Rob Schmitz
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
He's always managed to survive.
It looks like he won't this time, but there's always a chance that he will.
And I think if that happens, or should this happen, I think there's a high probability of unrest, at least in the capital city of Budapest, where I sit.
Yeah, so I went to both the press conference that was held in a castle on a hillside that overlooks the Danube with both Orban and Vance.
And then I followed them to a pro-fidesz, which is Orban's party, a pro-fidesz rally.
Vance's message was similar at both venues.
He blamed the European Union for what he called interfering in Hungary's elections.
And his rationale was that because the EU is freezing funding to Hungary because of Hungary's backsliding on democratic principles, the EU is actually interfering in these elections.
So he was making that reasoning.
It was really interesting.
And then...
He got President Trump on the phone.
He spoke to this massive rally.
People were very excited about that.
and he also had this message of national sovereignty, that Hungary, because it fights against the EU, it can't let outsiders influence what happens inside of its own borders, even though, ironically, Vance was there to do just that, right?
So it was a very interesting message, and it sort of went all over the place.
There was one moment when
a Hungarian journalist.
She asked a question in Hungarian, and then she switched to English and asked Vice President Vance something to the effect of that Ukraine was interfering in the 2024 U.S.