Hungary has ridiculed the mainstream media’s comparison of conservative-populist premier Viktor Orbán to Stalin and Pol Pot ahead of a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Prime Minister Orbán, a Cold War anti-Communist dissident and the first European leader to openly back President Trump, was re-elected for a third consecutive term with a parliamentary super-majority on a platform promoting Hungary’s national identity and Christian heritage over EU federalism and multiculturalism, and strong borders and support for the family and child-rearing over mass migration and state-sponsored diversity.
The platform was unpopular with European Union elites and the globalist commentariat on both sides of the Atlantic, however, and a long-anticipated meeting between Orbán and Trump has been met with a storm of condemnation from the left-neoliberal media — prompting a robust response from the Hungarian government.
“This week, if you’re to believe the East Coast liberal elite, Prime Minister Orbán not only does not belong in the Oval Office, he ‘dreams of liquidating the intelligentsia,’ you know, ‘like Pol Pot or Josef Stalin’,” wrote government spokesman Zoltán Kovács.
“I swear, you can’t make this stuff up.”
“Those gems above – that the [Hungarian prime minsiter] doesn’t belong in the White House and that PM Orbán equals Stalin – come to us thanks to the Washington Post and The Atlantic… the author of the WaPo article… an analyst at the [George] Soros-funded Human Rights First and a former Obama appointee to the [U.S.] State Department,” Kovács alleged.
“Readers would be disappointed if I didn’t bring up Soros, so here we go: Human Rights First is not only funded by George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, it is one of OSF’s so-called core grantees. That means they’re funded to produce writing and carry out advocacy against the Orbán Government and others like us who oppose their liberal agenda,” the government spokesman explained.
Kovács laid similar accusations against the Atlantic reporter, observing, “here’s the list of sources he quoted for the article: Michael Ignatieff, the [Central European University] rector; István Rév (also CEU), Balázs Trencsényi (CEU), Paul Lendvai, Péter Krekó, Judit Sándor (CEU), and an opposition activist named Imre Szijarto… what do all of the above have in common? I’ll give you one guess” — an apparent reference to the fact the CEU is funded by Mr Soros.
Curiously, Hillary Clinton — Mr Trump’s failed rival for the presidency, backed by much of the mainstream media in 2016 — has previously met with Prime Minister Orbán as Secretary of State for Barack Obama, appearing on stage with him against a backdrop of American and Hungarian flags — and occasioning little controversy.
The Orbán government’s relationship with the Obama-era State Department was not a happy one, however, and remained frosty for some time after Trump’s inauguration despite his warm words for the Hungarian leader.
The Hungarians believed that a £700,000 media fund allocated to Hungary by the State Department, in particular, amounted in effect to foreign interference on behalf of the political opposition, driven by a “liberal cabal” hostile to their government’s anti-globalist stance.
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