Miklós Szánthó: Peace talks in Washington, peace goals, strengthening bilateral economic relations – but perhaps there’s something else that connects the Prime Minister and Donald Trump. When Donald Trump became President, he announced his fight against the American Deep State. The Prime Minister regularly says that we don’t want to leave Brussels, the EU, but instead we want to occupy Brussels. These two structures are two sides of the same coin: the American Deep State and the Brussels Deep State are essentially the same structure, which seeks to bring sovereigntist politicians under its control. Or is it a coincidence that similar deep state mechanisms are at work here and over there?
The term “Deep State” is not a defined term for the general public in Hungary. This has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that everyone can think what they want about it, which is inspiring; and the disadvantage is that the discourse won’t be clear enough.
We can add a little explanatory text to the video about what the Deep State is.
I was trying to explain myself, Dear Miklós, so when I think about the Deep State what I wanted to say is that for me, the Deep State means two things, and it’s not certain that everyone – including you – thinks the same way. It means what it’s always meant in the classic sense: that there’s a bureaucracy that runs the machinery of state; they’re not elected, but are employed by the Government. And then there are elected leaders. The elected leaders come in, they want to set the course of events, perhaps in new directions. And those who are employed in the executive branch, who have been working according to the old practice, resist this – either out of laziness or convenience, because they disagree with the new direction, or because they’re committed to the former political leaders who lost the election. And that’s why the whole thing doesn’t work: the leader wants to take the state in one direction, and the state won’t go there. This is one way of looking at it. But in my mind there’s another way of looking at it: it’s the ring that surrounds the Government, which the Americans have been developing as their own invention since the 1980s. These foundations, this ring around power, may not be deep, but it can have a profound influence on the functioning of the Government – and, through it, on political leaders. What are Hungarians supposed to think about this? It can be summed up in one word: Soros. The Soros system, the Soros network, is, to my mind, a deep state structure because – often in collusion with bureaucrats – it hinders the success of non-leftist, non-liberal governments, whether in America or Brussels.
And are similar characteristics shown by the mechanism or structure in Washington that Trump’s fighting against, and the one in Brussels that the sovereigntists – including the Prime Minister – are fighting against?
I’ve led up to this question at such length in order to enable me to answer it; because when President Trump’s second term began, the two structures were completely similar. But over the past ten months that’s changed. What’s happened is that the Americans have begun to crack down on most of those in the ring, in the world of Soros and his associates. So America has begun its fight against groups seeking to influence foreign interests, and against ideas that differ from those of elected leaders. Some of them have even fled. The situation has changed a lot, because they’ve arrived in Brussels. So Brussels is now the last refuge for American liberals. President Trump took money away from these NGOs, these non-governmental organisations, and today Brussels is making up for this money in an illegitimate way. I’ve never agreed that Brussels should give the Soros network a single forint from Hungary’s contributions, but it’s doing so; and we’ve exposed this, just as Trump and his people have done. We have a list, we can see how Brussels finances organisations that are, let’s say, anti-sovereigntist: that are part of the power circle serving the interests of the Brussels empire. We see how they came over from America, and we know all about that. So the situation, the short answer to your question, is that the structures were the same, but now they show significant differences. America has taken very big steps towards dismantling them, and from a Hungarian point of view the situation in Brussels has deteriorated a great deal.
This is Trump’s “Drain the Swamp” strategy, when he attacked the Deep State. And wouldn’t you know it, folks, last year’s CPAC Hungary also had the slogan “Drain the Swamp”. Speaking of CPAC Hungary, and speaking of the Soros network and the Deep State, I think that over the past eight to ten years the international mobilisation of national forces has begun, under the leadership or inspiration of the Hungarian Right. On the Left, the progressive side, there is indeed a very professional network that’s been organised over 50, 60 or 70 years – with all its branches, from the judiciary to NGOs, to human rights fundamentalists…
The ring.
The ring, that’s right. Now I think that the organisation of a global but anti-globalist platform has begun on the Right, but in this international networking system the left-liberals obviously have a huge advantage. Prime Minister, how do you see the Right’s position in this kind of international struggle?
The Left has a serious advantage here for two reasons. One, which you’ve just described well, is the advantage of time. The other is to be found in the world of instincts. The Left, guided by its traditional instincts, is international and globalist. I’m not saying that they have no God or country, because that would perhaps be unfair, as there are certainly many on the Left who do have God and a country. But somehow international cooperation and globalism are always more important than their country, and modern intellectual trends always take precedence over their relation to God. So I don’t want to say that they’ve completely fallen out of the Western cultural sphere, but it’s certain that the Western cultural sphere’s value system is different for them than it is for us. In their world of instincts, the proletarians of the world unite, they urge for the erasure of the past, its complete erasure, and a positive relationship with these international formations is natural. Opposing this, we conservatives – or people committed to the nation, I could say – stand on the other side. Our instincts point in the opposite direction. In any international cooperation, we first see danger, wondering whether some kind of international alliance is being formed that runs counter to our national interests. That’s one. Two: how to represent national interests is a real intellectual question, which necessarily involves a debate between national interests, and on how, under such circumstances, to bring national forces together in an international network. So we also have to overcome our own cultural resistance, our inherited system of instincts. We’re making progress with this, and it’s a fine task. The most valuable victories are the ones we achieve over ourselves, when we overcome our own weaknesses; but this takes time, and the results are mixed. Interestingly, this went faster with the Americans. So, thanks to you, Miklós, and thanks to CPAC, international cooperation with the Americans – based on national foundations – has progressed quickly. This is much more difficult in Europe. So, based on national interests, integrating a French, German or Italian force into an international cooperation that week to protect national interests is a much more complicated task. We’re moving more slowly here. We’ve already established the organisation of the Patriots for Europe, so there’s an institutional framework for this cooperation. We’ve also identified the areas where our interests coincide, and those where they don’t. We don’t need to deal with the latter: internationally, we only need to focus on the areas where our interests coincide – but it will take a few more years for this to become part of our daily routine. But there’s no other way to take Brussels – this change, this overcoming of ourselves, must also take place in a Brussels dimension.
There’s more that connects us than divides us, that’s for sure.
If not more, then certainly what’s more important.
I completely agree with that too. On the one hand, there’s this organisation on the Right, and of course there are our allies – or perhaps brothers-in-arms – such as President Trump and the American Republicans. As you know, President Trump, at the very beginning, back in January or February terminated funding for USAID. And the latest news is that the United States Agency for Global Media – to which a good friend of ours and a close ally of Trump has been appointed – looks set to stop providing financial assistance to American media outlets operating abroad that it has been funding. For example, it’s cutting – or at least reducing – funding for Radio Free Europe/Szabad Európa. The latter has been quite politically active in Hungary, and is rightly known for its notoriously high degree of “independence”. Let’s go back a little to the idea that there won’t be such a strong foreign influence in the domestic election; Or are these just tiny little drops, tiny little micro-particles, with a lot of foreign influence here remaining?
As far as the American dimension is concerned, Szabad Európa was created to oppose the national government. This was no secret: it was announced publicly. This happened under the previous Biden administration. They said they were creating it because the Hungarian government’s policies differ from the universal, Western, American values that the world should live by. For example, we love our country and put national interests before international cooperation; we protect our families from LGBTQ and gender issues; we don’t want war, but we want peace. So it became clear that the line taken by the Hungarian government differed from that of the American government. And, just as Brussels has done, the Americans set up their own agencies, through which, if we’re honest, they wanted to influence Hungarian public life – and ultimately the structure and decision-making of the Hungarian government. That’s something I understand if we’re enemies, and that’s what we were – not because of us, but because Biden and his people decided we were. Well, now Trump’s in power. If we’re not enemies, then why the hell do we need such a radio station? And I see that the Americans have also asked themselves this question, and have gone ahead and shut it down. Quite right! Neither I, nor we Hungarians finance NGOs in America that work against the American government. Why should they do that? On the contrary: since the people working against the American Republican administration are the same as those working against the Hungarian national government, I’d suggest we join forces and take joint action against these large international networks. Of course, the dimensions are different, but if I can help I’m happy to do so – and they can certainly help me finally kick the whole Soros world out of Hungary.
The Center for Fundamental Rights is also happy to help if needed. To finish, here’s a question as a brandied cherry on top of the cream cake. When there’s a Trump–Orbán meeting, there are the essential, political, policy issues: peace-making, bilateral economic cooperation, energy, investments, jobs. On occasions such as these, do other decisive but more abstract ideological issues – such as woke, migration and gender – come up, either formally or informally? After all, you and President Trump have similar opinions on these things. At least that’s what I understand. Does this similarity play a role at such times, or is it just politics and negotiations, in which these things don’t matter?
This is the basis of everything. We know this, and we’ll reinforce it with a few gestures and sentences at the beginning, as is customary. So I repeat, we both know that the dimensions are different and therefore the weight is different, but we both also know that we’re part of the same great global enterprise. So in a world like the one we live in, which we call a left-liberal, left-wing, globalist world, in the United States they’re also experimenting with trying to implement modern, Christian-based governance. They’re more cautious with the word “Christian” than we are, but essentially that’s what it’s about: partly restoring the order of creation, for example on LGBTQ, and partly the return of common sense over ideology – for example green issues, educational issues, and so on. So this is a very big experiment. We started this in Hungary in 2010. Mr. Trump came later, President Trump came later to this. There are a few of us: they tried this in England too, although now they’re on the decline – but this is an international demand. I could also say that in traditional, Christian, cultural, conservative and national spheres people, families and communities feel that they’re not represented in modern politics – even though they’re in the majority. Of course in the election we’ll find out whether or not there are more of them, but I think that generally speaking there are more of them than these modern, globalist, liberal families, individuals and groups with I don’t know whatever system of values they have. So in politics a significant part of the Western world isn’t represented – what they think about the world isn’t translated into political will. We undertook this in Hungary in 2010, and President Trump undertook it in America. We know this, and we call it the brotherhood-in-arms that exists between us. This isn’t friendship in the traditional sense, but can rather be understood as something like fellowship. But we both know that we’re also part of a great intellectual undertaking, because this isn’t only a question of power, but also an intellectual question. This battle must be fought on many levels – from deep philosophy, to public opinion, to concrete political decision-making. So we know this, and this is significant. It provides the basis for us to agree, or to help each other, on specific issues, from energy to war. This is why it’s so important. The work that CPAC and related organisations – such as the Center for Fundamental Rights – are doing behind the scenes is also very important at a summit like this; because without this foundation, the negotiations on specific issues would look very different. And this is why so many of us are going to America now. Not only will I meet the President, and not only will ministers meet ministers, but think tanks, advisors, analysts, intellectuals and people who provide intellectual foundations for politics will also meet their own counterparts. This is a comprehensive, full-spectrum engagement between America and Hungary, fundamentally in the spirit of conservative, Christian, national governance.
Thank you very much, Prime Minister, and thank you very much for your words of praise. I believe that the many years of work by the entire Hungarian Right are now coming to fruition. I’m glad that now I’ve lost my prime ministerial interview virginity. This was my first interview with the Prime Minister. I hope there will be more. I’m grateful for the conversation! Glory to Hungary!
Go, Hungarians!
