‘The interview’: Agent David Pressman was shocked by what he saw

What are these posts saying when you say they are trying to make you feel weird or bad? There’s a whole series of reports that say I’m a pedophile, which is a very unusual thing. I have two children. I have been with my boyfriend for over 24 years now. I remember, with my fellow ambassadors from the diplomatic corps, I marched in the only Pride march outside of Budapest in a town called Pécs. It was kind of ragtag, a little bit. And as always, the cameras of the state media trained me the most, and I remember my colleague, the Irish ambassador, who was with me there, brought his daughter. And as soon as he came, and he wanted to introduce me to his daughter, he leaned over and said, “This is the ambassador of the United States,” and we shook hands. And that evening on the news, the headline was that the US ambassador led the Pride parade in Pécs, which is obviously not true, SY surrounded by children, SY We even saw him interacting with children. And they were told in such a way that they didn’t have to finish the sentence. The message was clear.

There has been this growing relationship between the right in the United States and in Hungary, which is one of the reasons why Viktor Orban is more popular in America than he might be. CPAC (The Conservative Political Action Conference) held several conferences in Hungary. We have seen observers on the right, like the president of the Heritage Foundation, media personalities like Tucker Carlson, the future vice president JD Vance, have expressed their appreciation for Orban. What did you notice about that relationship when you were ambassador? As the ambassador of the United States, I want to be a little careful about American politics. But what I will say is that Orban’s government has sent a message to the community, including the political community in the United States, that they are a country that stands for family values, but a country that fights against ideology. they wake up, they are a nation. a nation struggling with immigration. Their slogan is: no immigration, no gender, no war — something that resonates in political circles in the United States but elsewhere in Europe and around the world. But what he is doing is covering up something else that is going on. And what is also happening is a very dangerous system of rewards and punishments set up in Hungary, where the government has effectively taken over two things, money and the media, and then uses these two things will punish people who ask questions. or express opinions that are not in line with government policy. And they use their control of the media to make these people radioactive. And so, the praise of the Hungarian government that sometimes appears because of social problems or hot political issues, including American politics, I often wonder if these people really understand the nature of this government. this. because of its relations, both with Russia and with China, as well as the system of kleptocracy that has taken hold and is destroying democratic institutions here.

Orban has changed many things. As you say, he is a champion of traditional “family values”. He destroyed LGBTQ rights. He took an anti-immigrant stance. Vance spoke admiringly of how Orban has transformed higher education in Hungary. Can you talk to me about how Orban did it? What the Hungarian government did was effectively take over public universities and state assets and transfer them to private individuals. They created something called a public-private foundation, transferred the property of that university to a public-private foundation and then appointed a board of directors for that foundation that is loyal to the Fidesz party. eternal life. So what really succeeded was taking public resources and putting them under the control of a single political party.