Michael Weiss

They went to the polls because the state of Hungary's economy was in ruin.

The relationships that Hungary had created with next door neighbors, Poland, Ukraine, but also with Brussels and also, frankly, with the United States, because it was really creepy what Orban has done.

I mean, Maillard has said that or alleged that CPAC was financed.

by the Hungarian state.

That's kind of a big deal, isn't it?

I mean, this kind of nexus between MAGA and what was seen as the hub or ground zero of the populist reactionary right in Europe, that's now over.

So just bringing the temperature down on some of these interactions is going to be very, very helpful.

And, you know, it means that sanctions packages will not be blocked.

The Hungarians will not shake down Brussels for subsidies.

The Hungarians will not do the bidding of the Kremlin.

And Hungarians may even have good bilateral relations with the Ukrainians.

You know, Orban, his sole campaign was, my opponent is a Ukrainian agent, and if you vote for him, it's World War III.

It is, yeah.

I mean, so vsquared.org is one of the outlets that was responsible for kind of breaking these stories about, you know, Hungarian-Russian collusion.

Xabi Panyi, who's my colleague, had to flee the country because his reporting exposing this relationship between Siarto and Lavrov

led to Orban and his government accusing Shabby of being a Ukrainian spy.

And there was an investigation open to him.

And they had already put Pegasus software on his phones.

They'd already surveilled him.

They treated him as an enemy of the people, right?