What Orbán’s Loss Means for Hungary, Russia and Trump

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2:03On Sunday, a new Hungarian opposition party won the country's election by a landslide, ending Prime Minister Viktor Orban's 16 years in power. We won not small, but big. Very, very big. Together, we changed the Orban regime. Together, we liberated Hungary. Peter Magyar, the leader of the opposition TISA party, was once a member of Orban's party before breaking ranks in 2024. Magyar has promised to usher in a new era for the country, rooting out corruption in its government, turning around its struggling economy, and bringing it closer to its European neighbors. Orban was a close ally of Russia's Vladimir Putin and a hero of the American right.

2:53Since taking office for the second time in 2010, he transformed Hungary into a so-called illiberal democracy. The term illiberal democracy denotes the fact that we've still had elections, which international observers characterized as free, but unfair. So the government wielded a great advantage in the way it controlled information machinery, a propaganda system, and amazing spending power which the opposition couldn't really match. Orban also had some high-profile international support, including from U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, who appeared in Budapest with Orban last week. Part of the reason why the president of the United States sent me here is because that we think the amount of interference that's come from the bureaucracy in Brussels has been truly disgraceful.

3:46Orbán's campaigns have tended to focus on the creation of a perceived enemy, usually around foreign policy connected to Ukraine or international financial institutions. That's Andras Gergay. He's an emerging markets editor for Bloomberg, based in Budapest. And what Petra Majar has seized on is that people would really like to be better served when they have to go to hospital, for their children to have better education or less crumbling schools, and to have positive campaign promises to fix those issues instead of creation of a perceived enemy. Andras says at one point, Orban may have seemed invincible.

4:29But as the challenger gained traction, markets started to price in a Magyar victory. First and foremost, the Hungarian foreign, the local currency, it's been strengthening for a number of reasons, but the prospect of a changing government has been among them. And now that the opposition won by a landslide, that just accelerated overnight. So it may embolden other political parties in countries that are similarly facing some variety of populist or nationalist governments. in Europe or even beyond. You heard Hungarians shouting at the top of their lungs last night, Europe, Europe, Europe, wanting to see Hungary once again firmly embedded in the West.

5:13To understand what kind of message Orban's defeat might send the rest of the world, I spoke with David Pressman, a U.S. State Department veteran of three administrations, who was the U.S. ambassador to Hungary under President Biden from 2022 to 2025. Viktor Orban has built a political empire that's basically about distracting from things that are real with things that are not. And at a certain point, I think people's lived experience, the pain with which they're trying to manage and muster their lives, becomes too much to bear. It gives me a lot of hope that Hungarians were able to, despite all odds, render a verdict on Viktor Orban's system of illiberal democracy that has been deeply corrosive both to that country and to our alliances with it.

6:07I'm Sarah Holder, and this is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. Today on the show, Hungary after Orban. My conversation with former U.S. ambassador to Hungary, David Pressman, on what new leadership in Hungary could mean for Russia and Ukraine, the EU and the U.S., and what obstacles Magyar's party might face as it seeks to unwind Orban's influence.

6:34Ambassador Pressman, thank you for joining us. What do you think it was about Matiza Party's platform that resonated with Hungarian voters? And what really might change for Hungarians as a result of this election? Magyar spoke only about corruption. He wasn't talking about policy differences with the Orban government. He wasn't speaking about disagreeing with this aspect of policy or that aspect of policy. He spoke about dismantling a kleptocracy. Even this morning in his press conference, he referred to the Orban government as an organized criminal outfit. So he was running a campaign against, in his words, a criminal organization, as opposed to trying to differentiate himself and his party on particular aspects of social or international policy.

7:23Now, his victory presents an enormous challenge to the Tiza party, to him and to the Hungarian people, because fundamentally what this exercise is going to be about is unwinding 16 years of state capture. So what that means in practice is that you have the judicial institutions that have been completely co-opted and captured by a single political party. I'd also note one other thing that Madjar said this morning that I thought was pretty interesting is he referenced the foreign journalists in the room at his press conference and he said, you know, I don't think you guys actually understand the North Korea-like nature of the propaganda that was in this country.

8:06And on that, I really agree with him because I think one of the things that Americans and others haven't fully internalized is the power that the propaganda apparatus in Viktor Orban's Hungary had in shaping decision-making of individual citizens, of individual companies, of elites across the country, whether they were politically engaged or not. And so the project now, I think, for Hungary, for Hungarians, and for Peter Magyar is how do you create a country that is more pluralistic, where there is an exchange of viewpoints, whatever those viewpoints may be, conservative or liberal, but that are not enforced by this regimen of fear.

8:47I'll kick that question to you, though. What obstacles will Magyar encounter in unwinding this transformation of Hungary under Urbana? And how could he go about executing that unwinding and moving Hungary in a new direction? Yeah, Sarah, I mean, it's a great question. And I think that the answer to that is it begins with removing from positions of power those who were placed in positions of power because of their loyalty to Viktor Orban. And in fact, you heard Peter Magyar call for the resignation of the president, of the head of the constitutional court, the head of the Korea, the Supreme Court.

9:25He's called because he needs to. And so, for instance, there is a sham university called Matthias Corvinas Collegium in Budapest, which receives funding from the state oil company. And by the way, that money is coming from the state oil company's exchanges with the Russian Federation. But nonetheless, you have this entity that is run by Viktor Orban's political director. Now, what happens with that? How do you unwind the state support for what is effectively a political culture war organization that is funded by Hungary's financial entanglements with Russia? And I think that's going to be a real challenge.

10:08And similarly with the universities, You know, the universities, one of the things that Viktor Orban did is he transferred all of the assets of what were otherwise public universities to these private foundations. And then he installed his cronies as the boards of directors of those foundations and gave them a lifetime tenure. And so putting aside the academic freedom issues and all of that, you effectively saw the wholesale transfer of these public assets to the control of a single political party or like. And so what TISA and what Magar is now going to need to do is to untangle each of those transactions to regain control of each of those assets.

10:51You heard him this morning talk about the need for a national asset recovery project. You've heard him repeatedly speak about his intention to join the European Public Prosecutor's Office. I mean, there is an enormous amount of work ahead to find these assets, to recover them, and put them in service of the Hungarian people once again. How important is that process you're talking about to achieving some of TISA's other stated aims, like providing basic services like health care and improving the Hungarian economy? They're integral, because the reality is Hungary should not be in the economic position it's in.

11:25and there's no reason why Hungary's economy can't be flourishing. It's just that there's been such pervasive skimming by a group of kleptocratic elites for so long. And so I think that the financial transparency and accounting and accountability that is going to necessarily come is fundamental to his ability to deliver on improvements to the Hungarian people's lives. It's also, by the way, really important to the other questions that you're suggesting with respect to Hungary's relationship with its allies and with international institutions.

12:07So what does Peter Magyar's win mean for Hungary's relationships with the EU, with Putin? And what does it mean for Trump? That's coming up.

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14:28Orban had a strained relationship with the EU and NATO allies. In your role as U.S. Ambassador to Hungary. You dealt with this firsthand, working to push through Russia sanctions packages. What does Orban's loss mean for these alliances? Yeah, I mean, it's significant. I spent three years, you know, moving Viktor Orban from no to yes on Russia sanctions packages, NATO expansion, who should run NATO, Ukraine accession to the European Union. And in each of these instances, is Hungary's objection, Orban's objection, it wasn't policy. It wasn't substantive. It was dressed up as that. But fundamentally, what he was doing was instrumentalizing Hungary's membership in these consensus-based organizations, the European Union, the NATO Alliance, in order to create pecuniary gain for himself and his party.

15:23So, you know, he would take actions in the NATO Alliance that were entirely designed to try to get the European Union to release money that it was withholding from Hungary because of their concerns about rule of law and corruption. And so really regardless of whatever Peter Magyar's policy is, I think whether he takes position X or Y in the EU or in NATO, I think and I hope we have an opportunity to once again have an ally who is dealing with facts and with sovereign interests, not with personalized interests in maximizing personal power and personal wealth. And one of the key sticking points is that Orban had pushed back at European efforts to support Ukraine in the Russia-Ukraine war.

16:10Hungary recently blocked a 100 billion dollar, 90 billion euro EU loan for Ukraine. And Madir already has said that under his leadership, Hungary won't stand in the way of that loan. Can you say more about how significant this win could be for Ukraine as it faces Russia? I think there's across the board, both in terms of the European Union's consolidated position on confronting Russian aggression in Ukraine, but also just more generally with respect to how the EU is able to navigate Russia issues and how the alliance is able to navigate Russia issues. Magyar's victory presents a significant advancement and step forward because the reality is that part of what Hungarians, I think, were rejecting in rejecting Viktor Orban was his close relationship with Vladimir Putin, was his increasingly close relationship with Xi Jinping.

17:05Well, it's interesting when you talk about, you know, Orban's relationship with Putin. Bloomberg published a transcript of a conversation between Orban and Putin last year. Orban pledges to help Putin. He references this fairy tale about a little mouse that helps the mighty lion, Orban offering to be the mouse to Putin's lion. I'm wondering just how big of a blow is it to Putin to lose this ally or this little mouse? It's a big blow because one thing that Hungary was, and one thing that Viktor Orban was, was a reliable vote to advance Putin's policies, both in the EU and in NATO. You know, when I was ambassador, one of the things that irritated Orban and the Fidesz party the most was when I would make that point, which is Viktor Orban is advancing Putin's policies.

17:53Because remember, Orban's political career began as the guy who gave the speech, Ruski's Casa, Russians Go Home, and was sort of the shaggy-haired freedom fighter in the days leading up to the fall of communism. But what had happened is that he began to be so close to the Russians that Hungary's policy itself was virtually synonymous with what the Russians were seeking in both the EU and in NATO. And so I think it's going to, And, you know, to the extent that Putin seeks to divide our alliance, which he does, to the extent that Putin seeks to divide the European Union, which he does, he just lost his ace card.

18:38I want to end on the U.S. and what Orban's Hungary has meant to the current U.S. administration. President of the Heritage Foundation Kevin Roberts said in 2022 that modern Hungary is not just a model for conservative statecraft, but the model. Robert's organization, of course, produced Project 2025. Vice President J.D. Vance went just last week to Budapest to appear alongside Orban, supported him. So what does Orban's loss mean for conservative movements, the right and the far right in the U.S. and indeed around the world? Well, I mean, for starters, it will mean a loss of funding. I mean, one thing that Orban did while his own people and economy was suffering was he sent a lot of financial resources to far-right parties across Europe and supported far-right intellectuals and activists, including in the United States.

19:33So that will be one thing that is felt. But moreover, I think that as this story is unpacked and as people, including conservatives, look more closely at what was actually going on in Hungary and look more closely at Viktor Orban's policies in Hungary, I think what they will see, I hope what they will see, is that this is not about conservatism. conservatism. This is about kleptocracy. And so you can be a very conservative American and believe in very conservative social and even international or domestic policies and still take real concern at the kinds of corrupt acts that Viktor Orban was fostering.

20:16I mean, candidly, Secretary of State Marco Rubio just five years ago was one of those people who was voicing extraordinary concern about or bonds hollowing out of democratic institutions about his proximity to putin about the malign influence in hungary and its role in nato and obviously his positions have shifted since he became the secretary of state but you know i think hungarians ultimately saw donald trump endorse victor orban and they rejected victor orban because they saw victor orban is too close to putin And I think that in rejecting and not listening to Donald Trump, they saw Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin both rooting for the same guy.

20:58And that guy wasn't serving Hungary or Hungarians. And I hope that the fact that so many brave Hungarians who were really, you know, they were persecuted, they were prosecuted, they were investigated, they were humiliated by the government propaganda on a daily basis. But they stuck to it because they believed in their country. They believed in democratic institutions and democratic values. And their success yesterday should serve as a source of inspiration to so many beyond Hungary, including in the United States.

21:33This is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder. To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access to all of Bloomberg.com, subscribe today at Bloomberg.com slash podcast offer. If you like this episode, make sure to subscribe and review The Big Take wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps people find the show. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.

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