As cuts to USAID have shined the spotlight on possible funds received by major media outlets such as Politico, BBC, and New York Times, it seemed a good time to take a look back at some of the left-liberal media attacks on Hungary, the false narratives pushed by the West, and how stupid they often made Orbán-haters look.
BBC has always been a serial offender in terms of trying to demonize Hungary.
Back in 2022, Stephen Sakur on BBC’s HARDtalk took on Hungarian FM Péter Szijjártó, this time to go after Hungary’s child protection law that protects children from gender ideology and gay education in schools.
“Look, the education regarding sexual orientation can definitely take place by professional staff, by authorized staff. What we ban is that activists of certain NGOs enter the schools and kindergartens and talk to our children without the permission and knowledge of (parents) about sexual orientation,” Szijjártó states.
Hungary’s Child Protection Act was in response to liberal groups seeking to introduce not only sex ed in primary grades but also the idea of trans surgeries and normalizing homosexuality, all of which the EU actively supports and other European countries have openly encouraged. Hungarian opposition and its law has led to Hungary being refused EU funds it is due from Brussels.
“No NGO, no NGO knows my kids, my sons better than I do. And I definitely stick to my right to conduct their education regarding sexual orientation and not an NGO in the school or in the kindergarten,” Szijjártó insists.
Another key topic liberal-funded outlets take aim at Hungary over is migration. As EU member states have recently been tightening their borders due to the spiraling problems with integration, education, and massive crime, Hungary was slammed with a €200 million fine, plus €1 million/day for having successfully protected its borders.
CNN’s Christiane Amanpour tried, as have many others, to justify the EU’s agenda and attacks on Hungary in an interview with FM Szijjártó a few years back. However, in asking what many considered a nonsensical question about Hungary not “actually having an immigration problem,” or, for that matter a crime or terrorism problem (see clip below), she only reinforced the very argument PM Orbán has continuously made, with Szijjártó asserting that, no, we don’t because we have rejected the policies you want to force on us.
For the 10th anniversary of Péter Szijjártó being Hungary's minister of foreign affairs and trade, we thought we'd post this clip of the FM reminding @CNN's @amanpour why Hungary does not have migrant crime or terrorism like other EU member states. pic.twitter.com/yCeJfyzyL3
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) September 25, 2024Yet another hot topic for Orbán-haters is the fact that he has been elected democratically multiple times.
Mainstream media routinely questions the legitimacy of Hungarian elections simply because of his conservative, anti-migration, pro-family agenda.
Politico has had Orbán in its crosshairs for years, with this famous headline back in 2015: “Europe’s new dictator — Hungary’s Viktor Orbán is making good on his promise to build an ‘illiberal state.’”
In a 2018 interview on BBC, Trump adviser Steve Bannon called out the faux outrage over the mandate of what was a democratically elected government. Slamming Western press for their “meltdown” over Orbán, Bannon said:
“The globalization project that you promoted was wrong, okay? It didn’t work. It’s time to embrace that. And when people in Hungary or in the Czech Republic or in Italy want to take their country back and want to get their sovereignty back and want to get their citizens back, it’s not the end of the world.”
Home to the CEE’s largest Jewish population, the Hungarian government under Orbán has also funded multiple initiatives to revive Jewish life and culture.
But again, Western media has striven to make Orbán out to be a Nazi.
Secretary of State for International Communication Zoltán Kovács called Politico out on X back in 2020 for claiming thousands of Jews were showing up at the American border due to having to flee persecution in Hungary.
Kovács then took to his blog to talk about the “correction” Politico finally came up with: “CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article inaccurately implied that thousands of Hungarians are arriving at the southern U.S. border. It has been updated accordingly.”
“POLITICO published something about Hungary that was patently untrue. When I called them on it and asked for a chance to reply, they ignored my request and attempted to cover it up with a disingenuous “correction”.
“The updated version still claims that Hungarians are among the thousands of Eastern Europeans who have fled to the US southern border,” he noted.
The truth is that Jews in Hungary are safer than most any other place in Europe, with both Germany and Czechia high on the list of countries where anti-Semitism is on the rise.
Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén has said Hungary is witnessing a Jewish renaissance following significant government support to the country’s Jewish organizations.
The Jewish News Syndicate even ran a story on Jewish life in Hungary in 2023 titled “Hungary’s Jewish renaissance — Reopened synagogues give Hungary’s Jews a chance to connect to their Jewishness, says Chabad Rabbi Shlomo Köves.”
The article noted a slew of synagogues finally reopening, with the rabbi in the headline pointing out that Jews in Budapest feel safe, and they have Orbán to thank for that — not just due to government funding seeking to revitalize Jewish life but due to the very immigration policies the liberal West and Brussels continuously attack.
“Köves credits Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s policies for the situation; In 2015, Orbán cracked down on Muslim immigration. ‘Those policies actually were a great advantage for the Jewish community because there’s no Muslim community in Hungary, and therefore, there are no Muslim extremists,’ he said,” we read in the article.
In the spring of 2024, Semjén met with Jewish and WJC leaders to discuss how to collaborate further in the future. WJC Executive Vice President Maram Stern also met with Hungarian Minister for European Union Affairs János Bóka.
Later that year, WJC featured their celebration of Chanukah in Budapest, with Bóka reaffirming Hungary’s commitment to continuing its fight against anti-Semitism and “protecting Europe’s Jewish heritage.”
“Fighting anti-Semitism will be one of the priorities of the Hungarian EU presidency. We can fight antisemitism effectively by supporting and raising awareness of Jewish life in Europe and by protecting Europe’s Jewish heritage.
“In Hungary, Jewish life and culture have deep roots, are diverse, develop organically and are an integral part of our Hungarian identity. We want to set an example for Europe,” he said.
And then there are the hundreds of Jewish Ukrainian refugees being housed at Lake Balaton…
The New York Times has also repeatedly pandered to the anti-Orbán crowd. In 2018, it ran a 2,500-word article on the front page entitled “As West Fears the Rise of Autocrats, Hungary Shows What’s Possible.” And once, again, Hungary was forced to point out the obvious.
“Dear New York Times: Hungarians are not stupid,” Zoltán Kovács entitled his response, pointing out that Western media has never been able to offer up proof of rigged elections and rely solely on staunch critics of the government for their information.
“I get it that a journalist has to talk to critics, but talking only to critics is journalistic malpractice. And when they do, the result is unsurprisingly a lopsided report that’s not becoming of the newspaper of record that the NYT once was,” he wrote.
Addressing why Hungarians perhaps vote for Fidesz, Kovács lamented the half-truths and outright lies regurgitated by Western press, as well as the ommissions: low unemployment, loan relief, the country’s restored credit rating, higher marriage rate — not to mention Hungarians’ positive opinion about the country’s strict migration policy, to name a few.
“If Prime Minister Viktor Orbán enjoys such strong popular support (and the opposition such dismal support) that he is predicted to win a third consecutive term, why is that?” Kovács asked before suggesting that media “talk to real people.”
Perhaps the loudest and most recent demonization campaign against Orbán has been over his pursuit of peace in Ukraine. For this, Western press has labeled him “Putin’s puppet,” “Putin’s ally,” and plainly stated he can no longer be trusted as a NATO ally.
The New York Times claimed Orbán was no longer a reliable NATO ally. “Orban Endangers Hungary’s Status as an Ally,” the paper quotes the then ambassador, David Pressman, who made it his personal agenda to attack Orbán at any and every turn.
This was funny, given Hungary has long stationed NATO troops. And it is even more funny as over the past few years, the U.S. and Hungary have had a series of agreements for U.S. forces to use Hungarian air bases, part of an original Defense Cooperation Agreement made by the two countries in 2019.
Politico again to an active role on this front. “Orbán has long been Putin’s most reliable ally in the EU, hampering efforts to provide support to Kyiv and echoing Moscow’s talking points around its full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” it wrote after Orbán had the nerve to meet Putin in person in his pursuit for peace.
The Times went blatant: “Time to evict Viktor Orban, Putin’s EU puppet — The illiberal Hungarian leader’s cosiness with Russia poses a grave threat to European Unity.”
Again, the irony is hilarious. Aside from other European leaders apparently being welcome, even expected, to hold in-person meetings or phone calls with Putin, there is the reality of continued energy dependence on Moscow. The only difference is that Orbán has been clear that despite actively diversifying Hungary’s resources, as well as upgrading the infrastructure as required for new suppliers of gas and oil, it has needed time — and simply still needs Russian gas.
Apparently, Hungary is not the only one. Slovakia has also been open about its reliance; Austria, not so much.
As Remix reported last August, one expert has pointed out what many don’t want to admit: While the EU and the G7 countries have banned Russian crude oil imports, European countries have no problem purchasing large quantities of oil from Turkey, with apparently no regard to its country of origin.
Alas, Orbán has remained the sole punching bag. A Foreign Policy piece last summer hit with the title: “How Orban Became Putin’s Pawn — Among all of Russia’s useful idiots, few have sought to make themselves more useful than the Hungarian prime minister.”
Quoted in the article is Peter Kreko, who works at George Soros’ CEU Democracy Institute as “a social psychologist and a disinformation expert.”
“Hungary is the extension of Russian foreign policy. At the moment, Orbán is [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s most useful idiot,” he says.
The article notes Kreko works at the “nonprofit, nonpartisan,” DC-based Center for European Policy Analysis, which is partially funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), known for “promoting democracy” around the world.
Kreko is also the director of Political Capital, another Soros OSF project, and head of the EC-funded hub against disinformation (HDMO-Lakmusz). Both HDMO-Lakmusz and Political Capital receive EU funding for their very vocal anti-Orbán agenda.
All this hate and constant media attacks stem from Orbán wanting to ensure gas supplies for his country (and many other countries continue to benefit from indirect Russian gas shipments) and stop the death and destruction in Ukraine.
However, perhaps Orbán’s most fatal sin has been his unwavering trust in Donald Trump to bring peace. In a video posted in 2022, he calls out former President Biden for “going too far” by calling Putin “a mass murderer” and “war criminal” who “must be overthrown.” He then said simply that the “brutal” truth is that only Trump can bring peace.
With Donald Trump now in the White House, will Hungary see a reprieve from the constant attacks? Many think so, and, in fact, there have been signs this will happen, namely Trump taking aim at U.S. funds going to fund organizations and outlets focused (shall we say obsessed?) on demonizing and ousting Orbán.
This has been music to the Hungarian government’s ears. And Orbán knows American taxpayers are happy too.
“A massive scandal has erupted in America, as the average American taxpayer is now confronted with the reality that their tax dollars, paid in the U.S., have been spent by the Liberal Democrat government on causes that they do not support at all, at home or internationally. Ultimately, what has happened is that the liberal global elite used the U.S. budget and government to finance its financial and ideological goals worldwide using with American taxpayers’ money.”
Orbán goes on to say that this was framed as “aid” but was really a “tool of political influence.”
