In last month’s presidential debate, Kamala Harris bested her Republican rival on a variety of fronts, but one point seemed especially brutal. “I have traveled the world as vice president of the United States,” the Democratic nominee said, “and world leaders are laughing at Donald Trump.”

Given a chance to respond, Trump clung to a curious defense. “Let me just tell you about world leaders,” he replied. “Viktor Orbán, one of the most respected men — they call him a strongman. He’s a tough person. Smart. Prime minister of Hungary.”

In other words, the former president wanted to present proof that he wasn’t an international laughingstock, and he immediately touted the support he has received from Orbán — a Russia-aligned leader who has aggressively chipped away at Hungary’s democracy.

Trump’s rhetoric was not, however, surprising: He has spent months turning to Orbán for validation, publicly celebrating him, having private conversations with the Hungarian and even welcoming Orbán to Mar-a-Lago. The more the prime minister’s authoritarian takeover of his country generated international outrage, the more Trump extended his over-the-top support to the prime minister.

His running mate has made similar comments. As recently as May, for example, JD Vance appeared on CBS and said the United States “could learn from” Orbán when it comes to targeting universities. (It fell to “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan to remind the Ohio senator that the Hungarian strongman has “seized control of state universities” and put them under the control of foundations run by his allies.)

But as unsettling as the GOP ticket’s embrace of Orbán is, it would be a mistake to assume the entirety of the party is aligned with the prime minister. The Hill reported over the weekend:

Five Republican senators issued a joint statement Friday questioning Hungary’s ties to Russia, as the nation tightens relations with China and its war on Ukraine nears the three-year mark. “Our delegation and many of our congressional colleagues are increasingly concerned by Hungary’s deepening and expanding relationship with Russia and the continued erosion of its democratic institutions,” the senators wrote, according to the statement, shared on social platform X by U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman.

The five Republican signatories were Arkansas’ John Boozman, Maine’s Susan Collins, Texas’ John Cornyn, North Dakota’s John Hoeven and Kansas’ Jerry Moran.

The joint statement was no doubt well received by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has gone to extraordinary lengths to try to drag his party away from Orbán.

It was five months ago, for example, when the Kentucky Republican, still hoping to salvage what remains of the GOP’s traditional foreign policy vision, condemned Orbán and urged fellow conservatives to reject the far-right strongman. McConnell pushed the same line in July, reminding his party that Orbán is “completely in bed with the Chinese and the Russians.”

A few weeks ago, the Senate Republican reiterated the message, declaring, “I’ve spoken before about Hungary’s decadelong drift into the orbit of the West’s most determined adversaries. It’s an alarming trend. And nobody — certainly not the American conservatives who increasingly form a cult of personality around Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — can pretend not to see it.”

The letter from five senior GOP senators last week suggests that McConnell has allies within his party on the issue, but it’s clear that Trump and Vance are pushing in the opposite direction. Indeed, the more Orbán’s Republican critics denounce the Hungarian’s Russian ties and hostility toward democracy, the more one wonders whether Trump sees the criticisms as praise.

Either way, those looking for meaningful divisions in the Republican Party’s vision for the near future should start here.