Rubin Report - Dave Rubin - How Hungary Is Succeeding at Beating the EU | Balázs Orbán
Aired: 2026-03-27
Duration: 10:09

[00:00:07]  All right, my friend Balash Orban, political director for Prime Minister Viktor Orban, as I say every time I interview you, no relation unless there's been a marriage in the family somehow.
[00:00:17]  It didn't happen.
[00:00:18]  Not yet, not yet.
[00:00:18]  Well, it's great to be back in your country.
[00:00:21]  Welcome here.
[00:00:21]  Good to see you.
[00:00:22]  It's good to see you.
[00:00:23]  You are really, I think, one of the prime sort of exporters of what's right about a really wonderful explainer of what is right.
[00:00:33]  It's very obvious to me, but for somebody that's never been and doesn't know what's going on, what are you guys doing?
[00:00:39]  Then I'll ask you some other questions.
[00:00:42]  First of all, everybody who wasn't here yet should visit the wonderful place, Hungary and Safe.
[00:00:49]  Exactly, exactly.
[00:00:50]  And then they can see everything and they can decide themselves.
[00:00:55]  But what we are doing now is like...
[00:00:59]  So the situation here in Europe is quite hard.
[00:01:04]  We have a Prussian bureaucracy which is led by progressives and liberals and warmong people who were willing to fight the war against Russia for eternity.
[00:01:18]  And this is causing serious problems for us.
[00:01:22]  If you are led by liberals, by progressives, then no one cares about your own people.
[00:01:28]  They let the migrants in, they push the Vogue ideology, they destroy the economy with the crazy sanctions regimes and with the crazy green transition policies.
[00:01:41]  And since we have a war in the neighborhood and no one is ready to step in, as it was done by President Trump and try to push a deal, it is destroying the economy.
[00:01:52]  So we are the Hungarian patriots who are trying to save our people, save our economy, save our nation, not letting migrants in, saving our children from gender propaganda,
[00:02:07]  trying to save the economy and trying to help everyone who is ready to make a peace on the Ukrainian frontline.
[00:02:14]  Now we are under heavy pressure from the Ukrainians, so that's a serious issue because Ukraine wants all European countries to finance the war.
[00:02:23]  What kind of leverage do they have over you?
[00:02:25]  I mean, at this point, Orban's position, Hungary's position is pretty clear.
[00:02:29]  So what kind of newer pressure do you have?
[00:02:31]  They're leveraging Brussels who is on the side of Brazilians.
[00:02:35]  So actually what is happening is right now, Zelensky is threatening and blackmailing Hungary.
[00:02:42]  They stopped the oil pipeline.
[00:02:45]  Imagine the situation that these things are going on in the Middle East.
[00:02:49]  Oil prices are skyrocketing and somebody is stopping the pipeline and trying to create chaos in your country.
[00:02:58]  So that's not a very friendly move, if I would put it that way.
[00:03:03]  But we resist.
[00:03:05]  We were telling them that if they don't reopen the pipeline, we will not support them and we will not let the European Union to give them the loan which is needed.
[00:03:15]  So there is a fight.
[00:03:16]  But they want the government change in Hungary.
[00:03:19]  So the biggest and the strongest response will be that we win the election.
[00:03:26]  And then they will see that the people of Hungary are behind Viktor Orban.
[00:03:29]  And then the Brussels and the Ukrainians, they have to step back.
[00:03:34]  And they have to let Hungary to do what is best for the Hungarian people.
[00:03:39]  So this is actually a real issue.
[00:03:42]  I think all economy needs cheap energy.
[00:03:45]  I mean, every country needs cheap energy.
[00:03:47]  If you say no to some energy sources in this situation, you are actually not serving the interests of your people.
[00:03:55]  It can happen that you're serving the interests of some lobbyist groups, but not the interests of your own people.
[00:04:00]  So there is an energy issue and there is a security issue.
[00:04:04]  We don't want to get into a war.
[00:04:05]  This is not our war.
[00:04:06]  This is a war between two Slavic nations.
[00:04:11]  This has nothing to do with Hungary.
[00:04:13]  My general sense from being here for the last 48 hours is that people feel that Orban will win the election, but there's some concern that a certain amount of people will be tired.
[00:04:23]  They're tired of success or they don't even realize how good they have it.
[00:04:27]  How much of that do you think is real?
[00:04:30]  Well, I think most probably it's always the case if you have a government which is in power for like 16 years.
[00:04:37]  But the question is, what do people think about the major civilizational issues?
[00:04:43]  And I can see the polls, like 80% of the society wants peace.
[00:04:47]  They do not support the war.
[00:04:49]  80% of the society is saying no to migration.
[00:04:52]  80% of the society wants cheap energy and wants a government which is supporting the families and households and the economy.
[00:05:04]  So now the political situation in Hungary is very simple.
[00:05:10]  We have the Patriots and we have the Brazilians.
[00:05:13]  So either you choose the Brusselian liberals and progressives, the Biden type of people, or you stick to Orban and you keep him and he will keep you safe and sound.
[00:05:23]  So therefore I think that we will get the mandate.
[00:05:26]  But we have to work on it very hard and convince every single person that this election will be a decisive one.
[00:05:33]  And we have to be the majority on the election day, not the day after, not the day before, on that exact day.
[00:05:40]  So assuming that goes well, how do you view the future of Western Europe?
[00:05:45]  Because clearly they're 20 years, you know, 20 years almost having completely allowed decimation of their countries.
[00:05:54]  Reversing that is not as simple as just closing a border.
[00:05:56]  You guys closed it at the right time.
[00:05:59]  The situation in many Western European countries is horrible, as it was correctly said by President Trump and by JD Vance.
[00:06:08]  So they were right about what they were saying.
[00:06:11]  And what they wrote, so the administration wrote down in the American National Security Strategy about Europe, it's a fact.
[00:06:22]  That's the reality.
[00:06:24]  All Americans have to know that their leaders were right on that.
[00:06:27]  Europe is in a huge trouble.
[00:06:30]  So I hope that at the end of the day, European people will say no to that and will reject their Brussels leaders.
[00:06:43]  But is there a way to reverse what has happened in those countries?
[00:06:47]  I still believe it's possible.
[00:06:50]  It's going to be hard.
[00:06:52]  I can see it's hard in the United States as well.
[00:06:56]  But it's special.
[00:06:58]  Probably it's more hard in some Western European countries than in the United States.
[00:07:03]  But if you have a strong leadership, a committed leadership, and I see this French and German and Dutch politicians who are here, they seem to be quite determined, which is a good sign.
[00:07:15]  If I would have asked you 20 years ago, is it possible that Hungary would be the model for a functional Europe?
[00:07:22]  What would you have thought?
[00:07:24]  Well, probably I would think that you're joking.
[00:07:30]  But it's true.
[00:07:31]  I mean, every one of these leaders that are coming here, I mean, you have mostly opposition parties that are coming here.
[00:07:36]  But everybody is saying this is what we want to build.
[00:07:39]  Unfortunately, that's the reality right now.
[00:07:42]  We are not prepared to be the role models.
[00:07:45]  We just want to save our country, not the entire continent.
[00:07:49]  But we see that they are Wood-wheeling people, some very talented politicians, and if they are ready to cooperate, we try to do our best and try to help them as much as we can.
[00:08:01]  But we are very happy to see that somebody from the United States is also not just you and your colleagues, but people from the administration are coming and they are encouraging all those leaders that this is the right thing to do.
[00:08:13]  Step up and fight for your country.
[00:08:16]  And it's not a sin, it's actually the opposite.
[00:08:19]  And the more you fight for the country, the more Donald Trump wants to help you, actually.
[00:08:23]  That seems very, very honest.
[00:08:24]  Last question: since Donald Trump did issue, gave a video statement here.
[00:08:28]  Is there anything else you'd like to see out of the American administration that would be helpful for Hungary?
[00:08:34]  Well, look, now in Europe, digital censorship is a real problem.
[00:08:41]  It's also mentioned many times by the representatives of the administration.
[00:08:45]  What is going on is that Brussels made some agreements with the big social media companies, Meta and some others.
[00:08:54]  And they are using EU law to restrict the content.
[00:08:58]  There's a big scandal today about depressing Viktor Orban's page, yeah.
[00:09:02]  There is.
[00:09:03]  And of course, like they were going against the anti-migration statements before, they were going against the anti-gender statements before.
[00:09:15]  Now they are going against the anti-war statements.
[00:09:19]  They all consider this Russian propaganda.
[00:09:21]  If you're saying you don't want to go into a war, you are spreading Russian propaganda.
[00:09:26]  It's a ridiculous thing.
[00:09:28]  So we need an American leadership which is taking responsibility for its own social media companies.
[00:09:38]  They shouldn't intervene at all.
[00:09:40]  They should just create a level playing field and let the people decide.
[00:09:46]  It was good to see you, my friend.
[00:09:47]  And I hope you get some time in the, what did you say, the Caribbean?
[00:09:50]  Once the election's over?
[00:09:51]  All right.
[00:09:52]  Very good.
[00:09:53]  Thank you very much.
[00:09:54]  Thank you for being here.
[00:09:55]  If you want a more worldly perspective on current events, check out our international playlist.
[00:09:59]  And if you want to watch full interviews on a wide variety of topics, watch our full episode playlist all right over here.
[00:10:05]  And to get notified of all future videos, be sure to subscribe and click the notification bell.