JD Vance stumps for Hungary’s Orbán
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover the White House. And NPR's Rob Schmitz is with us. Hey, Rob.
Hey, guys.
So today on the show, Vice President J.D. Vance is just back from a campaign rally to drum up support ahead of upcoming elections. Except the elections are not in the United States. He was in Hungary attending events to support the country's prime minister, Viktor Orban, as he seeks reelection this month. Rob, I want to start with you because you're in Budapest right now. Tell us about Orban.
Viktor Orban is Europe's longest-running prime minister. He's been in power for more than 15 years straight after serving four other years as prime minister in the late 90s. He is famous for his populist nationalist far-right politics. He's friends with Vladimir Putin. He is a staunch enemy of the EU, and he rails against the European Union on an almost daily basis. And he... is also known for another thing and that's his corruption. He has well-documented cases of corruption, of giving money to his friends and family, doling out government contracts to them. He's also famous for chipping away at Hungary's democratic institutions, including the judiciary. He has consolidated the media and he's attacked civil society and also universities inside of Hungary.
Let's talk a little bit more about that corruption you mentioned, Rob. What does that look like?
Well, despite the fact that the media in Hungary has been mostly consolidated, there amazingly remains some independent journalists in this country that are continuing to do some extremely good work. And we're seeing more and more stories about Orbán's connections to not only his corruption side of Hungary, and that is almost like a familial network of oligarchs that he's helped over his many years as prime minister, but also his government's relationship with Russia. We've seen in recent weeks leading up to this election that leaked audio of conversations between Orban's foreign minister and his counterpart in Russia, Sergei Lavrov, where Orban's foreign minister was promising to help Lavrov.
He was basically promising to give him internal documents from the EU so that they could be prepared when they go into negotiations, both with the US and the EU over the war in Ukraine.
And yet he's been in office for a very long time.
What prompted JD Vance to campaign for Viktor Orbán in Hungary?
I mean, his base is very supportive of him. And I think it's, you know, it's his stance on both his anti-Europe stance, I would say, anti-liberal politics stance, as well as his stance on immigration. He's a staunch anti-immigration platform, and he's always had that. And in many ways, he's become a leader of the far right throughout Europe in his years as prime minister of Hungary.
So he, as we said, faces re-election. And it isn't a slam dunk this time. There seems to be a real threat that he could lose.
Yeah, the economy in Hungary has slipped over the past four or five years in his last term in office. A lot of that actually has to do with the fact that the European Union has cut billions of dollars worth of funding that happened in 2022. And that is because of all of the the assault he's basically had on the country's democratic institutions. So the economy is not doing well. And also there has risen a political figure named Peter Magyar. And he is a younger, also a conservative politician from Orban's very Fidesz party. He was originally a Fidesz politician and now runs his own party called TISA. And he is ahead in the polls. And this is a big threat to Orban's longtime rule.
One of the sort of fascinating things about all of this that I can see from my very U.S. stance is a phrase you often see political scientists say about Hungary is that its style of rule right now under Orban is competitive authoritarianism.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:10
2
What prompted JD Vance to campaign for Viktor Orbán in Hungary?
3:10–5:13
3
Who is Viktor Orbán and what is his political significance?
5:13–10:25
4
What controversies surround Viktor Orbán's governance in Hungary?
10:25–20:22
5
How is the Hungarian economy performing under Orbán's leadership?
20:22–22:11