Prime Minister Viktor Orbán sat down for an hour-long interview with famed American political commentator Tucker Carlson for the first-ever ‘Tucker Carlson Summit’, a side event of the World Governments Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on 13 February. The footage of the interview was released the next day, 14 February.
Prime Minister Orbán commenced his part by saying that for the last four years, two boots, ‘the boot of Brussels and the boot of the United States’ were pressing down on ‘the chest of Hungary’, and he feels very relieved that at least the latter has been lifted with the election victory of President Donald J Trump.
President Trump has taken action against USAID in the first few days of his presidency, which used American taxpayer money to spread the ideology of the leftist elite worldwide, as Prime Minister Orbán put it, and has funded opposition parties, NGOs, and media in Hungary as well, he shared.
As for the aspirations of the previous US administration, PM Orbán stated that they wanted to get rid of governments who insist too much on their sovereignty, for both financial and ideological reasons. As he explained, there is a part of the Western elite who does believe in sincerity that importing migrants en masse from Muslim-majority countries and entwining them with Christian culture would provide a beneficial outcome to European countries—Prime Minister Orbán, evidently, begs to defer on that.
The Prime Minister has also told the audience that ‘Donald Trump has changed the political thinking of the West already,’ with issues like mass migration, green transition, and opposition to traditional families being helplessly unpopular across Europe. Migration used to be a 50–50 issue in the West when it originally rose to prominence in the EU in 2015, he explained. However, by now, ‘the Wilkommen culture is over,’ and the popular opinion opposes it in all Western European countries.
He then went on to share his concerns about the European economy. 30 years ago the EU economy used to be the number one in the world, he recalled, but now it is only ranked third. ‘The European Union is not a success story economically,’ PM Orbán declared.
Right now, he added, they are engaging in an ideological war with the US and President Trump, a trade war with China, and an energy war with Russia, which does not seem to be helping the case either. He also cited the Draghi report on EU competitiveness, which, as he put it, concludes that ‘if you don’t make Europe competitive, especially by creating a capital market at the European Union level, the European economy is over.’ He urges the European nations to go the way of connectivity like Hungary did, and invite foreign capital investment from the East as well.
The latter half of the discussion revolved around the Russo–Ukrainian war.
Prime Minister refuted the Western mainstream media allegations of him being Vladimir Putin’s puppet by saying: ‘I’m not a pro-Putin guy, I’m a pro-Hungarian guy.’ He also proclaimed: ‘This war is not about Ukraine, it’s about NATO expansion.’ Russia has reluctantly accepted that the former Soviet countries in Central Europe have become part of NATO, but it will never accept Ukraine becoming one right on its Western border, PM Orbán warned.
‘This war is not about Ukraine, it’s about NATO expansion’
The Prime Minister revealed that because of the war and the sanctions, Hungary is losing about €7 billion a year. Meanwhile, the European Union has spent about €200 billion on the war in total since the start. He warned that if the leaders do not find a quick resolution to the conflict: ‘this could become the Afghanistan of Europe,’ referring to the US–Afghan war from 2001 to 2021.
He also lauded the Ukrainian people, who heroically resisted the Russian invaders without capitulating thus far. However, the end could be very near, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán believes to President Putin and President Trump could come to a ceasefire resolution within the next six months. ‘Strong men make peace, weak men make war,’ the Prime Minister stated.
Watch the Viktor Orbán–Tucker Carlson Interview in Its Entirety Below
Related articles:
