Viktor Orbán: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

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We're gonna dive straight in with our main story this week, which concerns Hungary, a country with over a thousand years of rich history, a proud culture, and absolutely no chance of you finding it on this map. No chance... whatsoever.

No shade to Hungary, by the way. That is all on you. Hungary's given a lot to the world, from Bela Lugosi to the Rubik's Cube to, of course, the game Hungry Hungry Hippos. Yeah, that second Hungary has an A in it.

Always did.

Wild, huh? It's also brought us one of the Internet's greatest ever memes.

András, a retired electric engineer, was asked to be a model for stock photos ten years ago. The Internet discovered them and decided that his smile hides a deep sorrow. He became Hide the Pain Harold. A flurry of memes followed, and András found that his face was a laughingstock of the internet.

If I wanted to draw a lesson from what happened to me, I would say life throws all kinds of challenges at you. You have to take it as it comes. Try out as many things as possible.

And who knows, you might even become a meme.

Okay, Harold, but I'm not sure you might become a meme is quite as aspirational as you think, though to be fair, putting on a brave smile despite inner regret is kind of this guy's whole thing. He brings that hide-the-pain energy to all his stock photos, whether he's answering the phone,

whisking eggs, painting a wall, reading a patient's X-ray, or riding an exercise bike. Even when he is Santa, and his face is covered by a hat and a beard, Harold's eyes still manage to hide the pain. Look at that and tell me that Santa didn't just

accidentally run over an elf and hastily hide the body. Now, the reason I want to talk about Hungary is it's set for elections on April 12th. Voters there will choose a new national assembly, their parliament, which in turn will mean either a new prime minister or the re-election of their current one, Viktor Orbán.

He's been in office since 2010, with an absolute majority in Hungary's government for the entire 16 years of his tenure. He's actually the longest serving current head of government in the EU. And if you want a quick taste of what kind of leader Orbán's been, take this testimonial video that he posted,

featuring a real who's who of people I've called assholes on this show. -...including Netanyahu, Marine Le Pen, Javier Milet, and a fourth person

that I'll let you discover for yourself. Security cannot be taken for granted. It must be won, and I think Victor Orban has all those qualities. He has the tenacity, the courage, the wisdom to protect his country.

It is thanks to leaders like Victor that the camp of patriots, defenders of nations, and sovereign people is winning in Europe.

I fervently support Prime Minister Orban and the Fidesz party.

And I want to congratulate him, and also to encourage all Hungarians to continue and move forward to protect your great culture and your amazing country.

Yeah, it's none other than Academy Award-watching actor Rob Schneider. And that is a pretty weird cameo there. It's like if the Avengers movie starred three Avengers and also Rob Schneider. And that is a pretty weird cameo there. It's like if the Avengers movie starred three Avengers and also Rob Schneider. But it's not just those celebrities

and also Rob Schneider. Orbán has a close relationship with many conservatives in this country. He's not only been invited to speak at CPAC, CPAC itself has been holding a satellite conference in Hungary for the past few years, where numerous U.S. conservatives

from Orbán's work. who, like me, want to see Hungary as a beacon in the West. Little did I know I would walk into Budapest that we dream for in Arizona. who once praised him like this.

anywhere in the world.

He's the leader of...

Right? He's the leader of Turkey.

No, no, no, he's...

You are thinking of the right planets, though.

why his brain went there. to a global conservative movement.

Since President Trump's win, conservative movement. JÁRDÁN OSZTURM, President of Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, in Western civilization. What's happening now is the largest political realignment in Western civilization in 100 years. The epicenter of this change is the United States, and its European forward base is Hungary.

Wow, there is a lot there, but citing the West's largest political realignment in 100 years is pretty striking given, you know, what started happening in Europe around a hundred years ago.

like this one. They're chanting. Oh, my God. Frickin' dirty pedestrians.

What's up with the zebra?

What does the zebra symbolise? According to the rumours, Orban has an estate in the countryside

where zebras were spotted.

The sign back there, that's kind of the centre of this,

says Hungary is a dictatorship.

And then I'm being told, says, Hungary is a dictatorship.

And then I'm being told, O-1-G means Orban is a sperm.

Orban is a sperm.

Yeah, Orban is a sperm. Which I assume isn't insult and just mean that he tastes slightly better when you eat pineapple. Also, that rumor about zebras being spotted is amazing if true, as all the zebras I've ever seen have been striped.

Boom!

Got it!

Boom, boom! I got that guy so good! This show is your only source for animal puns and jokes about drinking semen in frankly, too rapid succession. -♪ �-LAUGHTER -- Orbán's Fidesz party has actually been trailing by double digits in most polls ahead of this election.

But, they may well still win anyway, for reasons that we'll get into later. So, given Hungary's election is just around the corner, and just how invested in Orbán conservatives here clearly are, we thought tonight, it might be worth taking a look at Viktor Orbán.

And let's start with a little history. And I'll skip past the stuff that we all learned in school about Hungary, like how it, say it with me, was part of the Soviet bloc for much of the 20th century, where it operated under a communist dictatorship. Exactly. We're all on the same page, thanks to America's famously thorough

and globally curious education system. But when the communist block began to crumble, Orbán was in the right place at the right time. Here he is in 1989 as a 26-year-old, calling for the withdrawal of Soviet troops and free Hungarian elections.

And while I am no fan of Orbán's later work, I will admit, he was a late 80s snack. -♪ ♪ -♪ and he's a late 80s snack. He's like Mel Gibson there. He's got the hair, the intensity, and the looming sense that things will eventually take a dark turn. Now, after the fall of Soviet communism,

Orbán took part in talks that eventually led to Hungary's democracy. And at the time, he and Fidesz were actually a relatively liberal youth movement. In fact, early on, only people under 35 could even join the party. Just look at one of their early 90s campaign ads.

-♪ It's a terrible time... -♪ -♪ It's a terrible time... -♪ -♪ It's a terrible time... -♪

A blank slate.

-♪ It's a terrible time... -♪

-♪ It's a terrible time... -♪ -♪ It's a terrible time... -♪ A blank slate.

A new democracy. A new Hungary.

Vote for Fidesz.

Király.

That ad has got everything 90s kids loved. he developed a pretty stark philosophy.

In order to win, it is not enough to know what you are fighting for. You also have to know...

how you should fight.

My answer is...

play by your own rules.

Now, on the surface, play by your own rules. Now, on the surface, play by your own rules is a pretty banal sentiment. It's the live-laugh-love for people who haven't been divorced yet. But Hungary soon found out what he meant by that in a political sense.

Because in 2010, after the global financial crisis and the scandal in Hungary's ruling party, Orbán was swept back into power with a two-thirds supermajority and immediately began tampering with the rules to make sure he never lost again. As he put it, we have to win once, but then win big.

Essentially meaning, if he ever gained power, he'd use it to fortify his position indefinitely. And we only have to win once is one of the more ominous things to hear from a leader. It's right up there along with, trust me, you're gonna love the Kool-Aid, open the gates, papa, gotta get a closer look

at that big old horse, and no smoking? What is this, a blimp for dorks? Pass me my lighter. Sure enough, once back in power, Orban moved swiftly to solidify control. In his first year in office, his government rushed through hundreds of new laws, and ushered through a brand new constitution that was drafted behind closed doors

and debated in Parliament for only nine days. There were also big changes to Hungary's election system, including gerrymandering maps to stack the odds heavily in Orbán's favor. As a result, in 2014, his party won 45 percent of the votes, but 91 percent of the districts.

In fact, thanks to that and other tweaks, independent observers have deemed Hungarian elections since then free, but not fair. Which is an interesting combination. You are free to vote for anyone you want, whether it's Orbán or whoever inevitably loses to him.

And while changes like those could theoretically have faced legal challenges, Orbán's also co-opted Hungary's court system, packing it with loyalists, and passing a constitutional amendment that removed the court's power to evaluate And to meet these challenges, Orbán's also co-opted Hungary's court system, packing it with loyalists And when you take all of that together,

as this scholar points out, it was basically a coup,

but a very 21st century one.

We tend to think of a coup, right, as happening with...

tanks in the streets.

all civil liberties have died.

That's not what autocracy looks like anymore.

You don't get phalanxes of tanks.

You get phalanxes of lawyers.

and the internet.

explain just how much editorial control Orbán has.

is, um, restricted.

I mean, you can't write anything bad about the government.

I get instructions.

just control C, copy and paste the whole article, really.

It's unimaginable, to be honest.

which just should not be possible Literally zero seconds of negative coverage.

about everything they do.

to pick two equivalent examples.

and then centralized many of them under a single foundation. According to the investigative journalism outlet, Atlazo, since 2010, allies of the prime minister have been buying up numerous Hungarian media outlets. Men like former Hollywood producer, Andy Viner, and old school friend, Lawrence Mezoros, are among a group of 14 Orban allies

who've collectively bought 11 radio stations, 20 television channels, and close to 500 online and print organizations.

Wow, a far-right leader's friends and allies just buying up all the media outlets in the country and turning them into conservative sycophants. Can you imagine that? I sure can't. That's definitely not something I've had

recurring nightmares about for the past month. And the result of all this has been Orban's party currently controls roughly 80% of the media market. And this level of influence over laws, courts, elections, and the media has allowed Orban to reshape Hungary

virtually unchecked. On the international level, that's meant being a constant thorn in the EU side, especially when it comes to dealing with Russia. Orban's consistently had the friendliest ties to the Kremlin in the European Union. In fact, he's long weaponized Hungary's veto power

at the EU to block Russia-related sanctions, tie up financial aid to Ukraine, and repeatedly stall urgent EU decisions. And it says something that even a decade ago, this is how the then president of the European Commission greeted Orbán at a summit.

The dictator is coming.

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Dictator.

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It's pretty good. It's pretty good. And while I do not condone violence, there are a few scenarios where I think it's fine to slap someone. When you're trying to revive them, when you are Cher and you really need Nick Cage to snap out of it, and of course,

whenever you have the chance to hit an authoritarian in the face. Meanwhile, domestically, Orbán's rejected Hungary into what's basically a theme park of reactionary talking points. For instance, he's railed against Europe

becoming a mixed-race society, and opposes allowing asylum seekers into Hungary despite EU and international laws. During the migrant and refugee crisis a decade ago, Hungary was accused of unlawful detention and violence against asylum seekers.

And he made a big show back then of being openly hostile toward them. Even going so far as to build an electrified border fence, which inevitably got this rave review from Tucker Carlson.

Hungary began building the fence in June of 2015. By September, it was done. Well, they're serious about their border. It's not a high-tech border wall. It's a double fence with a road in the middle. But the difference is they're willing to protect it.

They're not kidding. It's their border, they control it

because they're a country.

It's also really pretty.

-♪ ♪ -Pretty? Look, there are three things you can rely on in this life. Death, taxes, and if you build a fence to keep out immigrants, Tucker Carlson is gonna wanna fuck it. Although, if he does want to kiss some electrified barbed wire, who am I to stop him? Love is love. But even as migration to Europe has declined,

Orbán has continued to fearmonger about how, if it weren't for him, Hungary might be forced to accept millions of refugees, who he has falsely characterized as disease-ridden threats to public health, extremists planning terrorist acts, and agents of a plot to replace native Europeans

with foreigners.

To sum up, the mother is a woman,

you can have is one,

But it's not just rhetoric.

And if that sounds at all familiar to you,

from the Hungarian government, that's how babies are made.

in this ad that his government posted, the alternative is for the country to be overrun by migrants.

Because of the simple national currency, you can make fish soup out of fish, but not fish from fish soup. And if you let the migrants in once and they mix with you, and several children are born to the natives,

it's only a mathematical question,

and they'll how it works. I'm just saying, if your nana pointed at a bowl of soup and said, you can't make fish out of that, you'd be looking at retirement home brochures that afternoon. Also, for what it's worth, that metaphor cuts both ways, because I've found, with fish soup as with countries, when you add more ingredients, it tends to taste better.

Otherwise, what you have is hot fish water. But Orban is serious about this. a place where two-thirds of the citizens describe the national education system as bad, or where even the Conservative Heritage Foundation has put his government at the bottom of the EU in its rankings of government integrity.

And that is the thing about Viktor Orbán. For all the fear-mongering he's done, all the fences he's built, and all the laws he's passed to protect Hungary from the threat of migrants, gays, and George Soros. He's fundamentally failed when it comes to the basics of good governance. Funding for school and hospitals there has gotten so dire,

he had to sign an executive order to ensure medical facilities were stocked with toilet paper. Although, to hear his health secretary tell it, any complaints the people had about that were completely unreasonable.

I was a...

In an operation as big as the Hungarian hospital system, which is 3 million square meters and has tens of thousands of people visiting every day, I consider it a mathematical impossibility that there should be toilet paper in all hospital bathrooms at all times. To this day, I maintain that this

is a mathematical impossibility.

I've heard some bad talking points in the past, but it's mathematically impossible for our hospitals to have toilet paper is right up there. I'm really only surprised that he didn't go on to suggest hospitals just hang a sign in every bathroom reminding people that using their socks is always an option.

And it is not a great sign for Orban that some of his heaviest-handed tactics now do seem to be backfiring. Take this story from last summer.

Victor Orban's government banned LGBTQ public gatherings in March, including this one. But that ban only seems to have galvanized countless Hungarians. They took part in the parade, despite the risk of being identified by the authorities using facial recognition software. I object to any restrictions in the parade despite the risk of being identified by the authorities using facial recognition software.

I object to any restriction of rights. Everyone should be free to choose a partner. And I condemn any restrictions that crush freedom of assembly and other freedoms. And that's why I'm here.

I thought the government would make it impossible for this to happen and that there wouldn't be many people. It's a fantastic feeling that it's a much bigger crowd

than ever before.

Yeah, that is amazing and a pretty colossal backfire

from Orba.

After all, if the Rob Schneider movie, The Chosen One, taught us anything, it's the harder you try to oppress people through fear, the more they'll rise up against you. Now, full disclosure, I don't know if that's really the moral of that film. Like everyone else on Earth, I haven't seen it, but what are you gonna do?

Watch it yourself to fact-check me? No fucking way! So, let's just say that's the message of the film and move on, shall we? So, what happens next? Well, despite the increasing opposition to Orbán in Hungary,

the truth is, in this election, the playing field is still tilted strongly in his favor. And even if he somehow ends up losing the game that he's carefully rigged, it's worth knowing his main opponent, Peter Magyar, isn't exactly the reformer that you would dream of here. He's a former member of Fidesz

who's railed against Orban's corruption, but still shares plenty of his right-leaning views. And even some Hungarians who say they plan to vote for him don't seem thrilled about it.

I think more and more people want change.

Mr. Magyar, he used to be a member of Fidesz.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you worry that he might be too similar?

Four years later, we will see. Uh, to be honest, if there would be a good, uh, left-wing party, I would vote for them. But there is not, so I will vote for Macsar Péter.

Mm-hmm.

So he's not completely on your level when it comes to everything?

It's not my taste, exactly.

Yeah, he's clearly not thrilled about voting for Macsar, but he's willing to push that discomfort down and put on a happy face anyway. If only there were a Hungarian meme to capture that sentiment perfectly. I guess we'll never know. But the thing is, regardless of what happens on April 12th,

Orban's stranglehold on power should be alarming for us here in the States. Because he has clearly been an inspiration to American conservatives, to the point that JD Vance is apparently planning to visit Hungary to show support for Orbán

ahead of their election. And that is because for them, Orbán is not a cautionary tale, he is a blueprint. To put it another way, if Orbán is a sperm, think of Trump as the baby, the sperm. In fact, you know what, forget that, it's a disgusting image.

Let's reset and try again. Look, it's not just me sounding the alarm here. People like this Hungarian politician have been trying to warn us for a while.

You must be familiar with the fact that there are many U.S. conservatives coming here to learn from Orban's style of governance. Why do you think that is?

I don't know why that is, but I know that it's dangerous. You should take care of your democracy, because fortunately enough, you have your checks and balances. If somebody is able to switch them off, you would also slide down. This is what happened to Hungary, and I really hope that your system,

the 200-year-old American democracy, which I admire, is strong enough to withstand any such threat.

Yeah, he's right. The fact is, we are lucky to have the checks and balances that we do. But we would do well to watch for warning signs of what happened in Hungary starting to happen here. You know, small things like, I don't know, stacking the courts, or shameless gerrymandering,

or fear-mongering about immigrants, or presidential allies buying up the media. You know, anything you might spot like that. And look, it is not a perfect one-to-one. Orban's takeover was organized and methodical, while Trump has the attention span of a coked-up hummingbird with a head injury.

But they're not world apart either. And I'll say, if the right is looking to Orbán as a model, the rest of us could do a lot worse than to look to those Hungarians in the streets for inspiration. Because everyone who's ever fought for American democracy, failing to resist authoritarianism

would be a huge slap in the face. would be a huge slap in the face. And unfortunately, not the undeniably fun kind.