After former US Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman finally left the country earlier this week, one might have hoped his baseless attacks on the Hungarian government and democracy would cease. Unfortunately, that was wishful thinking.
Pressman’s plane had barely taken off from Budapest’s Liszt Ferenc Airport when he launched yet another attack against Hungary. This time, it came in the form of a major interview with The New York Times, the flagship of progressive mainstream media.
During the discussion, Pressman painted Hungary as if it were one of the world’s darkest dictatorships. ‘Hungary is a living example of how vulnerable democratic institutions are and how easy it is for leaders with bad intentions to control citizens,’ he claimed. Pressman regurgitated the usual left-wing accusations about judicial independence, academic freedom—which, ironically, has been under threat from the woke progressive side, as seen in the case of Balázs Orbán—media restrictions, and more. These tired arguments have been voiced by the left for years with little evidence to back them.
Pressman also claimed that concerns about Hungarian democracy are not confined to the Democratic Party but are bipartisan. Of course, it’s worth noting that those Republicans critical of Hungary are often the same figures who relentlessly attack President-elect Donald Trump, labelling him ‘authoritarian’. Trump himself has dismissed these critics as RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) and identified them as the party’s greatest enemy within. They hail from the same circles as Pressman, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and other progressive elites.
Pressman also spoke about the so-called ‘propaganda machine’ allegedly maintained by the Hungarian government, joking that he never imagined, upon his arrival in Budapest, that he would soon become Hungary’s most talked-about man. He accused the right-wing Hungarian media of marginalizing critical voices through personal attacks and disinformation.
‘Pressman accuses the Hungarian government of engaging in dirty practices he himself championed’
Conveniently, Pressman failed to mention that during his tenure, the US Embassy in Budapest used paid social media ads to attack the Hungarian government’s policies—whether on the opening of the East or the war in Ukraine. Nor did he acknowledge that the embassy distributed funding to left-wing media outlets ahead of Hungary’s 2022 parliamentary elections. Pressman accuses the Hungarian government of engaging in dirty practices he himself championed: using American taxpayer money to launch smear campaigns against a democratically elected ally government.
Balázs Orbán, the political director of the Hungarian Prime Minister, responded to Pressman’s latest accusations in a post on X: ‘It’s clear that @AmbPressman didn’t learn one important thing about Hungary during all his years here: we don’t take kindly to colonialism,’ he stated.
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