ANALYSIS — President Donald Trump hosted a potentially term-changing meeting Friday at the White House. No, it wasn’t about ending the longest government shutdown in American history. Trump did not extend invitations to Republican and Democratic lawmakers to try using the power of his office to reopen the government — even as some Americans missed paychecks, scrambled due to delayed benefits or seethed over canceled flights. Instead, he hosted one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who came eager to broker a meeting between the two superpower leaders that he might host, aimed at ending Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Pressed Friday on whether he would pursue a deal with Democrats to end the government shutdown, Trump seemed open to it, after mostly slamming the minority party for months. But he still said Democrats were "very destructive for the country." Every president’s schedule is a choice. And, like a budget plan, each day’s public schedule is its own policy statement. On Friday, the “America First” president opted to cap the shutdown’s fifth full week by focusing on global affairs, just as he recently chose to spend a week in Asia as the shutdown dragged on. The high-stakes meeting with Orban also exemplified Trump 2.0’s preference to work around Congress — at times, the president, who's looked and sounded tired since returning from a Wednesday day trip to Miami, has seemed disinterested in even considering doing deals with lawmakers. Since he signed Republicans’ sweeping spending and tax law known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Trump has vacillated between telling GOP members he doesn’t need them to send him any more major legislation this term to pressing Republicans senators to overhaul chamber rules to “do our own bills” because “we have three-and-a-quarter years — that's a long time.” If Trump has a legislative strategy for the 12-month run to the 2026 midterm elections, he and his team have done a bang-up job camouflaging it. But his foreign policy plate, by choice, runneth over. Enter Orban, eager for everything, from a closer relationship with Trump to exemptions from Russian energy sanctions to a side deal to offset the American president’s tariffs on the European Union — and, by the way, possible international shine as an unlikely Ukraine peacemaker. Here are three takeaways from Friday's Trump-Orban meeting. Learning from Orban Trump took questions from reporters for the third time since Tuesday, when Republicans lost closely watched races in New York City, New Jersey, Virginia and California. Democrats and political analysts have attributed those losses, in large part, to Trump's handling of the economy or the poor Republican messaging on the issue, which polls show remains top of mind for most voters. But, alongside Orban in the White House’s Cabinet Room, Trump went hard on perhaps his top issue: illegal immigration. “Victor has had a very hard stance on more than anything else, immigration or even illegal immigration," Trump said, adding that other European countries could "learn" from the Hungarian leader. “He literally has accepted no one over the years. Think of how much greater these countries would be if they didn't have … the tremendous crime that has come in with the immigration, people just flowing into Europe — they've got to stop it and not only stop it, they have to reverse it,” the president said. “They have to get them out. We've done that here. We have zero people coming in now the borders are closed.” Later, Trump responded to a reporter's question on still-high prices by touting his administration's record on job creation. And he repeated his claim that lower energy prices eventually will bring down the price of everything else. The president’s approval ratings fell to 37 percent, according to a recent CNN/SSRS survey, the lowest of his second term in the outlet's polling. Sixty-three percent of Americans disapproved. The election losses, coupled with his weak poll numbers, have raised questions about Trump’s political coattails heading into 2026. “Trump's marks on that all-important indicator were decent throughout his first term, but they haven't been in this go-round,” Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics said in a Wednesday email, referring to the president’s approval rating. “Trump's overall approval has been better in 2025 than in 2017, but his numbers have sagged a bit lately. We'll see if that lasts — Trump's approval rating has a way of finding its level,” Kondik added. “And it wouldn't surprise me if he bounced back to some degree in the coming months — not to 50 percent, but maybe to 45 percent.” ‘They’re crazy’ Trump on Friday was steadfast on his stance on the government shutdown. “We have a shutdown, as you probably know, because the Democrats have gone, they're crazy, they're crazy, but they don't care if they hurt the country. ... We've approved an opening up 14 times, and they keep rejecting it, and I guess maybe they will again,” he said, referring to Senate votes on a House-approved stopgap funding measure. The president has been purposely detached from negotiations among rank-and-file Republican and Democratic senators since before the shutdown began on Oct. 1. He wants Senate Republicans to terminate the legislative filibuster, allowing them to reopen the government without Democratic help and then begin passing conservative-backed legislation through the midterms. To that end, Trump on Thursday night deferred to Vice President JD Vance when asked about a federal judge ordering the administration to pay the full value of federal food benefits in November. “It's an absurd ruling, because you have a federal judge effectively telling us what we have to do in the midst of a Democrat government shutdown. Which what we'd like to do is for the Democrats to open up the government. And of course, then we can fund [the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program],” Vance said during a working dinner with five Central Asian leaders. “And we can also do a lot of other good things for the American people. But in the midst of a shutdown, we can't have a federal court telling the president how he has to triage the situation,” Vance added. “We're trying to keep as much turned on. We're trying to keep as much going as possible.” ‘Different position’ Trump on Friday appeared willing to let Orban slide on purchasing Russian oil, despite U.S. sanctions on Moscow’s energy sector. The U.S. leader contended that Hungary's geography made buying Russian oil a necessity. "They don't have the advantage of having sea," Trump said. "They don't have the ports. And so they have a difficult problem." But he made no similar exception for other European countries. “Many of those countries, they don't have those problems, and they buy a lot of oil and gas from Russia. And, as they know, I'm very disturbed by that, because we're helping them, and they're going and buying oil and gas from Russia,” Trump said. For his part, Orban said he and Trump would “negotiate” on the matter. On the Russia-Ukraine war, Orban described the conflict as an "enormous mistake" after using part of his opening statement to criticize the Biden administration. "Everything was ruined after your leaving, Mr. President," Orban told Trump. "Everything was basically blocked, ruined, canceled. A lot of harm done by the previous administration." On assisting Trump's desire to end the war in Ukraine, Orban offered a helping hand. He said that he "absolutely" understood his counterpart's "devotion" to ending the fighting and that he was in Washington to be as helpful as he could be to "contribute to the peace efforts of the president."
