movement," the description of the event read.
Chairman Matt Schlapp told CBS News that he believes the conference will only continue to expand globally.
"We're going to go to Australia later on in the year. We're going go to Japan later on in the year, we're gonna go to Brazil later on this year. We're gonna to go Mexico. We're talking about having a CPAC in Colombia. We've had talks to have a CPAC in El Salvador. We've have talks to have CPAC in various other European countries," he said.
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