BUDAPEST — David Pressman, a homosexual human rights lawyer, knew he was in for a tough time even earlier than he arrived in Hungary along with his husband and two kids to take up a brand new job in September as america’ ambassador to Europe’s self-declared citadel of conventional Christian values and buddy of the Kremlin.
As his affirmation listening to started in July in Washington, a rubber dinghy carrying a warning appeared on the Danube River close to the U.S. Embassy in Budapest. On a black banner emblazoned with a cranium and crossbones was an anti-L.G.B.T.Q. message in English and Hungarian: “Mr. Pressman, don’t terrorize Hungary along with your cult of loss of life.”
Mr. Pressman hung {a photograph} of that “welcome to Hungary” message on the wall behind his embassy desk. “That,” he lamented, “was earlier than I ever stepped foot on this nation.”
And it has been just about downhill ever since.
The ambassador, whose predecessor, appointed by Donald J. Trump, delighted his hosts by praising Viktor Orban, Hungary’s intolerant prime minister, has been savaged since his arrival — together with the Biden administration — by government-friendly media as a menace to Hungary, its individuals and their values.
Mr. Pressman has been accused of violating diplomatic conventions, meddling within the judiciary and making an attempt to silence conservative voices. PestiSracok, a belligerent, pro-government information portal, denounced the appointment of a person it described as “an professional on L.G.B.T. rights” as “an apparent diplomatic provocation.” A visitor on a government-controlled tv speak present referred to him as “Madame Ambassador.”
Extra alarming than the non-public assaults, Mr. Pressman stated in a latest interview in Budapest, are what he sees as a broader assault on america in Hungarian media — most of which is both immediately managed by the governing Fidesz get together or by way of its enterprise allies — and a relentless “repurposing of Kremlin propaganda.”
Hungary’s government-controlled media, Mr. Pressman stated, recurrently recycles Russian propaganda tropes, “pushing out Kremlin disinformation and anti-American rhetoric on a routine foundation, and that’s worrying to america.”
Almost a 12 months after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the West mobilized in opposition to him, Hungary, a member of NATO and the European Union, has turn out to be the closest factor the Kremlin has to an ally within the European bloc. Hungarians, polls present, aren’t massive followers of Russia, however the din of home politics, targeted by Fidesz on battles in opposition to “wokeism and gender ideology,” has tugged the nation away from its historically agency strategic moorings within the West.
Earlier than his present posting, Mr. Pressman had served as ambassador to the United Nations for particular political affairs and as an assistant secretary of homeland safety. He additionally labored on the White Home as director for conflict crimes and atrocities on the Nationwide Safety Council.
Conferences with Hungarian officers, Mr. Pressman stated, are normally civil and pragmatic in tone however usually begin along with his host saying: “Ambassador, it’s great to fulfill you. I do know you need to discuss gender progressive points.”
“I cease them and say, ‘No, really, I need to communicate to you about Hungary’s reliance on Vladimir Putin,’” he added. “They at all times need to have the dialog a couple of tradition conflict. We need to have a dialog about an actual conflict that exists subsequent door.”
Mr. Orban has gone together with E.U. sanctions in opposition to Russia, however has repeatedly denounced them, refused to let weapons for Ukraine move by way of Hungary and despatched senior officers to Moscow to plead for extra Russian pure fuel simply as the remainder of Europe is making an attempt to wean itself off Russian vitality.
Mr. Orban’s yearslong coverage of cozying as much as Russia additionally brought on friction previously with america, significantly in 2018 when Hungary refused a Trump administration request for the extradition of two Russian arms sellers. It despatched them to Moscow as a substitute.
However the Russian invasion of Ukraine raised these tensions to a brand new pitch.
“The world modified,” Mr. Pressman stated, “and the power to play each side when we’ve got an precise land conflict in Europe not exists.” He urged Hungary to return to its historic position as a rustic unambiguously a part of the West. “The time for extra readability and extra decisiveness definitely arrived when Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked conflict on Hungary’s democratic neighbor.”
Not like Serbia, Hungary’s neighbor to the south, which has deep, historic ties with Russia and robust anti-American currents because of NATO’s United States-led bombing marketing campaign in opposition to it in 1999, Hungary has historically seemed favorably on america — besides when Hungary was a part of the Soviet bloc and its Communist leaders parroted Moscow-dictated propaganda.
The nation’s drift into shrill anti-Americanism started when Mr. Trump misplaced the November 2020 presidential election. Mr. Trump’s ambassador to Hungary, David B. Cornstein, a jewellery magnate who praised Mr. Orban as “a really, very sturdy and good chief,” left Budapest. And as an election loomed final spring in Hungary, Fidesz ramped up criticism of American teams over cash they have been offering to impartial media shops that it noticed as enemies of the federal government.
Fidesz gained a landslide victory within the election, however has nonetheless stored up a gentle barrage of assaults on so-called “greenback media” and “the greenback left,” now its customary phrases of abuse for impartial media and its political opponents.
After years of assailing the Hungarian-born George Soros, a Jewish American billionaire and philanthropist, as Hungary’s arch enemy, Mr. Orban and his media machine turned their hearth on Washington.
“We was once ‘brokers of Soros,’ after which we instantly turned ‘brokers of america,’” recalled Szabolcs Panyi, a distinguished investigative journalist.
Notably disturbing, Mr. Pressman stated, was the discharge of a report by Hungary’s Nationwide Info Middle, an intelligence service that stories to Mr. Orban, that presupposed to hyperlink dozens of Americans in a spider’s internet of alleged conspiracies supposedly aimed toward toppling the prime minister. The report, the ambassador stated, was worthy of Carrie Mathison, the conspiracy-obsessed C.I.A. agent within the tv present “Homeland.” A new report alongside comparable traces surfaced late final month.
“That official our bodies of this authorities, together with their intelligence companies, are going to deal with Americans, that has definitely caught our consideration,” Mr. Pressman stated. He added that “we won’t be silent when america is attacked” by a NATO ally.
The Hungarian authorities didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Some Republican senators questioned Mr. Pressman’s suitability for the Budapest job throughout his affirmation hearings, and the American Conservative, {a magazine}, warned that his appointment risked pushing Hungary into the arms of China and Russia as a result of he didn’t “respect” Hungary’s home political panorama.
Hungary holds common homosexual pleasure marches, however the governing Fidesz get together in 2021 used its giant majority in Parliament to outlaw the portrayal of L.G.B.T.Q. existence to minors. The federal government stated it was making an attempt to fight baby abuse however critics accused Fidesz of equating homosexuality with pedophilia
Assaults on Mr. Pressman and the Biden administration first went into excessive gear after the newly arrived ambassador met with two judges from the Nationwide Judicial Council, a physique that the European Union has seemed to as a barrier in opposition to what it sees as authorities strikes to neuter the independence of the judiciary.
Origo, a as soon as impartial information media outlet now consistent with the federal government, blasted the assembly as an “unprecedentedly critical interference within the judiciary,” whereas different shops fumed for days in regards to the ambassador’s assembly as an insupportable affront by an “enemy” of Hungary. The embassy responded by posting {a photograph} of Mr. Orban assembly with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.
In a relentless state of excessive dudgeon over what it presents as American interference in Hungarian home affairs, Hungary has itself ceaselessly waded into U.S. politics, with Mr. Orban touring to Texas in August, three months earlier than the midterm elections, to assist hearth up Republican voters. Hungary’s ambassador to Washington has been a fixture at right-wing gatherings in america.
“So whenever you see all of these things coming after america or me personally or my workforce about interference of their home political course of, you need to say, ‘You understand, guys, you’re really campaigning in america for this,’” Mr. Pressman stated.
Regardless of the entire partisan noise and bickering, the conflict in Ukraine has put the significance of relations between Hungary and its NATO allies in perspective. No less than that’s Mr. Pressman’s hope. Hungarians, he stated, “don’t see their future with Russia and China.”
“I believe they see their future with Europe, the West and america,” he added, “and I believe that may be a actually constructive foundation on which we will work.”
“I’m right here to not disrupt this relationship or rupture it,” Mr. Pressman stated. “I’m right here to restore it. And there may be restore that must be carried out.”
Barnabas Heincz contributed reporting from Budapest.
