The Hungarian Prime Minister defended his brand of populist nationalism at a conference in Budapest for CPAC, the U.S. conservative political forum. Viktor Orban also criticized his opponents, who he said were "progressives, Marxists" and those from "the international liberal left-wing."

Orban made the keynote speech on Thursday on the opening day of the two-day conference, the first CPAC to be held in Europe. CPAC was set up in 1974 as a forum for American conservative politics.

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The self-described "illiberal" politician praised the policies of former U.S. President Donald Trump and lamented that the Democrats in the U.S. have the support of "innumerable" left-wing media.

Underneath a banner saying "God, homeland, family," Orban laid out what he called his "prescription" for the "medicine which has cured Hungary" after 2002-2010, when the country had a socialist government.

Orban said that "a left-wing swamp dragged us down in 2002 in Hungary and the same thing happened to Donald Trump in 2020," after the incumbent U.S. president lost the election to Joe Biden.

The Hungarian leader said that the right wing must "play by our own rules" and that conservatives must "support the Church and the family because they are the core of the nation."

Orban said that the political right wing was based on economic rationality, with a society focused on work, not the abstract ideas that, he argued, characterize the left wing.

International convention for conservatives

Held in the modern Balna conference hall on the banks of the Danube, CPAC drew a crowd of international nationalists and populists.

Eduardo Bolsonaro, the third son of the right-wing Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, attended the conference, along with Vaclav Klaus, the former president of Czechia.

Nigel Farage, the former leader of the nationalist UKIP party and one of the figureheads of the Brexit movement which successfully campaigned for the UK to exit the European Union, made a virtual address.

One of the most talked-about appearances was from Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who joined via video link. On Thursday, Orban described Carlson as his "friend."

The two men have bonded over their shared conservatism, with Carlson making a trip to Hungary last year.

They have also both highlighted what is known as the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory, which alleges there is a plan by global elites to replace white Americans and white Europeans with non-white immigrants.

The ideology was cited by the gunman who killed 10 people when he opened fire last week in a supermarket in a mostly black community in the city of Buffalo, in New York state.

Speaking in Buffalo on May 17, Biden called the theory a "perverse ideology" and "a lie."