Hungarian MEP and First Vice-Chair of Patriots for Europe (PfE) in the European Parliament, Kinga Gál, will attend Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony on Monday. Gál announced the news on her X account, adding that she will also participate in pre-inauguration events alongside PfE President Santiago Abascal.
‘Although the temperature in Washington is freezing, the atmosphere at the pre-inauguration events is all the warmer, as is the reception of the Patriots’ delegation by our American friends. The aim of these meetings is to deepen and strengthen cooperation between European patriotic parties and our American friends,’ Gál wrote on X on Saturday. She also shared a photo of herself, Abascal, and Hungarian Ambassador to the United States Szabolcs Takács in Washington.
Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th President of the United States on Monday, and, true to form, his second inauguration will be unconventional in many respects. Due to dangerously cold weather, the ceremony will take place indoors at Washington’s Capital One Arena, a venue with a capacity of just over 20,000. This poses logistical challenges given that around 220,000 tickets have been sold. The last president to be sworn in indoors was Ronald Reagan in 1985, also due to extreme cold.
Trump is further breaking tradition by inviting foreign leaders to his inauguration. According to media reports, Argentinian President Javier Milei and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni are expected to attend. A list of invited heads of state and government has been circulating in international media since December last year, also including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán among others.
As reported by Hungarian Conservative, Zoltán Kovács, State Secretary for International Communication and Relations, clarified last week that no Hungarian officials had received an ‘official’ invitation for the ceremony. Instead, PM Orbán will attend a conference on the achievements of Hungary’s EU Presidency on Monday, coinciding with Trump’s inauguration.
European representation at the inauguration will largely consist of European Parliament political group leaders and party heads. Besides the Patriots for Europe delegation led by Gaál Kinga and Santiago Abascal, European Conservatives and Reformists’ newly elected president, former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, and French right-wing publicist and politician Éric Zemmour are expected to attend. Among MEPs, French ECR lawmaker Marion Maréchal and Sarah Knafo of the Europe of Sovereign Nations group are also slated to be present in Washington.
The guest list is notable for another reason: it includes several tech billionaires and representatives of major tech giants, many of whom were once vocal critics of Trump. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Apple’s Tim Cook are all reportedly attending. This high-profile participation has contributed to Trump’s inauguration fundraising a record-breaking $170 million as of 8 January, with experts estimating the total could exceed $200 million by the time the ceremony unfolds. For comparison, outgoing Democrat President Joe Biden raised just $61.8 million for his 2021 inauguration.
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