Orbán: All the American money that has been coming into Hungary must be examined
Most Friday mornings, Hungary’s Prime Minister gives an interview on one of the public radio stations. Since the independent media has not had a chance to interview him for several years, these weekly radio interviews provide a rare opportunity for finding out what the leader of the country thinks about current events, how he sees his opponents and any issues at hand.
In this week’s edition of his semi-regular radio appearance, the Hungarian Prime Minister first spoke about increasing pensions, and the government’s plans to support small businesses.
After discussing the Hungarian economic outlook, the conversation turned to the recent measures introduced by US President Donald Trump. "The Democrats destroyed things, and all of that needs to be fixed now", Orbán said, adding that "we now have many friends in the US administration", and that an economic action plan is being developed to fix all these problems.
"This is a huge opportunity for those who love peep shows, because they can now peek into the witch's kitchen of politics," he said, adding that the US president has decided to publish to whom and how much money various US government agencies have given in recent years, and the Trump administration has created an information platform to this end. According to Prime Minister Orbán, all the relevant data has been posted there.
"There's a huge scandal in America right now because the American taxpayers are finding out that the money they paid in has been spent by the liberal, Democratic administration on things that they don't support at all."
– the Prime Minister said, pointing out that they are going through the data line by line in America. "We are doing the same thing here, at home," Orbán added.
Orbán says people were paid from abroad to bring down the Hungarian government
"Week by week, we are getting a clearer picture of how the liberal, global elite has used the US budget and the US government to use the Americans to finance their goals around the world. Of course, this was presented as aid, but in reality it was a tool for exerting political influence," he said. Orbán said that those who received money received two kinds of US money. "They got moolah from Soros' foundations" and also from US government funds, he said. According to him, there was also a third source that entered Hungary because Brussels was also supporting the goals related to the "gender madness".
"Nobody gave a mandate to these NGOs in Hungary to do what they do. They even claimed that they were not involved in politics, but of course they only supported issues that were linked to left-wing parties, so media, media platforms, online communication, NGOs, all of which increased the power of the left, and all of them received this money with the objective of bringing down the government. So they were given the money to push these issues, to strengthen the opposition parties and to then bring down the government," Orbán said.
“In American parlance, these people are agents.”
– but he said that was not the right word, and "mercenary" was a bit archaic. In any case "we are effectively talking about people paid from abroad" and organisations whose job is to bring down the Hungarian government. "In the end, it always ends up on this," he said, citing the example of Politico, which he said had been "constantly bashing Hungary" in recent years.
"They constantly reviled me, for example, but it's not my person that's interesting, because nobody cares, but it's the fact that it’s the Hungarian prime minister. At the same time, the opposition candidates who pop up here and there were always included in all these image-building lists. Péter Márki Zay, or now Péter Magyar, as far as I can see, were included in the category of the most talented and promising politicians. They are building up these characters, making them known, trying to make them accepted and popular in the international arena and in Hungary. And this is what has now been exposed."
– the Prime Minister explained, and then, commenting on Donald Trump's measures affecting Europe, he said that the only way to defend Hungarian sovereignty is to "examine all the American money" that has been coming into Hungary.
Orbán would make the existence of organisations that have accepted US funds legally impossible
According to him, now that the US president has been on the move, the entire Soros network needs to be dismantled. "All the money coming from America must be made public and those who have accepted it must be sanctioned. Accepting money from abroad in order to influence Hungarian politics is not acceptable, and we will enforce this legally, and those who have participated in this will have to face legal consequences in the future," the Prime Minister said, adding that Hungarian sovereignty can best be defended when there is a sovereignist government in America.
“This is the moment to do away with these international networks, to wipe them out, to make their existence legally impossible.”
– Viktor Orbán concluded.
Viktor Orbán avoids critical questions at home. It’s been years since he gave an interview to independent media. However, for several years, most Friday mornings he has been a regular guest on state-owned Kossuth Rádió, where he is interviewed by a lead editor of the public broadcasting service (operating from an annual budget of 320 million euros). Katalin Nagy has been almost exclusively the one allowed to interview Orbán on the state-owned channel throughout his third and fourth term with a two-thirds majority in parliament. She has received the state decoration of the Cross of the Order of Merit of Hungary and doesn’t shy away from asking questions.