June 11, 2023 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
17:09
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
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unidentified
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Alright Balazs, it's good to see you again. | |
| Hello, good to see you. | ||
| I think last time I saw you in Florida was about a year ago, and you welcomed me to Budapest. | ||
| You said, come on over to Hungary, and here we are. | ||
| Thank you very much for visiting us. | ||
| I hope you enjoy the weather. | ||
| Well, I mean, the weather is incredible. | ||
| The view, obviously, from up here is incredible. | ||
| People will probably hear a little construction in the background. | ||
| We are sitting right across now from the old Red Cross building, which is under construction. | ||
| And I thought that would be a nice way to start the interview, because there is a lot of construction going on here. | ||
| I mean, this is an old city that is, to me, feeling a bit like a new city. | ||
| So there's something interesting going on here. | ||
| Yes, I would add two things. | ||
| One is that, you know, construction is always a sign of economic success. | ||
| So in general, if you have construction sites all over you, you know, probably you don't like them for a short period of time, but for a longer period of time, it's like it shows the economic strength of a country. | ||
| And I'm happy to see that here in Budapest and all around Hungary, something is doing. | ||
| And the other part, is a reconstruction of the so-called Buda Castle Hill and which was actually demolished in the Second World War. | ||
| It was bombed by the Russians and then before that it was used as a for military operation by the Nazis and then the Hungarian communists who obviously occupied the country they also did some serious damage and this used to be Classical, wonderful architectural style buildings and we made the decision to rebuild them. | ||
| It's like there is a governmental program so if you come back in two years time you will see the entire castle here fully recovered. | ||
| Everything is rebuilding in beautiful classical architectural style. | ||
| It's still the best Right now, today is one of the best places of Europe, but it's gonna be really, really gorgeous. | ||
| Yeah, and as you know, I'm coming here after a nine-day trip to Israel, and one of the things that I found there is they're constantly in this battle between old and tradition and new and technology and everything else. | ||
| It seems like something similar is happening here, that you guys are trying to look back at your past You're not anymore talking about architecture. | ||
| to the future, but then also govern in a somewhat sensible way, which is pretty rare for the | ||
| West at the moment. | ||
| You're not anymore talking about architecture. | ||
| We're not talking about architecture. | ||
| Well, we can if you want. | ||
| Are they going to be putting up some modern buildings here? | ||
| No, actually, but you know, this is from the architecture debate, you can understand everything | ||
| because what we are doing here is that we try to restore everything which made Hungary | ||
| great in the past and it's part of our heritage. | ||
| If we are not proud of that, then what makes us Hungarians? | ||
| What is the purpose of our life? | ||
| So this is the important part. | ||
| And the other part is you will see in the city some other modern buildings which were created by Foreigners, very famous architects from all over the world. | ||
| I think it gives us pride as well to bring them to Hungary and let them to work here. | ||
| And we are fighting against the modern concrete and glass. | ||
| I mean, just like nothing special type of buildings. | ||
| If there is something Hungarian in that, Obviously it has to be a high quality thing, but it has to add some tiny little Hungarian thing in that. | ||
| This is how the things are going to work. | ||
| And not only in just architecture and reconstruction, but like policy making, family policy, things like that. | ||
| How do you think those things are connected? | ||
| Like architecture and actually city life and physically what you're looking at to the political side of things? | ||
| I think it's, you know, To figure out what the people want and what makes to be a good government, it's not so hard. | ||
| Obviously, you can learn about this for years in universities, but you get the point very easy. | ||
| People want a safe and beautiful environment around them. | ||
| People want a supportive environment around them. | ||
| A state which helps them to raise their kids, to make a family, to have jobs. | ||
| They want secure streets. | ||
| They don't want garbage all around everywhere. | ||
| They want companies which are Which are producing high quality goods. | ||
| So it's so simple. | ||
| And you are having good government. | ||
| If you see that things slowly, unfortunately, but going to that direction. | ||
| If you look back retrospectively, it's obvious than where you were 10 years ago. | ||
| And what did you achieve since then? | ||
| And if you see the This kind of progress, not the progressive ideology, then you fear that something good is happening. | ||
| If not, then you have to change course, because otherwise... | ||
| You're going down. | ||
| What do you think the secret to the success of that has been in Hungary? | ||
| Now, obviously, you're a fairly small country population-wise, only about 10 million people. | ||
| So there's an ability, it seems to me, to direct those people in a certain way where, from an American perspective, 350 million people. | ||
| It's harder to herd those cats and get them to see that. | ||
| We're seeing it at the state level. | ||
| Since I've been here, we've talked a lot about Florida. | ||
| That's working. | ||
| But the national project seems to be struggling. | ||
| I think the most important thing that you have to be sure and make sure that the people, grassroots voters, are behind you. | ||
| And then it doesn't matter whether the media is going against you, whether big corporations are going against you. | ||
| In our case, as a small country, international organizations, NGOs, and like Brussels is going against us, but if the people are backing what we are doing, then we are fine. | ||
| This will be always the last frontier, the last, you know, just place to stand. | ||
| Do you find that people like that, actually? | ||
| That people support you more when Brussels comes after you? | ||
| Or if you take, say, an immigration policy that obviously is counter to what the EU is doing, that sort of thing? | ||
| Honestly, among us, I don't understand why they are doing that. | ||
| Because the more pressure they put on us, the more popular we are getting in Hungary. | ||
| Because it's so obvious! | ||
| I mean, what happened in 2015? | ||
|
unidentified
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400 people? | |
| They made the decision to march across the country without any kind of permission. | ||
| It's like, it's like, it's not good. | ||
| It's against the idea of law and order. | ||
| People want law and order. | ||
| So they said that they support the government to stop it. | ||
| And since we have the attacks, they support the government even more. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| With a bigger majority. | ||
| It's actually not a controversial issue politically in Hungary. | ||
| Also, if you ask the leftist opposition voters whether they support stricter immigration policy, their answer would be yes. | ||
| So what is going on with the left here? | ||
| It seems to me that maybe it's not quite as radical as our left. | ||
| Is that fair to say? | ||
| I've asked a few people that over the last day or so, and I'm getting various... They want to be. | ||
| They want to be? | ||
| They want to be. | ||
| Well, that means they're not, so it's probably pretty good. | ||
| You know, we were talking about it. | ||
| I think the general environment, it does matter. | ||
| And this is the reason why the responsibility of the media is big. | ||
| So, I mean, it's like, politics is one issue. | ||
| Party political debates are part of the democracy. | ||
| It's not about that. | ||
| But there is a common, there should be at least a common understanding. | ||
| That, for example, you do not support any kind of violation at all. | ||
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unidentified
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And the media should not support that. | |
| This is based on common sense, not based on party political ideas. | ||
| And in Hungary, I think the media and even some Serious opposition parties, they take it seriously because they see if they go to another direction then the voters, they will punish them. | ||
| And they will not support them anymore. | ||
| They were looking for other alternatives. | ||
| Probably they will not vote for Fidesz, but they were looking for new alternatives on the left. | ||
| Do you sense that? | ||
| I'm happy to experience it. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| No, I wish, I wish we had a little bit more of that with our left. | ||
| It would help, it would help even bring balance. | ||
| It's a fear of radicalization. | ||
| You have to somehow be able to stop it. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It's interesting because from an American perspective, our left, they can have different policies, obviously, but there's something else where they're, they're angry at the founding of the nation. | ||
| They're angry at the laws of the nation. | ||
| That strikes me as much more dangerous where... That's, that's, that's the thing when, when we start When we start talking about the LGBTQ and the gender issues, and the Pope was here two weeks ago, CPAC was here one week ago. | ||
| Actually, since the Pope was here, since then we have the good weather. | ||
| Well, then he did something right. | ||
| He did something. | ||
| And everybody was very clear on that, that this kind of gender ideology, It's very dangerous because it divides the nation. | ||
| So it wants to override the idea of nationhood and of that all the people, it doesn't matter what color they have, how old are they, where are they from, they belong to the same nation and there is more thing which unites them than brings them separately. | ||
| And if you let these ideologies emerge, Then at the end of the day, sooner or later, it takes years, but it will destroy everything which brings the people together. | ||
| And then it will be very hard to maintain and to manage even the most basic functions of the society. | ||
| Yeah, it was interesting, because when I spoke last night, I mentioned how there should be a separation between the LG and B and T, that the T thing is actually anti-LG and B, and it's anti-women. | ||
| And it got a nice round of applause, which I was happy to hear from a conservative audience, because I think that's an important part to note. | ||
| True, but like... | ||
| But also in the migration issue and in general with the sexual minority issues. | ||
| Obviously discrimination is not acceptable because we are the same society. | ||
| All are human beings. | ||
| Any kind of sexual discrimination is unacceptable. | ||
| What we are doing in Hungary is we try to focus on on what things are bringing together people. | ||
| The wealthy people, the not so wealthy people, the young people, the old people, people coming from different parts of the country. | ||
| And you have to put a lot of energy into convincing the society that it's worth to keep together. If we have national purposes, then we have to, | ||
| you know, keep united. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| I think this is what I learned from the United States. This is how your wonderful country became the most successful | ||
| country on earth. | ||
| Right. And interestingly, I mean, the purpose of this trip for me was to figure out how do I import maybe what is | ||
| going on here back into the United States. | ||
| Because we seem to have lost a lot of that. | ||
| What would be your main message? | ||
| I mean, you've been to the United States a ton. | ||
| You were actually in Florida just a couple weeks ago. | ||
| I mean, when you see some of what's going on there, what would be your main message on how to fix some of this stuff? | ||
| First of all, we know our place. | ||
| It's still a small country, far away from the United States, after many centuries of suffering. | ||
| So how, you know, it's the mouse and the elephant. | ||
| I don't think that it should be cured. | ||
| But our experience is that people want to fix their life and people want to fix their country. | ||
| And it's not impossible to bring them together and be united. | ||
| Especially in a democracy. | ||
| Democracy is still the best form to do so. | ||
| And all politicians who want to restore American greatness or do something against what is going on right now there should be aware of the fact that if the people are behind you, you have to convince them to be on board with you. | ||
| And do you basically just ignore all of the noise? | ||
| I mean, the Prime Minister's office is literally about 30 feet that way. | ||
| I don't think he's in the building at the moment. | ||
| But, you know, when I tweet that I'm coming here or I retweet you, I get a certain amount of, oh, it's fascist and they're mean and blah, blah, blah. | ||
| And I look at it and I just keep meeting pleasant people and seeing what's actually happening on the ground. | ||
| I mean, do you just do you just basically ignore the noise and just go ahead? | ||
| I would be surprised if they were supporting me, so that would cause us more problems. | ||
| If the media was supporting you, that's what DeSantis says also. | ||
| Yeah, well, it was a pleasure seeing you again, and I look forward to exploring just this absolutely incredible... Tell me, yeah, give me one thing that we should do if we have a little fresh time. | ||
| This is the Hungarian Parliament building. | ||
| Absolutely stunning. | ||
| It's a gorgeous, gorgeous thing, but it's about Hungarian sovereignty, because it was built more than 120, 130 years ago, And back at that time, there was a competition among the architects that what kind of building should be built. | ||
| And there was a commission which made the final decision. | ||
| And as you see, this is the only neo-gothic style of building in town. | ||
| All the other ones are just now neo-classical, neo-Renaissance buildings. | ||
| And back at that time, the commission was saying that it cannot happen. | ||
| that the hungarian parliament building will have the same architectural style as the vienna government buildings because they were neo-renaissance buildings so that's the reason why they went to that direction because they wanted to have an independent a different a sovereign decision so they were choosing this this kind of neo-gothic architecture and there are no other buildings with this style in in the country this is the only one and this is this is like Even 130 years ago the most important thing for Hungarian people was sovereignty. | ||
| How they differentiate. | ||
| The Hungarians from Vienna, which was the headquarter of the Empire back at that time. | ||
| So if you come to Hungary, you will see a lot of tiny little signs, people for like 1,000 years or even more fighting for their sovereignty. | ||
| And this is, if you see the result, this is a fight which was to be continued. | ||
| And on the continuing path, you will also see a lot of cranes because there's a lot of new things going up. | ||
| So that proves it right there, right? | ||
| The Basilica, which is the main church, the Parliament building, and the soccer stadium. | ||
| So this is a triangle. | ||
| It was great to see you, my friend. | ||
| Very nice to see you. | ||
| If you're looking for more honest and thoughtful conversations about international issues, check out our international playlist. | ||
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unidentified
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