Michael Weiss

I mean, I think a lot of it is just performative.

It's catering to an audience of one.

The word I heard from a source close to him is virtue signaling, which I didn't realize MAGA Republicans do now, but apparently they do.

That was his whole performance in Budapest.

Trump signaling, right.

After his speech in Budapest, in which he –

endorsed trump's endorsement of victor orban a sclerotic toad of a man who has overseen the complete ruin of hungary's economy made it completely reliant on russian oil and gas at a time when the eu with american encouragement and american insistence by the way is trying to cut off all ties with to russian energy which is used as a weapon of russian foreign policy

a man whose entire campaign platform is declaring Ukraine an enemy of Hungary and putting out all manner of AI slop about his opponent, who's a fellow conservative, Peter Magyar, including now apparently sexual compromise, which is coming down the pike.

I mean, Orban is a busted flush of a prime minister, but Trump loves him.

Does Marco Rubio like or love Viktor Orban?

No, I don't think he does.

And we know that he doesn't because in 2019, Rubio as senator-

co-signed a letter in which he decried the erosion of democracy and media rights and an independent judiciary in Viktor Orban's Hungary and called out Hungary, a NATO ally, for being, what, too close to Moscow.

So the problem you have with Rubio is...

You know, he's sort of this Vizier type in the court of the tyrannical king.

I'm not saying that he hasn't changed the stripes or that his political thinking hasn't evolved and probably evolved or devolved to a point that's a little bit closer to Trump.

But when it comes to things like Russia,

Rubio is under no illusions about who and what Putin is.

Right.

And he makes these little encoded gestures.