What were these articles saying when they said they were trying to make you look weird or rude? There are many reports suggesting that I am a pedophile, which is quite unusual. I am a father of two children. I have been in a relationship with my husband for almost 24 years. I remember walking in the only Pride march with my fellow ambassadors from the diplomatic corps in a town outside Budapest called Pécs. It was kind of small. As usual, the cameras of the government media were mainly focused on me, and I remember that my colleague, the Irish ambassador, who was with me, brought his daughter. He had just arrived and wanted to introduce me to his daughter and he leaned over and said, “This is the ambassador of the United States,” and we shook hands. The news that evening that the US ambassador was leading a Pride march in Pecs is, of course, absurd. and was surrounded by children, and we even saw him interacting with children. And they said in such a way that it is not necessary to finish the sentence. The message was clear.
There are growing links between the right in the United States and Hungary, and this is one of the reasons why Viktor Orbán is better known in America than he would otherwise be. CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) has held several conferences in Hungary. On the right, we've seen thinkers like the president of the Heritage Foundation, Tucker Carlson, media figures like the new vice president, JD Vance, admire Orban. What have you observed about this relationship during your time as ambassador? As the American ambassador, I want to be a little cautious when talking about American politics. But what I will say is that the Orbán government has broadcast to communities, including political communities in the United States, that they are a country that stands up for family values, that they are a country that fights against awakened ideology. country struggling with migration. Their slogan is: no migration, no gender, no war — things that resonate in political circles in the United States, but also in Europe and elsewhere in the world. But that confuses something else that's going on. And what else happened is a very dangerous reward and punishment system set up in Hungary, where the government took control of two things, money and the media, and then used those two things to punish people who asked questions. or expressing opinions inconsistent with government policy. And they use media control to make those people radioactive. And so sometimes some social issues or acute political issues, including admiration for the Hungarian government expressed in US politics, I often wonder if those people really understand the essence of what this government stands for. because of the system of kleptocracy that has invaded and destroyed democratic institutions, both in its relations with Russia and China.
Orban has really changed a lot. As you say, he's a champion of traditional, quote-unquote “family values.” It violates LGBTQ rights. He has adopted anti-immigrant positions. Vance spoke admiringly of how Orban has transformed higher education in Hungary. Can you tell me how Orbán did it? What the Hungarian government did was to effectively take over public universities and public assets and put them into private hands. They set up so-called public-private foundations, transferred all the assets of that university to a public-private foundation, and then appointed a board of trustees for the foundation loyal to the Fidesz party for life. So what he effectively did was to take public resources and place them under the unlimited control of a single political party.