Rep. Mike Waltz says Orbán “clearly has a good relationship” with Trump amid Russia-Ukraine discussions

Rep. Mike Waltz, the Florida Republican who is Donald Trump’s pick for his national security adviser, said Sunday that the president-elect has a good relationship with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who he said also has “regular engagement” with Russia amid its war with Ukraine. 

“Orbán has regular engagement with the Russians, and he clearly has a good relationship with President Trump,” Waltz said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.” “I would hope the entire world would want to see some type of cessation to the slaughter that is happening in eastern Ukraine.”

Orbán, an authoritarian leader with ties to Russia, met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago last week, along with Waltz and Elon Musk. Days after the meeting, Orbán announced that he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that “we are taking every possible diplomatic step to argue in favor of a ceasefire” and peace talks. He later appeared to float a Christmas ceasefire and a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine.

Waltz wouldn’t say whether Orbán’s message to Putin came out of the meeting with Trump. But he noted that “we’re going to continue to talk,” and that “President Trump’s made it clear he wants this war to stop.”

“We need to stop the fighting,” Waltz said. “If that is some type of ceasefire as a first step, again, we’ll take a hard look at what that means.”

Trump has repeatedly pledged that he would end the war between Russia and Ukraine immediately upon returning to the White House while claiming that Putin would never have invaded the country if he were president. Waltz said that since Trump’s victory in the election, the framework of discussion with world leaders surrounding the war between Russia and Ukraine has shifted to talk of how the conflict comes to an end. 

“How do we end this conflict? How do we do it in a way that restores stability, stops the carnage, and hopefully makes this a permanent end, not just a pause?” Waltz said. “Those are all things that we’re thinking through.”

The meeting with Orbán came after Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Dec. 7 in Paris after which Trump called for an immediate ceasefire and for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to begin. 

Zelenskyy said following the president’s statement that the war “cannot simply end with a piece of paper and a few signatures.” And though he said he had a “good meeting” with Trump, he warned that a ceasefire “without guarantees can be reignited at any moment.” 

The Biden administration announced last week it would be sending another package of weapons to Ukraine, valued at $500 million, according to Reuters. Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova, also appearing on “Face the Nation” on Sunday, said that her country’s ability to fight off Russian forces is “still a question of artillery and weapons and air defense, most importantly, and the more we can have, the faster we can- the more efficiently we can defend.”

But Markarova noted “we are not asking for other troops. Ukrainians are still capable of defending our own country. We’re asking for the military support.”