The Trump administration has halted Biden’s funneling of US tax dollars to foreign media outlets dedicated to undermining Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. If that's an outrage, imagine if Trump used our tax dollars to undermine socialist leaders in Britain or Canada.
Under the Biden administration, the U.S. State Department entrusted two organizations to find media outlets opposed to Orban’s government to receive American taxpayer funding. Recently, one of those organizations, Mertek Media Monitor, shared the news that the funding had been cut off by Trump.
Mertek Media Monitor reposted a Jan. 27 X post by Investigative Journalist Szabolcs Panyi that mourned, “The Trump admin’s suspension of foreign aid also halts support for Hungarian independent media via the ‘U.S. Ambassador’s Independent Media Support Fund.’”
"Independent"? Mertek Media Monitor is a Soros-funded media watchdog that had worked with the Soros-funded Ökotárs Foundation to pick outlets hostile to the government of our NATO ally.
Soros gave $306,147 to the Ökotárs Foundation and $88,113 to Mérték Media Monitor between 2017 and 2022. According to Mertek Media Monitor, the organizations have doled out $815,531.78 of taxpayer dollars (319,213,010 Hungarian Forints) in three rounds of funding.
These funds were frozen as part of a President Donald Trump-mandated review of all foreign assistance. According to a State Department spokesperson, “The Department and USAID take their role as stewards of taxpayer dollars very seriously. The implementation of this Executive Order and the Secretary’s direction furthers that mission. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said, ‘Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?’”
Working to help vindictive former Ambassador to Hungary under Biden, David Pressman, and undermine an ally with taxpayer dollars would seem to merit a no for each question.
Notably, these grants were awarded during Pressman’s tenure. While the State Department and the U.S. Embassy were passing taxpayer dollars to Orban opponents, Pressman was publicly warring with the government he was supposed to be working with. Pressman’s activism includes hostile social media posts, going after Orban at events sponsored by Soros groups, and accusing officials in a country that is known for fighting to keep its citizens safe from antisemitic violence of fomenting antisemitism.
Pressman has even infamously imposed his values on Hungary by attending and even hosting pro-LGBTQ events, which naturally he used as a platform to lash out at Orban and members of his political party Fidesz.
Now Pressman is gone and his beloved project may lose its funds. However, U.S. District judge Loren L. AliKhan (a former DC solicitor general nominated by Biden in 2023) has temporarily blocked the freeze.
Outrageously, the Soros-backed groups featured in this debacle not only chose to fund outlets that viciously attack Orban, a Trump ally but also dutifully helped shuffle American taxpayer money to six separate Soros-backed Hungarian media outlets. Mertek Media Monitor and the Ökotárs Foundation even awarded grants to five of these Soros-backed media outlets twice!
The Soros-backed Tilos Cultural Foundation, Magyar Hang, Debrecen, Nyugat Media and Atlatszo.hu Kozhasznu Nonprofit Kft. received State Department grants in the first and third rounds. And these publications do more damage than simply relentlessly going after Orban.
For example, Átlátszó works to undermine Hungary’s border security, going as far as blasting the government for focusing on defending the border against illegal immigration. In just one article, the publication cast blame on Hungarian border security for fights at the border and repeated a claim that people attempting to illegally enter the country “had given no indication that they had hostile intentions.”
The Soros-backed publication even reposted an article referring to radical gender ideology as a “phantom,” mocking attempts to protect Hungarian families.
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