Speaking to Fox News last night, US Vice President JD Vance said supporting Orban in this unprecedented way was necessary to protect American interests. "When you see a European bureaucrat go after an American company, sometimes the only vote no, the only vote to protect that American interest, has been Viktor Orban,” he said.

I challenge Vance to find even one instance of Hungary being the only vote no in the EU's bicameral legislature against an EU law the White House perceives as targeting American companies like the DSA or the CSDDD.

There isn't one. Orban's one-man vetoes have been focused on blocking EU aid to Ukraine, something the White House has claimed they are demanding the EU do instead of the US helping Ukraine. How is blocking EU aid to Ukraine helping the American interest?

It's clear JD Vance has no idea how the EU works. He either doesn't know or doesn't want to point out that there is a directly-elected European Parliament that crafts and approves EU laws. And that the conservatives who sit in it are happy to vote en masse to help out the American companies who lobby them so fiercely. And they've just dutifully done so to approve von der Leyen's omnibus proposals.

The White House has so desperately and unprecedentedly supported Orban not because his government stops specific "anti-US" EU laws but because he has worked tirelessly to generally weaken the EU. They are terrified of seeing a strong EU develop that could stand up to the United States and Russia, becoming an independent sovereign power.

With Orban's defeat, Moscow and Washington have lost one of their main tools for keeping the EU weak.