The Tucker Carlson Show
Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orban on USAID, Trump, Immigration, NATO, and the Russia/Ukraine War
Fri, 14 Feb 2025
Hungary’s Viktor Orban is by far the longest serving head of state in Europe, and by this point has been vindicated on pretty much everything. So when he says that going forward it’s Ukraine, not Russia, that may be the biggest threat to the west, it’s worth paying attention. (00:00) Viktor Orban’s Predictions Were Right (02:40) USAID’s Actions in Hungary (04:29) Why Was USAID Spreading Transgenderism in Foreign Countries? (09:18) George Soros’ Mission to Destroy the West (11:16) Has This Mass Migration Policy Worked? (15:52) Orban’s Assessment of the German Economy and Its Impact on the US (23:26) Why Is the Destruction of Nord Stream Completely Ignored? Paid partnerships with: iTrust Capital: Get $100 funding bonus at https://www.iTrustCapital.com/Tucker Jase Medical: Promo code “Tucker” for extra discount at https://Jasemedical.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: How has Viktor Orban's leadership been vindicated?
I will introduce our next guest, who is the longest serving leader in Europe by far. And he is someone that I interviewed several years ago for the first time. He is, of course, the prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban. Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister. And I was just thinking back when I worked at a giant publicly traded news company and interviewed you for the first time.
You're a democratically elected leader of a European nation and it was considered controversial to interview you because your ideas were considered eccentric and they included emphasis on the middle class and families. They included above all secure borders, serving your citizens before you serve foreigners. And that was all considered super radical and dangerous.
And I wonder if you feel vindicated years later by watching what happened to the rest of Europe when they didn't follow those simple ideas.
So now we lost all the real attraction, what we have done previously, and Donald Trump take away all the attraction of the international politics. We have done something for 15 years in Hungary, in headwind, liberal headwind, stopping migration, defending traditional values, respecting religious communities, no Green Deal, low taxation.
So everything which is unorthodox in the mind of the liberals. So we were a kind of hero. We were a kind of island of difference in the liberal ocean. But now, unfortunately... Donald Trump taking over everything. So, yeah, just sitting and try to follow him now. This is a totally new reality.
And that's, may I say, very much helpful to Hungary because, you know, I try to make some jokes on how the last 15 years was, but it was serious. So when you have one boot from United States on your chest and one from Brussels, European Union, trying to kill you and to deliver evidences that that way of government and governance cannot work, it's difficult to survive.
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Chapter 2: Why is USAID's influence in Hungary controversial?
So now we remember back in a happy way, but that was very serious. So now at least one boost is out. The Americans not anymore on our chest, not kneeling on our chest. So it's an appeasement. So we think that life is happy and it will be even happier when we swept away the Brazilian bureaucrats and the other boost is down. That's the plan.
I remember one of your advisors telling me years ago, whispering to me at dinner that the US government, the State Department and agencies like USAID were working against you, funding your opposition indirectly and really trying to subvert democracy in your country and thinking, boys, can that be true? It turns out now it is true.
And I wonder when the rest of us are going to get details on what exactly the State Department did to end democracy in Hungary.
So first of all, I think those who love conspiracy theories are in trouble. They have to find new ones because the old one proved to be true. So that's the first probably. It's a massive problem in the United States. The second is that... You know, it's a taxpayer money.
Yes.
So if you take it, this whole thing, not as a political one, but rather as a moral issue. The fact is that the liberal elite of the West used the taxpayers' money of United States citizens to spread their ideology all around the world. And financed in Hungary more than 60 NGOs, paid politicians, media outlets, you know. So it was a... It was a plot against our sovereignty and independence.
Sorry, made by you. I know. Sorry. But this is the case. And the same has happened from the Brazilian budget, which is even more scandalous, may I say, because we pay the money in the Brazilian budget and they finance our enemies at home. So what's going on? So this is the liberal deep state, the global liberal deep state. And now we see how it has operated. It raises a deep question of motive.
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Chapter 3: What is George Soros' impact on Western societies?
Why would anyone want to spread, you know, deadly ideas like open borders or transgenderism? Hey, how about no grandchildren for you? How about, you know, nobody reproduces anymore? What would be the motive for spreading poison like that?
It should be not naive, I think so. One motivation is always money. So that was a way how the American Democrats thought they can open the gates for their business activity. If they change the governments which insisted on having sovereignty and standing and fight for themselves, it's more difficult to find business possibilities for those speculators. Soros is a Hungarian guy.
George Soros kind of speculators can find easier way to generate money and to make profit on your economy. So that's the number one motivation. But the second one, don't forget that leftists are always ideologically driven. And they believe certain things, which for us sounds crazy, even embarrassing, you know, frightening. But they believe it.
In Europe, probably it's difficult to understand, but I'm sure that the leaders of the left in Western Europe deeply convinced that if they let the migrants in, which are basically Muslims, poor Muslim persons, and let them to... to be combined with the traditional Christian society, and they manage a kind of integration, the outcome of this whole process will be a better and happier society.
And that's the reason why George Soros published his plan. It was signed by himself, saying that the European Union should let one million migrants every year to move to Europe. And then, you know, I always said that It belongs to the decision of the national government. So if the Germans or the French would like to make that historical research project, how to improve their society, let's do it.
But let us those who do not believe that the outcome will be a good thing, not to do that. So Hungary never tried to educate anybody how a society could be better or worse. We always said that, guys, let us to make our own decision. And to let migrants in or keep them out is exclusively belonging to our nations as a decision.
So don't force us from Brussels or from Washington that migration is good and those who are not let the migrants in definitely must be bad guys. So this is unacceptable. But that was the thing. But Donald Trump changed the mindset of the West. I think this is the key issue. So probably Donald Trump president will change the geopolitics as well. I hope so anyway.
But he already made a huge change in the mindset of the political thinking of the West. Previously, they said migration is good. To resist to migration is bad. Now it's just the opposite. To defend your interest is good. Migration, illegal migration especially, is bad. Then on the Green Deal... They said green is good, economic competitiveness does not count.
Now it's obvious that economic competitiveness first and green issues just the second. And then on religious communities and values, Christianity in our case, you know, it was said that this belonged to the middle age. They made us ridiculous several times, making jokes on us and so on. But now the president said it's a respectful thing.
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Chapter 4: Has mass migration benefited Europe?
So I'm a fascist, you know, I'm sitting here like... I'm a bad guy. I'm a fascist. I'm middle-aged, feudalistic, Christian radicals. Who is arguing for peace, which is the worst thing. That's absurd, may I say.
So this has been going on since the end of the last big war, so 80 years, particularly migration. And so I think we can render some judgment. How has that worked for the big nations of Europe, for Britain, Germany, France? Can we look back and say that experiment was a success?
You mean migration? Migration. Unrestricted migration. So we are living in, okay, under liberal dictatorship intellectually, but politically still we are living in democracies. So public opinion counts. And I think now we have a problem of democracy because of the migration. It's not just a problem of migration, problem of democracy.
Because if you have an elite which is not ready to accept the obvious public will of your voters, instead of accepting that forcing against the population their own crazy ideas, it raised the problem of democracy. So that's where we are, because now there's a quite strong shift in the mindset of the Western societies. Previously, at the beginning of the mass migration period, I'm speaking about
2015, 2016, there were half and half of the societies, even probably more than half was in favor of doing something good in favor of those who were considered as refugees. Then slowly but surely turned to be that they are not refugees, basically. They're changing their place. There are some of them refugees, but basically the majority of them would like to get a better life, simply.
And they are organized by smugglers. It's an international black business, you know, so it's an awful business. And now the terrorism somehow related to this whole changes just come up to the surface. It's never happened earlier. Terrorism was not part of the Western life anyway. If I remember back, the last one was in the 70s, some crazy communist Marxist group of Germany.
But after that, you know, terrorism is not part of the Western life. Violence of public life does not belong to us. But now terrorism is up. Public order is dispersing. So now the society is against the mass migration policy. So we'll comment culture, as it was called by Angela Merkel. Now it's totally negative.
And the problem is that the elite was so much committed to that ideology that now it's difficult to change their position. And that leads us to the problem of democracy. As we will see in Germany just soon, election is coming two weeks time. And you probably have realized that there were some surprising discussion in the German parliament whether to change the migration regulation or not.
And the public opinion said, 70% said, yes, you should change it. And they voted against it. So it's a problem of democracy. It's not just a problem of migration. It's not a problem of leadership. The whole structure and the system is under pressure at this moment.
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Chapter 5: What challenges does the German economy face?
And they were managed to stop all the voices which tried to raise the question, which is a serious one anyway. But anyway, it's not the only one. I do remember some other scandals as well. Beginning of the previous decade, it turned out that the United States, democratic government anyway, taped the Chancellor of Germany. And we were discussing it at the European Council meeting.
Sarkozy, who was the president of France at that time, said, guys, what a scandalous thing is that? We have to do that. The Germans said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Transatlantic creation is the most important thing we have to manage, not in that way, and so on. So that's an alliance between the transatlantic elites from America and the European Union.
It hasn't helped, I don't think, the European Union.
So probably that was your sentence, not mine. If a country is not ready to stand up and fight for himself, it does not deserve any help from outside.
I couldn't agree more. But I also think, and tell me, I'd love your perspective on this. It's my instinct that the fortunes of Europe, the economic fortunes of Europe, security condition of Europe, really matters to the United States because it's just inexorably, it's fundamentally part of a block. It's the West. So if Europe declines, I don't see how that helps the U.S.
I think the approach of the new incumbent administration of the United States has a very special approach to the other economies. And this is based on facts and figures and concentrates on trade balances. And as far as I was able to understand the way of thinking of this new administration in your country, they see a triangle, Europe, China, United States. And they have a look at the figures.
And Europe make plus 200 billion of trade with United States. We lose the same sum to China. So it's basically Europe is zero. And European Union make... 200 billion euro plus the trade with you, United States, and you lose to China 300. So it means that Europe is basically a zero, China plus 500 billion, United States minus 500 billion. And as your president said, it's not good, it's bad.
So something should be done. And he will do something. He is not, probably the new administration is not thinking about geopolitical concepts of economy, but you know, figures, facts. And they would like to do something to improve the trade balance. And that's a challenge for Europe. So it's a serious matter. It's not about friendship. It's not about, you know, love each other, brother in arms.
That's very nice, but it's money. It's figures. So we have to find a solution and to make a deal with the United States. If Europeans are just sitting and waiting... That's not a good strategy. We should come up with a strategy and to provide something, a deal, proposals to the United States to how to reshape that kind of imbalanced trade relationship.
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Chapter 6: Why is the Nord Stream incident ignored?
Nobody is sharing of that. We do it and we kill our industry. So if you would like to have a good green policy, you need the business, the business leaders, and the common strategy. That's the only way. Otherwise, we end up as we are today.
So both the structures that overlay Europe, NATO, and the EU seem like they've played out or they're not working as intended. I think we can say that.
And the problem is that the European institutions cannot reform it, cannot provide leadership because it's a strange creature of the European Union. So the only possibility to have a leadership if the French and the German government is strong, stable, visionary, and take the lead. Right. which is not the case at this moment.
So why not a different structure with an alliance of countries that have something in common, a common worldview, similar economies, say, east of Switzerland, central and eastern Europe, and then sort of let... You know, France and Britain sort of enjoy the fruits of the decisions that they've made.
So we have a strategy anyway. Hungary, that's my job anyway. We have a strategy, of course. And Central European leaders have their own strategy. So our main criticism to the European Union at this moment, that they launch wars with everybody who could be important partners for your economy. We launch a war on ideology, Donald Trump, President Donald Trump.
We launch a war with China on trade issues. We initiated the tariff war with China. And then we launch a war with Russia on energy. So why is it a good policy? In Central Europe, we did just the opposite. We built up a good relation with the new Republican administration. 44% of all European investment from China arrived to Hungary last year. 44% of all European.
And we maintained the communication and cooperation even with the Russians. So connectivity is the word, not blocking. The European Union tried to build a block instead of running a strategy based on connectivity and do a common sense-based business with everybody who can provide something good for the European Union. But Central Europe does exactly what I'm saying about.
Slovaks do it, Hungary do it, Serbia do it.
There's a famous – the first famous picture of you is from 1989 getting arrested by Russian-backed security forces. You were a student protest leader against the effective Russian occupation of your country in Eastern Europe. So with that in mind, I've listened for the past three years to you denounced as a Putin puppet in our press. What's your response to that? Are you? I don't know.
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