Perspectives: Tucker Carlson Visits Hungary

Fox News host Tucker Carlson announced Monday that the next week of his highly-watched show would be broadcast from Hungary. The trip began with a Monday meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who is known for his conservative nationalist politics and whose party recently passed a controversial law banning media that "promotes" LGBTQ identities from schools. “If you care about western civilization and democracy and families and the ferocious assault on all three of those things by the leaders of our global institutions, you should know what is happening [in Hungary] right now,” Carlson said in his opening monologue on Monday. 

Carlson will also reportedly give a speech titled “The World According to Tucker Carlson” at MCC Feszt, an academic conference in Budapest, Hungary at Mathias Corvinus Collegium, an elite school to which Orbán recently funneled $1.7 billion in government funds. PragerU founder Dennis Prager is also scheduled to speak at the event on Aug. 6. 

Voices in left-rated outlets tended to frame Carlson’s visit to Hungary negatively, calling Orbán an “authoritarian.” They also described MCC Feszt as a “far-right conference,” echoing Hungarian critics who have said that Orbán wants the school to foster a conservative elite. Voices in right-rated outlets tended to criticize left-leaning commentators, arguing that MCC Feszt was not "far-right" and that Hungary’s policies under Orbán were either a model for American conservatives or just not as noteworthy as foreign commentators alleged.