Hey, everybody. Chris Farrell, director of investigations and research for judicial Watch at CPAC. And we’re having a great time here, talking to all kinds of folks, interviewing people and making the rounds. I have the great pleasure now to introduce to you my good friend Miklos Zanto. Miklos is the director general. Hi there. Hi. Of the center for Fundamental Rights in Budapest, Hungary. And Miklos is honored, I guess, or privileged, or has spent enough time and money to be the host of the european franchise of CPAC.

He is the sponsor, organizer and grand emperor of CPAC. Of CPAC Hungary. You’re too generous. So CPAC Hungary is going to be the end of April, right? Exactly. April 25 and 26th in Budapest. For those people who don’t know, what is the center for fundamental rights? What are you doing in Budapest, Hungary? First of all, thank you very much for having me. Sure. And just to assure the viewers and our friends, center for fundamental Rights.

Despite its name, it’s not a Soros finance engine. Yeah, it sounds kind of like a creepy Soros thing, but it’s not very definitely camouflage. Exactly. The center for Fundamental Rights. It’s Hungary’s largest conservative legal think tank. We do deal with constitutional and law related issues as well, but in the past few years, we broadened the scope of our activities. So we do opinion polling, conferences, political analyzers, book publishing, talent management, et cetera.

So it’s a classic. I wouldn’t dare to say that we are like the heritage foundation because we are not that big and we do not have that old history. The center was established by me and by my friends ten years ago. But that’s what you’re aiming for. Yeah. We are a think tank and the do tank as well. For example, as a do tank, we organize CPEC Hungary regularly.

This year will be the third time in Bulapesh in last two years. Last couple of years, it gathered thousands of conservatives from all around the world. Last year, we did have 2500 attendees altogether, and more than 400 international guests. Leading politicians, party chairman from Europe, and members of Congress, and members of different parliaments from the US, from South America, from Israel, Japan and Australia. And the first CPAC in 2022, we laid down the core principles in which we believe that’s God, homeland and family.

Last year in 2023, we declared the basic rule for our political movement that is united we stand. So we should act together, and we should organize the international coalition of national forces. We should organize globally the coalition of anti globalist forces. And this year we would like to go to action because we do have the european elections in Europe in June. So it will be some kind of kickoff campaign rally for the european right.

And, of course, we’ll have a lot of american friends and guests and congressmen in Budapest because we would like to fight shoulder to shoulder with you if it comes to the presidential elections in November. It’s an amazing thing that a relatively small, landlocked country in the middle of Europe that has a very successful conservative government. There’s prosperity, there’s freedom, civil liberties are exercised. You’re really a thriving environment, but you’re kind of surrounded.

I mean, there’s a few bright spots here and there in Europe, but largely the European Union. They’re kind of hard over leftist globalist types. That’s got to be tension. I mean, there’s got to be a lot of kind of rhetorically pushing and shoving between what Hungary stands for and what the rest of a lot of the EU stands for. Explain that dynamic you’ve stepped up to boldly, proudly talk about conservatism.

How is that received in the rest of Europe? As a political analyst, I can say that the hungarian experience from the past few years showed or revealed that the new fault line, political fault line of the 21st century is not anymore between the left and the right or the progressives and the conservatives, but it’s between globalists and sovereigns. So there are the globalist international, we usually say in Europe, federalist forces, right forces, are trying to outsource decision making from the local level, from the member state level to the federal level or to the global level, to different international institutions like the EU, like the UN, like the who, et cetera.

And on the other hand, there are the sovereignists, the localist forces, for example, Prime Minister Urban, I think, for example, President Trump here in the US, and there are a few other ones in Europe as well. A couple, let’s say, forces that do believe that the best decisions or the best decision making is a decision making closest to the people at the local level. And it’s not needed to give more and more competencies and more and more power to the federal government, to the so called deep state, because you do have your own deep state here in the US, and you have yours.

We have ours in Brussels, we live that. And Hungary is a leading force among or within the sovereignist camp. It’s a lighthouse, as you say, for common sense people. I wouldn’t use conservative, I would use common sense people because this whole vogue, insanity and ideology, it’s nonsense and it goes against the creator nature and common sense. Not only against conservatives. So what enables in Hungary is the first doing this fight in Europe, in central Europe, as a small country, but it’s very well known because it’s successful.

Yeah. So the hungarian example showed the world and showed Europe also. It showed to Brussels as well, that it’s possible to do it. So a lot of our viewers will see and hear reporting in the mainstream media that says negative things about Prime Minister Orban. The standard kind of big media lie is Orban is authoritarian. He rules with an iron fist. That there’s democratic backsliding. That’s the narrative that most Americans at the very superficial level, get.

I think it’s very important to take a pin and to pop that bubble, because the average person doesn’t know a lot about Hungary, doesn’t know a lot about european politics, doesn’t understand. I think it’s very important to just take a moment to talk about conservatism in Hungary and how president or Prime Minister Orban, how he’s misrepresented and what the real story is. First of all, let me quote Ronald Reagan, who said that media is the enemy.

Correct. Write that on the blackboard and never forget it. So never believe corporate media, never believe big media, never believe their coverage about hunger, because the media here says that the people at this conference are all violent extremists and terrorists. Business as usual. You lied about all the time. So tell us about Prime Minister Obama. If it comes to reality and real news coverage about Hungary, our story is, let’s say it has two sides or two approaches or two cornerstones.

One is that I already told you that we go against the progressive, globalist mainstream. Whether it is about the different new and new competencies invented by Brussels, whether it’s about migration, whether we should allow tens of millions of illegal migrants to Europe or not, or we should protect the borders, whether it is about this gender ideology and this whole vogue nonsense, radical craziness, together with cancel culture, social justice warriors, et cetera.

The hunger right says, no, we will protect our families. The family, sorry, and we’ll protect our children, and we do not allow to brainwash them with this rainbow type, LGBTQ ideology plus thing. And while those are critical issues for Brussels and those are critical issues for the highly important issues for the Biden administration as well, they are trying to regularly interfere into domestic politics. In Hungary, for example, the american left, the Democrats, shorosh, provided millions, tens of millions of dollars for the hungarian globalist left.

And that’s illegal under your law. Of course it is illegal in the United States. That’s a game that’s played all the time, but it’s specifically illegal in hungry for foreigners to donate to parties, to financially be involved. Yeah. So, of course, they try to undermine the positions of the urban government and even try to interfere directly to the campaign in 2022. So that’s one part of the story.

The other part of the story is that we also began to dismantle the inherited post communist liberal progressive structures in Hungary during the 40 years of communism. All of the different so called social substructures, academics, universities, the media, the economy, civil society. Sure, in the hands of the communist state. And during and after the system change, they transformed their political capital into economic, social media, et cetera, capital.

And then they teamed up with the liberals. And the hungarian democracy in the 90s, looked like that. In the media, in the universities, in the economy, 80% of the relevant positions were in the hands of the socialists and the liberals. And let’s say 20% were in the hands of the conservatives. That’s what they called democracy at that time. Now, in the past 14 years, hungarian conservatives began to dismantle those structures.

And the left calls it lack of rule of law, lack of democracy. But all the thing what is happening is that they are losing power, they’re losing influence. And what we would like to reach is a balanced position, like in the media, in the universes. We haven’t reached that yet, but that’s the goal. And that’s why they are so shocked that they are losing the ability of absolute control public at a very base level.

The left can’t stand that a conservative government is successful. Yeah, it makes them crazy. And the left can’t stand that a conservative government can follow its own ideas in its own strategy. A conservative government which does not play by the liberals rules, a conservative government and the conservative movement in Hungary, which doesn’t bother with the different ideas or the wishful thinking of the progressive left. We do have our own political strategy, our own political tact tactics, our own ideas, our own values.

And we do not care about the CNN or the New York Times. Right, about us, even if it’s about geopolitical questions. Because let’s say the third quite important situation that we do have, if it comes to the different disputes between conflicts between Budapest, Hungary and Brussels, or the White House, of course, is the war because of russian aggression in Ukraine. And together with Trump, President Trump, hungarian conservative, says that the endless flow of money going to Ukraine, millions of dollars and millions or billions and billions of dollars in a very untransparent way.

That’s not the way for the future. We should sit down, at least arrange some kind of a ceasefire and begin the peace negotiations. And this needs change in the mindset of the decision makers in Brussels and the White House nowadays because the mindset of this progressive leftist elite is so emotional, so crazy, so vogue, so vogue that they always see one way out from this conflict is to galvanize, to extend the war and beat Russia on the field.

And let’s be frank, and let’s be frank, there’s a hell of a lot of money involved in it. Of course there’s people making mean there’s an ideological struggle. No one supports what Russia did. It’s an abomination. But there are other people who are putting gasoline on the fire because they benefit financially. You’re totally right. Yes, of course you’re right. And that’s reality. And I will be emotional here.

Now, Hungarians are dying on the battlefields on a daily basis in Ukraine because there is a very large ethnic hungarian group in Ukraine because of historical reasons. But if there are citizens, if there are people dying in this war on a daily basis, these are Hungarians, for example. Yeah, many Americans are horrible at geography. They have no idea where these countries lay out neighboring. But Hungary and Ukraine, they’re your next door neighbor.

It’s not a big border, but they’re your next door neighbor. And there’s a substantial ethnic hungarian minority in Ukraine. They’re Ukrainians by where they live now in the boundaries. But their lineage, their ethnicity, their traditions are hungarian. So it’s a very personal thing. Yeah, but it’s not only the hungarian perspective that we promote peace, it would be in the interest of Europe and it would be in the interest of the US as well.

Because if we think geopolitically and geostrategically, the whole situation will lead, if it continues that way, into a new word, a new verd order, in which we will be the ones who pushed Russia into the hands of China. Correct. And that would be a very dangerous situation. Last question. Obviously, you’re here among friends and there’s lots of people at CPAC to coordinate with and meet, and as you said before, kind of join forces, create new allies.

But you’re my course. But when this is all done and you look forward to your own CPAC in April, at the end of April, what’s your number one priority? What’s your goal here at CPEC? Here at CPEC, one of my priorities is to promote my own CPEC. And I’m very thankful to the ACU, to Matt and mercy Schlab, that we together teamed up to do this. I mean, the hungarian version of CPEC.

Here I would like to promote CPEC, Hungary, to tell people that it’s worth to fly over the ocean, to come to Hungary to see and enjoy country of common sense, socially conservative people where there is no political correctness, that you can say anything on the streets, you can say anything in the universities, you can say anything on the stage without being harassed, without being afraid of a possible witch hunt.

And of course, my goal is not only here, but in Europe, to invite more and more european, south american and other conservatives to come to Hungary. Because I really do believe that we do have a homework if it comes to international cooperation of conservatives, progressives, it’s in their blood to do this. Really, internationally. They are the common turn. They are the anywhere people. We are the somewhere people.

But we should learn from the professionals, because as they attack our most cherished values. God. Homelong family, globally, the answer should be globally organized as well. And that’s why I would like to see as many Americans and european friends in Budapest disappearing. Well, let me tell you, Budapest and CPAC, Hungary and the center for Fundamental Rights, it’s the hub of conservatism in Europe. If you have any interest in international affairs and our european allies and friends and conservatism, you need to be in Budapest in April.

It’s the end of April, April 25 and 26th. I believe that’s where you need to be. Mikaela Santo, thank you very much. Director general of center for Fundamental Rights. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Chris. Thank you. .

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