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How a Tiny Newsroom Helped Bring Down Hungary’s Authoritarian Leader · Question Everything

0:03
Speaker 1: This episode is sponsored by Ground News. It's a platform
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Speaker 1: that lets you see all the coverage of a news
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Speaker 1: story in one place with ratings about how reliable each
0:11
Speaker 1: source is so you can draw your own conclusions. And
0:14
Speaker 1: I was surprised to learn Ground News was founded not
0:17
Speaker 1: by a journalist, not by a media executive, but by
0:20
Speaker 1: an aerospace engineer who became troubled by how hard it
0:23
Speaker 1: can be to find trustworthy news.
0:25
Speaker 2: How is it possible that we can see what's happening
0:27
Speaker 2: on Pluto with certainty? but we can't with certainty tell
0:31
Speaker 2: what's happening somewhere in our own world by reading a
0:35
Speaker 2: single news source.
0:36
Speaker 1: Her name is Harleen Kor. We're going to hear more
0:38
Speaker 1: from her throughout the show. In the meantime, you can
0:40
Speaker 1: check out Ground News at the link in the show notes.
0:53
Speaker 1: In April, days before the election for prime minister in Hungary,
0:57
Speaker 1: Vice President J.D. Vance traveled to Budapest to help Hungarian
1:00
Speaker 1: Prime Minister Viktor Orban as he was trying to cinch
1:03
Speaker 1: his next term after 16 years in power. And there
1:06
Speaker 1: was this awkwardly low-tech moment where Vance stood on stage
1:10
Speaker 1: at a rally, held his phone up to the podium mics,
1:13
Speaker 1: and dialed up Donald Trump right there.
1:15
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, the person you were trying to reach has
1:17
Speaker 3: a voicemail box that has not been set up yet.
1:20
Speaker 1: Okay, try one more time. He had to try them
1:23
Speaker 1: again the second time he got through.
1:25
Speaker 4: You are on with about 5,000 Hungarian patriots, and I
1:28
Speaker 4: think they love you even more than they love Viktor Orban.
1:32
Speaker 3: Well, I can't believe that.
1:34
Speaker 4: I can't believe that, because I love Hungary, and I
1:38
Speaker 4: love that Viktor.
1:39
Speaker 5: I'll tell you, he's a fantastic man.
1:40
Speaker 3: We've had a tremendous relationship.
1:43
Speaker 1: Trump and the MAGA movement have loved the Hungarian prime minister.
1:47
Speaker 1: They've all watched in admiration, as over the last decade
1:50
Speaker 1: and a half, Orban and his party, Fidesz, pushed Hungary
1:53
Speaker 1: away from democracy and into autocracy, from co-opting the judiciary
1:58
Speaker 1: to targeting universities to stripping back the rights of LGBTQ people,
2:02
Speaker 1: asylum seekers and minorities, to corrupting much of the media
2:06
Speaker 1: and turning it into a government mouthpiece. Trump and the
2:09
Speaker 1: American right have looked to what Orban has accomplished as
2:12
Speaker 1: inspiration for what they can do here in the U.S. CPAC,
2:16
Speaker 1: the biggest gathering of American conservatives, even started holding a
2:19
Speaker 1: yearly conference in Hungary to cross-pollinate ideas. And then, on
2:24
Speaker 1: April 12th, stunningly, Hungarians voted Orban out.
2:29
Speaker 4: Hungary's far-right nationalist leader, Viktor Orban, was defeated in an
2:33
Speaker 4: election yesterday. This brings to an end his 16 years
2:37
Speaker 4: in office. Orban was heavily backed by the Trump administration.
2:41
Speaker 1: Peter Madjar from the opposition TISA party beat Orban in
2:45
Speaker 1: such a big landslide that Orban didn't even try to
2:48
Speaker 1: cling to power, as lots of people expected he might.
2:51
Speaker 1: He conceded. Peter Magyar was sworn in a few weeks
2:58
Speaker 1: ago amid massive, jubilant crowds celebrating the first day of democracy,
3:04
Speaker 1: as one writer put it. So now, instead of looking
3:10
Speaker 1: to Hungary as a cautionary tale, democracy-supporting Americans are turning
3:14
Speaker 1: to it for hopeful lessons.
3:16
Speaker 2: I know I am.
3:18
Speaker 1: How did Hungarians do this? How did they oust an
3:21
Speaker 1: autocratic leader and his party? Of course, there are a
3:25
Speaker 1: bunch of factors. There's the way Magyar ran his campaign,
3:28
Speaker 1: visiting thousands of Hungarians in person across the country over
3:32
Speaker 1: two years. The specific issues he hammered home again and again,
3:36
Speaker 1: particularly the corruption of Orban and his cronies. The way
3:40
Speaker 1: a variety of grassroots movements came together was also important,
3:43
Speaker 1: from teachers to free speech proponents to LGBTQ activists. But also, crucially.
3:49
Speaker 6: listening to independent opposition media.
3:53
Speaker 1: This is historian Timothy Snyder. He's an expert on authoritarianism
3:57
Speaker 1: in Europe, talking to Katie Couric about the lessons he
4:00
Speaker 1: thinks Americans should take from Hungary's election.
4:02
Speaker 6: In Hungary, the state media was completely corrupted, but there
4:06
Speaker 6: were a handful of reporters doing excellent work, and they
4:10
Speaker 6: allowed scandals to become popular knowledge.
4:12
Speaker 3: So that was very important.
4:14
Speaker 1: Again and again, in the weeks since Orban's ouster, I've
4:17
Speaker 1: seen this. People saying that journalists played a major part
4:21
Speaker 1: in it. And not in some high-mindedly vague, you know,
4:24
Speaker 1: journalism is essential to democracy kind of way. There are
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Speaker 1: two specific journalists who uncovered a specific, juicy story about
4:32
Speaker 1: Orban and his allies that people have been saying truly
4:36
Speaker 1: helped bring the prime minister down. The journalists themselves who
4:39
Speaker 1: worked on the story say they've been hearing praise like this.
4:42
Speaker 3: Oh, a lot.
4:43
Speaker 5: A lot.
4:44
Speaker 3: Yes.
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Speaker 1: Their names are Andras Peto and Zuzana Virt. They work
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Speaker 1: at a tiny online investigative journalism outlet that somehow still
4:52
Speaker 1: exists in Hungary, despite Orban's crackdown on the press. It's
4:55
Speaker 1: called Direct 36. Andras is an editor, and Zsuzsanna is
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Speaker 1: a reporter. And together, they published an expose about a
5:03
Speaker 1: scheme inside the Orban regime that someone tipped them off to,
5:07
Speaker 1: which became a huge scandal in Hungary after Andras and
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Speaker 1: Zsuzsanna revealed it. No less a journalistic icon than Marty Barron,
5:14
Speaker 1: former head of the Washington Post and of the Boston Globe,
5:17
Speaker 1: who we've had here on our show. posted a link
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Speaker 1: to their story, saying it, quote, played an essential role
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Speaker 1: in the election and in safeguarding what was left of democracy.
5:26
Speaker 1: Peter Madjar called András Endzsuzana's story the Hungarian Watergate. All
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Speaker 1: the flattery clearly makes the journalist squeamish.
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Speaker 3: I mean, of course, it's nice to hear, but it's
5:36
Speaker 3: also even, at least, it puts me a little uncomfortable because,
5:41
Speaker 3: you know, and I'm just telling everyone that it's... We
5:45
Speaker 3: were just doing our jobs. Of course, we understood over
5:48
Speaker 3: the years that the significance and the importance of this
5:52
Speaker 3: job increased over the years as all the other institutions
5:57
Speaker 3: were crumbling. But yeah, we were just doing our job.
6:02
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's confusing, really. So many people write how grateful
6:07
Speaker 5: they are to us for doing what they do. But
6:11
Speaker 5: this is what we get paid for.
6:14
Speaker 1: Since Viktor Orban's shocking defeat, I've wanted to know, what
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Speaker 1: was this story that helped bring him down? What was
6:20
Speaker 1: it about? How did the reporters uncover it? My colleague
6:24
Speaker 1: Sean Cole talked to Andras and Dujana to hear it
6:27
Speaker 1: all from them, and I did not expect it to
6:29
Speaker 1: be such a hair-raiser. From KCRW and Placement Theory, I'm
6:35
Speaker 1: Brian Reed. This is Question Everything, where we investigate how
6:38
Speaker 1: the truth gets buried, distorted, denied, and the ways people
6:42
Speaker 1: are fighting to make it matter again. Today on the show,
6:45
Speaker 1: the story of two humble, intrepid journalists in Hungary who
6:48
Speaker 1: discovered a shadowy figure who tried and failed to sabotage
6:53
Speaker 1: the election that may have just brought Hungary back to democracy.
6:57
Speaker 1: Stick around. Again, we're excited to have this episode sponsored
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Speaker 1: by Ground News, which was founded by aerospace engineer Harleen Korok.
7:09
Speaker 1: She was part of a team at NASA that sent
7:11
Speaker 1: a spacecraft to gather all sorts of data and information
7:14
Speaker 1: about Pluto. But then, after the 2016 election, Harleen found
7:18
Speaker 1: herself struggling to find reliable information about what was happening
7:22
Speaker 1: here on Earth. She felt lost. She knew others did too.
7:26
Speaker 1: So she thought, what if I took my engineering skills
7:29
Speaker 1: and applied them to the problem of news?
7:31
Speaker 2: Which is, by the way, much harder than rocket science.
7:34
Speaker 1: You can't be serious about that.
7:35
Speaker 2: I'm serious.
7:37
Speaker 5: It's very.
7:38
Speaker 2: It's just so fragmented and the problem is so complex.
7:42
Speaker 1: You think it's more complex than sending a rocket into space,
7:46
Speaker 1: like past Pluto?
7:47
Speaker 2: Yes, I do believe that because I think sending a
7:50
Speaker 2: rocket into space, you can break down it into smaller
7:52
Speaker 2: tasks and figure different bits and pieces out. Whereas the
7:56
Speaker 2: fragmented news landscape, it's not just that one team or
8:00
Speaker 2: one person can solve this. There are so many layers
8:03
Speaker 2: to this problem.
8:05
Speaker 1: After a lot of thinking... Harleen came up with an
8:07
Speaker 1: idea for how she might fix it, and that's what
8:09
Speaker 1: she's trying with Ground News. We're going to hear more
8:11
Speaker 1: about that during our next break. Okie doke. Without further ado,
8:18
Speaker 1: here's Sean Cole with our story.
8:21
Speaker 7: I sat down with Zsuzsanna and András just three weeks
8:23
Speaker 7: after the election in Hungary. Zsuzsanna was the lead reporter
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Speaker 7: in the case. András had brought in the story. I
8:29
Speaker 7: say with. They were in a studio in Budapest, and
8:32
Speaker 7: I was in my apartment in New York, where it
8:34
Speaker 7: was six hours earlier.
8:35
Speaker 3: How are you? I mean, I still feel bad that
8:37
Speaker 3: you had to get up so early.
8:38
Speaker 2: Don't feel bad.
8:38
Speaker 7: What? It's just a time difference, that's all. The sun
8:41
Speaker 7: is coming up over Manhattan.
8:43
Speaker 5: What's the time?
8:44
Speaker 3: It's 6 a.m., I think.
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Speaker 5: Oh, sorry.
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Speaker 7: You know, this is what we do for the love
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Speaker 7: of the medium. I was surprised how deferential they are
8:54
Speaker 7: for two people who are essentially being compared to Bob
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Speaker 7: Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Andras and Shijana's outlet, Direct36, does
9:00
Speaker 7: a lot of hard-hitting investigations. Its funding comes from individual
9:04
Speaker 7: donors and foundations. They made a documentary last year about
9:07
Speaker 7: how Orban's family enriched itself through shady business practices. They've
9:11
Speaker 7: also done a bunch of reporting on government surveillance of
9:13
Speaker 7: reporters and private citizens. A couple of their own staffers
9:16
Speaker 7: have been surveilled. But this story that helped lose Orban
9:20
Speaker 7: the election was something else, like something out of a
9:22
Speaker 7: spy thriller. A mysterious operative tries to manipulate a young
9:26
Speaker 7: supporter of the opposition TISA party into becoming a double
9:30
Speaker 7: agent over text message. The whole affair is so espionage-y
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Speaker 7: that Andras was 100% opaque about where they even got
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Speaker 7: the story. It was a tip, he said, from an
9:41
Speaker 7: intermediary who led them to some documents.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, I cannot tell who that person was
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Speaker 3: or even who the sources or the person was referring to.
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Speaker 3: I have to tell you that when I first heard
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Speaker 3: about this, I was very, very skeptical. But then when
9:59
Speaker 3: we had a meeting with Zsuzsanna and another colleague, another editor,
10:04
Speaker 3: we already took some precautions. So we went down to
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Speaker 3: the street, we left our devices back in the office.
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Speaker 7: So that no one could spy on them through their phones.
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Speaker 3: Basically, I think we all agreed that this was, in
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Speaker 3: a way, not a plausible story. But on the other hand,
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Speaker 3: Who would make up a story like this? Like, you know,
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Speaker 3: it's so crazy. And sometimes, you know, as reporters, we
10:26
Speaker 3: know that there are crazy stories and sometimes you have
10:29
Speaker 3: to pay attention.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, I can remember how when I saw the files
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Speaker 5: for the first time with my own eyes, my mind
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Speaker 5: was rushing. For weeks, I didn't really sleep because I
10:42
Speaker 5: was always thinking about what to do, who to contact,
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Speaker 5: what to ask.
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Speaker 7: The files Zsuzsanna is talking about is a series of
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Speaker 7: text messages, a back-and-forth conversation that went on for months,
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Speaker 7: starting in February 2025. This conversation is at the core
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Speaker 7: of the expose. So much of what they learned plays
11:01
Speaker 7: out in the text messages between this X-Files-like faceless villain
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Speaker 7: and two relatively unassuming supporters of Peter Magyar. Basically, this
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Speaker 7: 19-year-old kid who used to do IT work for Magyar's
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Speaker 7: Tiza party, he gets a weird text from someone he
11:16
Speaker 7: doesn't know. In the article, the kid is just referred
11:19
Speaker 7: to by his online screen name, which is Gundolf. Like
11:22
Speaker 7: the wizard, but gun with a U. And the sender,
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Speaker 7: the person writing to him, uses the name Henry. In
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Speaker 7: that first message, Henry says to Gundolf, the birds have
11:32
Speaker 7: been chirping that you're organizing some serious meetings. Gundolf wasn't
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Speaker 7: sure what that meant. Although as the thread went on,
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Speaker 7: it became clear that Henry knew a little bit about
11:40
Speaker 7: his background. Then Henry says explicitly that Gundolf should stop
11:45
Speaker 7: supporting the TISA party. And if he does, quote, neither
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Speaker 7: you nor your friends will have any trouble. A day later,
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Speaker 7: Henry follows up. TikTok buddy, have you decided yet? Stop
11:57
Speaker 7: supporting your political community in any form. We'll find out
12:01
Speaker 7: if you don't.
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Speaker 3: He had this very dismissive style and he was, you know,
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Speaker 3: he was teasing him occasionally.
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Speaker 7: Gundolf isn't really sure what to do. So he reaches
12:12
Speaker 7: out to someone else in the TISA party for help.
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Speaker 5: Gandalf showed the messages that he had gotten from Henry.
12:20
Speaker 5: So he showed the messages to Buddha.
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Speaker 7: Buddha, also his online screen name. Buddha's older, 38. He's
12:28
Speaker 7: an IT specialist for the Tiza party, which is dangerous business. Again,
12:33
Speaker 7: the Tiza party wasn't just any little political party rivaling
12:36
Speaker 7: the Orban regime. They were a genuine existential threat. With
12:40
Speaker 7: Peter Magyar, the Tiza leader, campaigning in rural villages... hammering
12:44
Speaker 7: home his message about governmental corruption and economic gloom. So
12:49
Speaker 7: it makes a dark kind of sense that someone aligned
12:51
Speaker 7: with Orban would go to extreme measures to undermine Tisa.
12:55
Speaker 7: And reportedly, Buddha had been intimidated like this in the past.
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Speaker 7: Strangers would accost him and try to convince him to
13:01
Speaker 7: leave the party. One time he was offered money. Another
13:04
Speaker 7: time the strangers beat him up. And as a result,
13:08
Speaker 7: he had actually relocated at least part of Tisa's IT system,
13:11
Speaker 7: the servers and computers and everything, onto a boat. moored
13:15
Speaker 7: in a remote corner of the Danube River. All of
13:17
Speaker 7: which might explain why Budda and Gandalf were inclined to
13:20
Speaker 7: take Henry seriously, instead of just writing him off as
13:23
Speaker 7: some crank. Because it just so happened that Tiza's IT system,
13:28
Speaker 7: that was Henry's, and whoever he was working with, that
13:30
Speaker 7: was their real target, as he would reveal in later
13:33
Speaker 7: messages as this text conversation went on.
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Speaker 5: What they were planning is to bring down the IT
13:40
Speaker 5: systems of the party before the elections, you know, in
13:44
Speaker 5: April 2026.
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Speaker 7: That was the goal of all of this on Henry's part,
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Speaker 7: was to hobble the IT systems of the opposition party,
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Speaker 7: the TISA party?
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Speaker 3: Yes, basically their plan, according to these messages, was to
13:58
Speaker 3: cause chaos in the final stretch of the campaign.
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Speaker 7: But instead of going to the police or anything like that,
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Speaker 7: Gandalf and Buddha, which is what the 1980s TV show
14:09
Speaker 7: version of this story would be called, They decide they're
14:11
Speaker 7: going to try to figure out who Henry is on
14:13
Speaker 7: their own. And once they do that, to expose him
14:17
Speaker 7: and his plot. Gandalf and Buddha hatch a plan to
14:21
Speaker 7: get as close to Henry as possible, to play along.
14:24
Speaker 7: Gandalf started by telling Henry the truth, that he doesn't
14:27
Speaker 7: actually work for TISA anymore. He'd stopped doing IT stuff
14:30
Speaker 7: for them months before this, though he was still close
14:33
Speaker 7: with people at the party. So Henry changes his tactic
14:37
Speaker 7: and tells Gandalf that he should go back as a volunteer.
14:40
Speaker 7: But this time, he would be Henry's mole, a double
14:44
Speaker 7: agent who can report back to him and give him
14:47
Speaker 7: backdoor access to Tiza's computer network. After a while, Henry
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Speaker 7: is writing to Gundolf almost every day. And Gundolf screenshots
14:55
Speaker 7: all the texts and sends them along to Buda.
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Speaker 5: And they coordinated their response and they started to try
15:03
Speaker 5: to squeeze out some information about this so-called Henry.
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Speaker 7: Wow, it's so cloak and dagger. It's so like diabolical,
15:11
Speaker 7: these two sides kind of trying to play the other.
15:16
Speaker 5: Yes, exactly. It's very, very movie-like, I think.
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Speaker 7: It's very movie-like, yeah.
15:22
Speaker 5: And kind of brave as well.
15:24
Speaker 7: The cat and mouse of all of this kept going
15:26
Speaker 7: back and forth. Henry starts applying Gundalf for inside information
15:30
Speaker 7: about Tisa. Gundalf and Buddha actually conspire with people in
15:33
Speaker 7: the Tisa party to come up with what to say
15:35
Speaker 7: to him. They feed Henry real but inconsequential campaign intelligence,
15:39
Speaker 7: which keeps Henry believing that Gandalf is on the hook.
15:42
Speaker 7: But then Henry all but says straight out that he's
15:45
Speaker 7: physically watching them. At one point, he claimed to know
15:48
Speaker 7: that Buddha was under the weather, that he, quote, looked
15:51
Speaker 7: pretty bad on Monday. It's creepy. Plus, there were times
15:56
Speaker 7: when he knew something was going to happen before it did.
15:59
Speaker 7: One day in June 2025, so five months after all
16:02
Speaker 7: this started, Henry texts Gandalf about this database that Tiza
16:06
Speaker 7: keeps of its supporters, all their names and information.
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Speaker 3: Henry was telling Gandalf that soon these databases would be released, leaked,
16:16
Speaker 3: and that's exactly what happened the day after.
16:21
Speaker 5: If I recall well, Henry actually claimed that they were
16:26
Speaker 5: the ones who uploaded them online. He also showed signs
16:31
Speaker 5: that they had some insight into the email correspondence of
16:35
Speaker 5: the party. They also claimed to have momentary, at least
16:42
Speaker 5: momentary access to several IT systems or access to a
16:47
Speaker 5: Discord server. And why we think that is that there
16:52
Speaker 5: was one time when Henry offered some money to Gandalf
16:57
Speaker 5: if Gandalf can get him access to different IT systems
17:03
Speaker 5: of the party. And when Gandalf asked him if he
17:05
Speaker 5: needed some momentary access, then he said that, no, we
17:10
Speaker 5: already have that. We need backdoors in order to take
17:14
Speaker 5: control of these systems when the right time comes.
17:18
Speaker 7: Backdoor is just meaning a way to bypass the security
17:20
Speaker 7: of those servers, etc. Secret logins. Not long after that,
17:24
Speaker 7: Henry ups the ante, tells Gundolph they should meet in person.
17:28
Speaker 7: We can meet at one of our facilities, he said. A, quote, secure,
17:32
Speaker 7: controlled base where we can discuss matters undisturbed. Which gives
17:36
Speaker 7: Gundolph an opening to ask Henry the thing he's wanted
17:38
Speaker 7: to know all along. Who is he? Are you some
17:41
Speaker 7: kind of official agency? Gundolph asked. We operate as a
17:45
Speaker 7: special operations unit, Henry texted. with top-notch equipment and personnel,
17:50
Speaker 7: among the best in the country, possibly even all of Europe.
17:53
Speaker 7: And whether or not that was true, Gandalf and Buddha
17:56
Speaker 7: now had a plan. It was a little harebrained. Gandalf
18:00
Speaker 7: jerry-rigged the surveillance device. It was a teeny, tiny little camera, tucked,
18:06
Speaker 7: this is how tiny it was, tucked into one of
18:08
Speaker 7: the holes in a belt. A belt like you keep
18:11
Speaker 7: your pants up. Gundalf was going to meet up with Henry,
18:14
Speaker 7: capture him and whatever he said, presumably, on video, and
18:18
Speaker 7: disseminate it to the world. But before that meeting could happen,
18:23
Speaker 7: both Gundalf's house, where he lives with his parents, and
18:26
Speaker 7: the boat on which Buddha maintains Tease's IT servers were
18:29
Speaker 7: raided on accusations that they've been trading in child pornography.
18:36
Speaker 7: Coming up, the person in charge of that child pornography investigation,
18:39
Speaker 7: a dutiful cop just trying to do his job, ends
18:42
Speaker 7: up coming forward as a key source in Andras and
18:45
Speaker 7: Shuzhana's story.
18:55
Speaker 1: This episode is supported by Ground News. As its founder,
18:58
Speaker 1: Harleen Kaur, was looking at the fragmented state of our media,
19:01
Speaker 1: where no one source seems to have the full, accurate story.
19:05
Speaker 1: She was reminded of something she observed as a kid.
19:07
Speaker 2: Growing up, I remember my father watching news about Gulf
19:10
Speaker 2: War and he would switch in between BBC and CNN
19:14
Speaker 2: and Deutsche Welle. And it would be very, very different
19:16
Speaker 2: reporting depending on who's reporting on it.
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Speaker 1: Why did he jump between the channels?
19:20
Speaker 2: Because it was clear to him there were different geopolitical
19:24
Speaker 2: agendas depending on what channel he's watching. And if he
19:28
Speaker 2: wanted the complete picture, he has to really stitch that
19:31
Speaker 2: together for himself.
19:33
Speaker 1: Harleen realized, I can use tech to replicate my dad's
19:37
Speaker 1: homegrown fix. And that's what she built with Ground News.
19:40
Speaker 1: It pulls together all the coverage of a story that
19:43
Speaker 1: it can find, then shows you the full landscape. What's
19:46
Speaker 1: the political bias of each source? Are the sources biased
19:49
Speaker 1: in other ways? like, say, pro-tech or anti-tech? Who owns
19:53
Speaker 1: each outlet? How factual are they? You get a truly
19:56
Speaker 1: informed view, not just of the story, but of how
19:59
Speaker 1: people from different perspectives, with different algorithms, are seeing the
20:03
Speaker 1: same story.
20:04
Speaker 2: Like using the phrase, walking in somebody else's news, and
20:08
Speaker 2: feeling why there's thinking about things in a certain way.
20:12
Speaker 1: Of all the problems that you could have put your
20:14
Speaker 1: mind to and your experience to, why this problem of
20:20
Speaker 1: fractured news?
20:22
Speaker 2: I think because my true belief is until we solve
20:26
Speaker 2: this news problem, a lot of other problems in the
20:29
Speaker 2: world don't get solved.
20:30
Speaker 1: Question Everything is proud to be supported by Ground News.
20:33
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20:37
Speaker 1: unlimited vantage plan. Again, that's groundnews.com slash question. We'll also
20:42
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Speaker 1: you use that URL so they know we sent you.
20:54
Speaker 7: I have to sort of pause at this point and
20:55
Speaker 7: introduce you to someone else. This is from a video
21:01
Speaker 7: interview that András and Sujana recorded with their only public
21:05
Speaker 7: named on-the-record source for this investigation. On the screen is
21:09
Speaker 7: just one guy against a blank background, ribbed white sweater,
21:13
Speaker 7: smart gray sport jacket over it. He's got that haircut
21:16
Speaker 7: that's clearly very popular among men in Hungary, like a
21:18
Speaker 7: bottle cap. Neither it nor his beard have gone gray yet.
21:22
Speaker 7: He says, my name is Bensis Zabo, and explains that
21:27
Speaker 7: he's a police captain in a branch of a national
21:29
Speaker 7: police force that investigates sex crimes against children. You can
21:33
Speaker 7: think of it as a division of the FBI. Then
21:36
Speaker 7: he says, in an ideal situation, under an ideal system,
21:40
Speaker 7: I would not be sitting here. I would probably be
21:43
Speaker 7: sitting in the office or be on site, and I
21:45
Speaker 7: would be working to help as many children as possible. However,
21:49
Speaker 7: in the summer of 2025, a case was brought to
21:51
Speaker 7: the division, and because of that, unfortunately, it seems that
21:55
Speaker 7: I have to appear here. Captain Szabo basically tells the
22:00
Speaker 7: same story that's in the text messages. but he starts
22:03
Speaker 7: in a completely different place from a different vantage point.
22:06
Speaker 7: He explains that in July of 2025, so now five
22:10
Speaker 7: months after that cloak-and-dagger text convo started between Gundolf and Henry,
22:14
Speaker 7: Captain Szabo's division was contacted by an agency known as
22:17
Speaker 7: the Constitution Protection Office. It's a branch of the Hungarian
22:21
Speaker 7: Secret Service. Sort of like the CIA, except for it
22:24
Speaker 7: works domestically instead of abroad. It says it's forwarding along
22:28
Speaker 7: an anonymous tip it found on this national hotline.
22:31
Speaker 3: The hotline where anybody can submit tips or pieces of
22:34
Speaker 3: information on suspicious activities, specifically, you know, child pornography.
22:41
Speaker 7: And this tip says that two men are conspiring to
22:44
Speaker 7: use a secret camera to record pornographic images of children
22:48
Speaker 7: and disseminate those images to pedophiles, which, frankly, was a head-scratcher.
22:53
Speaker 3: Of course, you know, child pornography is a very, very
22:56
Speaker 3: serious crime, but the The Secret Service doesn't even usually
22:59
Speaker 3: monitor that hotline in the first place.
23:00
Speaker 7: Nonetheless, Ben Sassabo's police unit brings in the tip and
23:29
Speaker 7: organizes a raid. Actually, two raids, carried out simultaneously. One
23:34
Speaker 7: of them at a house in a little town outside Budapest,
23:37
Speaker 7: Gundolf's house. The police announce themselves. Gundolf's parents go and
23:41
Speaker 7: wake him, saying the police are at the door. At
23:46
Speaker 7: the same hour, another group of officers arrives at a
23:49
Speaker 7: boat moored in a remote corner of the Danube River.
23:52
Speaker 7: In his interview, Captain Sassabo says that when his officers
23:55
Speaker 7: arrived at the boat... Quote, the person called Buda told
24:00
Speaker 7: us that he was expecting us to arrive. Obviously, this
24:03
Speaker 7: was very strange for the leading investigator, so he asked
24:05
Speaker 7: what it was about. When the person called Buda read
24:08
Speaker 7: the order, all he said about child pornography was that
24:12
Speaker 7: it was very creative. In both cases, the police confiscate
24:16
Speaker 7: everything that could possibly hold a digital file. Laptops, desktop computers,
24:20
Speaker 7: hard drives, a bunch of phones, and, of course, the
24:24
Speaker 7: servers that are on the boat. which are running the
24:26
Speaker 7: IT system for TISA, the only party with a chance
24:29
Speaker 7: of ousting the Orban regime. And, sure enough, the police
24:33
Speaker 7: find a jerry-rigged secret camera belt contraption, just like the
24:37
Speaker 7: tipster told them they would. That's what, I mean, it's
24:41
Speaker 7: so complicated. So, like, so Gandalf has this belt that
24:45
Speaker 7: he's going to try to wear so that he can
24:48
Speaker 7: meet Henry to secretly record him. And somehow Henry or
24:52
Speaker 7: somebody is surveilling Gandalf these conversations between Gandalf and Buddha.
24:58
Speaker 7: So they know they have a belt that they're going
25:01
Speaker 7: to try to use to record who Henry is. And
25:05
Speaker 7: then the anonymous tip mentions the belt and they say
25:10
Speaker 7: the belt is going to be used for nefarious child
25:13
Speaker 7: porn purposes.
25:15
Speaker 3: Yes, I think that's the sequence of the events as
25:17
Speaker 3: far as we know them. You know, of course, you know,
25:21
Speaker 3: we don't really know whether the Secret Service has learned
25:25
Speaker 3: about that belt through surveillance or any kinds of means,
25:29
Speaker 3: and if that was the trigger for the anonymous tip
25:33
Speaker 3: and also for the house raids. That's our working theory.
25:38
Speaker 7: So under that theory, Henry, whoever he is, and to
25:42
Speaker 7: this day we don't know, was either working for or
25:45
Speaker 7: with the Secret Service to undermine Tiza and Peter Maggiore's campaign.
25:50
Speaker 7: After seizing all of the devices from Gandalf and Buddha, which, again,
25:54
Speaker 7: include TISA servers and computers, the police start going through
25:57
Speaker 7: them all. Nothing illegal turns up at all, let alone
26:00
Speaker 7: any child porn.
26:01
Speaker 5: And having not found any signs of child pornography, the
26:05
Speaker 5: police look at the other files that they found, and
26:11
Speaker 5: that was the point when they stumbled upon a bunch of,
26:16
Speaker 5: I mean, hundreds of screenshots recording chat messages.
26:22
Speaker 7: The whole text back and forth between Gundolf and Henry. Again,
26:26
Speaker 7: Gundolf had screenshotted all of it so that he could
26:28
Speaker 7: share it with Buddha. So now, the police captain, Bensisabo,
26:32
Speaker 7: is starting to put the pieces together. And when he
26:34
Speaker 7: figures out what likely happened, that his department was deployed
26:37
Speaker 7: as a pawn in a political conspiracy against Tisa, he
26:41
Speaker 7: becomes A, annoyed, since they could have been spending that
26:44
Speaker 7: time and energy trying to arrest actual pedophiles, and B,
26:48
Speaker 7: deeply curious himself as to who the hell Henry was.
26:52
Speaker 7: So Sabo and some of the other officers do what
26:55
Speaker 7: they're trained to do. They investigate. Here's Andras again.
26:58
Speaker 3: I think they even called it like a shadow investigation,
27:03
Speaker 3: which meant that actually they couldn't put their findings into
27:08
Speaker 3: the official records of the police, but they did the investigation.
27:13
Speaker 3: So this is how they saw the scope of this
27:16
Speaker 3: operation against the opposition party. But they couldn't do any
27:21
Speaker 3: additional investigation efforts like, you know, interviewing witnesses, potential suspects.
27:28
Speaker 3: So their hands were tied in a way, but as
27:32
Speaker 3: much as they could do, they did.
27:34
Speaker 7: So it's the little cops investigating the big cops, kind of.
27:39
Speaker 3: In a way, yes. I mean, they basically, I mean,
27:42
Speaker 3: they technically, they were not investigating other police officers, but
27:47
Speaker 3: they were basically going against the wishes and the instructions,
27:53
Speaker 3: sometimes even the orders of their superiors.
27:56
Speaker 7: It's unclear at what point during the shadow investigation that
27:59
Speaker 7: Ben Sassabo got in touch with Andras and Shuzhana. If
28:02
Speaker 7: he approached them, if they approached him, all they would
28:04
Speaker 7: say was that they were already working on the story
28:06
Speaker 7: when he agreed to sit down with them for 90
28:08
Speaker 7: minutes and lay out his version back in February. All
28:11
Speaker 7: with the understanding that Direct 36 would keep that recording
28:15
Speaker 7: on ice until further notice.
28:16
Speaker 3: We agreed to... he would have to decide whether he
28:21
Speaker 3: wanted to go on record. Basically, we told him that
28:25
Speaker 3: we were going to protect him as a source as
28:28
Speaker 3: long as possible. Unless he wants to go on the record,
28:34
Speaker 3: that's his choice. That's not our choice. And he had
28:36
Speaker 3: to make that choice. And he knew that if the
28:39
Speaker 3: story breaks, there is a possibility that he would be
28:44
Speaker 3: exposed or he would come under investigation. And, you know,
28:50
Speaker 3: and there was also the possibility that if he's under investigation,
28:53
Speaker 3: then maybe he's going to be detained, he's going to
28:56
Speaker 3: be arrested, and then he would be in no position
28:58
Speaker 3: to talk to journalists for, you know, 90 minutes. So
29:03
Speaker 3: he basically, this was like a safety option. Just like
29:08
Speaker 3: we were making scenarios, I think he was also making
29:10
Speaker 3: scenarios for himself.
29:12
Speaker 7: Gaming things out, just like Gandalf and Buddha had done
29:15
Speaker 7: when dealing with Henry. And also, by the way, like
29:18
Speaker 7: András and Sujana, the journalists had to do. Every step
29:22
Speaker 7: of their investigation, they said, they had to be extra careful.
29:25
Speaker 7: Whenever you speak with a new source, you're essentially opening
29:28
Speaker 7: a window into your investigation.
29:29
Speaker 3: So we had to be really careful, like who we
29:32
Speaker 3: are approaching. What is it that we are telling them?
29:36
Speaker 3: How we are communicating with them? Because we knew that
29:40
Speaker 3: potentially we were up against the whole state, the whole
29:46
Speaker 3: national security apparatus in Hungary. And what was widely described
29:52
Speaker 3: as an autocratic, authoritarian regime that already had a track
29:56
Speaker 3: record in, you know... going after journalists. You know, this
30:01
Speaker 3: is not Turkey. I don't think we were ever in
30:04
Speaker 3: physical danger. Journalists didn't get jailed during the Orban regime.
30:11
Speaker 3: Of course, I think this is a low bar, so
30:12
Speaker 3: it's not.
30:13
Speaker 7: Like an English celebrity.
30:15
Speaker 5: Exactly.
30:16
Speaker 3: But I think for me, like personally, you know, and
30:19
Speaker 3: if you have families and it's really hard to plan
30:22
Speaker 3: your life in an environment like that.
30:25
Speaker 7: I'm still puzzled as to why Warbon didn't go further,
30:32
Speaker 7: like you're describing with Turkey, like allowing the independent outlets
30:38
Speaker 7: to exist in the way that he did.
30:40
Speaker 3: You have to ask him.
30:45
Speaker 5: Yeah.
30:46
Speaker 3: So I did.
30:47
Speaker 7: I called Victor Warbon and he said, no, I'm joking. Hello?
30:53
Speaker 3: Hi, Marius.
30:54
Speaker 5: Hi, yes.
30:55
Speaker 7: I called this guy, Marius Dragomir, director of the Media
30:58
Speaker 7: and Journalism Research Center. Brian's written about him on the
31:01
Speaker 7: Question Everything sub stack in the past. Marius lived and
31:04
Speaker 7: did his work in Hungary for four years until the
31:07
Speaker 7: Orban regime basically chased his whole university out of the country.
31:11
Speaker 7: And Marius said the answer to why Orban didn't go
31:13
Speaker 7: further really had to do more with optics than anything else.
31:16
Speaker 8: Orban, he had to be very careful about how he
31:19
Speaker 8: treated the media because Hungary is part of the European Union,
31:24
Speaker 8: and to a large extent, Hungary depends on EU funding.
31:30
Speaker 8: So I think he thought they should be careful how
31:33
Speaker 8: far I'm going with that, because Orbán having such independent,
31:37
Speaker 8: you know, critical reporting was a very strong evidence in
31:42
Speaker 8: front of Europe that, you know, this is not a dictatorship.
31:46
Speaker 7: Yeah, nothing to see here.
31:47
Speaker 5: I'm fine.
31:48
Speaker 3: Nothing to see here.
31:49
Speaker 1: And anyway.
31:50
Speaker 7: If you want to curtail the press, there's a less
31:53
Speaker 7: messy and strenuous way to do it than jailing or
31:55
Speaker 7: killing reporters. If you're a fan of this show, then
31:57
Speaker 7: you probably know about the concept of media capture. It's
32:00
Speaker 7: like a step-by-step process by which authoritarian regimes squelch or
32:04
Speaker 7: at least pacify the free press in their country. Marius
32:07
Speaker 7: is an expert in this stuff and developed a whole
32:09
Speaker 7: kind of playbook describing how it happens. First, you take
32:13
Speaker 7: control of the federal regulator. Then you shut down the
32:15
Speaker 7: public broadcaster, direct public funding to outlets that you control,
32:19
Speaker 7: Maybe you let your rich friends buy up private media
32:22
Speaker 7: companies and bring them to heel, all of which happened
32:24
Speaker 7: in Hungary, and is happening here for that matter. Marius'
32:27
Speaker 7: playbook totally applies to the changes in the media landscape
32:30
Speaker 7: you're seeing in the U.S. Although in Hungary, it's more
32:33
Speaker 7: hands-on than here. Marius says that on a given morning,
32:37
Speaker 7: someone in the prime minister's office might call the editor-in-chief
32:40
Speaker 7: of MTVA, the state media company that was founded in 2011,
32:44
Speaker 7: a year after Orban came into office.
32:47
Speaker 8: And this person in the prime minister's office would tell
32:51
Speaker 8: the editor-in-chief what stories to cover, what topic, and sometimes
32:55
Speaker 8: even telling him what headlines to choose.
32:58
Speaker 7: So Orban didn't have to kill or jail journalists. Capture
33:01
Speaker 7: is almost as effective and cleaner. And since state-controlled media
33:05
Speaker 7: has been so dominant in Hungary, Mariusz Orban just didn't
33:08
Speaker 7: feel threatened by the smaller outlets like Direct 36. And
33:12
Speaker 7: there's a bunch of others, by the way. There's Telex, Adlazo, 444,
33:14
Speaker 7: all these ones. none of which are nearly as flush
33:18
Speaker 7: as the government mouthpieces, which would often aggressively counter anything
33:22
Speaker 7: they reported that was critical of the Orban regime. Anyway,
33:25
Speaker 7: Direct 36 managed to persist, and whoever the intermediary Andras
33:30
Speaker 7: mentioned was, they must have known the outlet's reputation, that
33:33
Speaker 7: they weren't enthralled to Orban's government, and trusted them enough
33:36
Speaker 7: to bring them the story. Three weeks before Hungary's parliamentary election,
33:47
Speaker 7: Direct 36 published the article about Gandalf and Buddha and
33:49
Speaker 7: Henry and the conspiracy on its website. A few of
33:53
Speaker 7: the other independent outlets picked it up, amplifying it. Peter Magyar,
33:56
Speaker 7: the head of the opposition Tiza party, picked it up too,
33:59
Speaker 7: as a campaign issue. He called it a coup attempted
34:02
Speaker 7: against a free Hungary. He also called it Orban Gate,
34:06
Speaker 7: which the gate suffix in this case finally feels pretty
34:09
Speaker 7: spot on. One political party trying to infiltrate and undermine
34:13
Speaker 7: another before a crucial election. As they promised Ben Sassabo,
34:17
Speaker 7: Direct 36 didn't quote him or name him in the piece.
34:20
Speaker 7: They held back on the video.
34:22
Speaker 3: So the day they published the story, it was, I think,
34:28
Speaker 3: the end of the normal shift, more or less. But
34:32
Speaker 3: officers from the internal investigation unit.
34:36
Speaker 5: Also the prosecutor's office.
34:38
Speaker 3: Also the prosecutor's office showed up.
34:41
Speaker 7: And detectives all showed up at the offices of Ben
34:43
Speaker 7: Sassabo's police unit.
34:45
Speaker 3: Every member in the unit was told that nobody can
34:48
Speaker 3: leave until each and every person in the unit would
34:52
Speaker 3: be interviewed or interrogated.
34:55
Speaker 7: They wanted to know who had spoken to reporters about
34:57
Speaker 7: the Gandalf and Henry affair. It was a classic scene.
35:01
Speaker 7: Until one of you fesses up, we're going to assume
35:03
Speaker 7: that all of you are guilty.
35:05
Speaker 3: That was the point when Bensis Sabo decided to stand
35:08
Speaker 3: up and he said that, OK, it was me. So
35:12
Speaker 3: basically he turned himself in. And then his workstation was searched.
35:18
Speaker 3: Then his home was searched. And then the next day
35:22
Speaker 3: at 2 a.m., you know, he was taken to the
35:26
Speaker 3: prosecutor's office and then he was charged with abuse of office.
35:32
Speaker 7: And that's when Ben Sassabo's lawyer pulls the trigger and
35:35
Speaker 7: tells András and Sujana, OK, you guys can go ahead
35:39
Speaker 7: and release that interview now. And whatever calculation Ben Sassabo
35:43
Speaker 7: had made about the benefit of doing that interview, it
35:45
Speaker 7: was spot on. At this point, more than 2 million
35:49
Speaker 7: people have watched it on YouTube. Hungary is a nation
35:52
Speaker 7: of fewer than 10 million. There was the sense of
35:55
Speaker 7: outrage at the audacity of the black ops, but also
35:58
Speaker 7: this thrill that someone was speaking out, standing up for
36:01
Speaker 7: what was right. The hopeful spectacle of that. Captain Sassabo
36:05
Speaker 7: became a national hero. The charges against him were ultimately dropped.
36:10
Speaker 7: He was still out of a job, so his family
36:12
Speaker 7: posted a crowdfunding campaign for him. The goal was 12,500 euros.
36:17
Speaker 7: They raised to nearly 730,000. Captain Sabo's words and actions
36:21
Speaker 7: clearly resonated with people. He said he was going to
36:24
Speaker 7: give the bulk of the money away to charity.
36:27
Speaker 3: And I told this to a lot of people, friends
36:30
Speaker 3: and colleagues, that if you don't have time to watch
36:35
Speaker 3: the whole video, which is relatively long, then just watch
36:40
Speaker 3: the final five minutes, because when he basically explains why
36:44
Speaker 3: he was doing this, why he's stepping forward, why he's
36:49
Speaker 3: taking this big risk, and I think it's a really
36:53
Speaker 3: powerful statement at the end, and I think it was
37:00
Speaker 3: really something.
37:02
Speaker 7: Okay, I'm condensing this a bit, but he says.
37:06
Speaker 7: For me, it is unacceptable that the rule of law
37:08
Speaker 7: does not cover everyone equally. How is it possible that
37:12
Speaker 7: we prosecute people who didn't necessarily commit a crime and
37:15
Speaker 7: we don't even investigate those who actually committed a crime
37:18
Speaker 7: or crimes? He points out a couple of times that
37:23
Speaker 7: the TISA party is supported by 40% of the Hungarian population.
37:28
Speaker 7: How can it be, he says, that a Hungarian secret
37:30
Speaker 7: service wants to destroy a party? Then he says, quote,
37:35
Speaker 7: It is not a normal regime in which this can happen.
37:37
Speaker 7: So I can't think about what would happen to me
37:39
Speaker 7: when I come out to the press. Because who should
37:42
Speaker 7: I tell? That's why I'm sitting here in a non-ideal system.
37:48
Speaker 7: Because who should I tell? That part kills me. Everyone
37:52
Speaker 7: who could possibly have helped him, the prosecutor's office, internal affairs,
37:56
Speaker 7: they were all complicit. So he had to turn to
37:59
Speaker 7: the press. By which I mean, he had to tell everybody.
38:04
Speaker 7: I've been doing this work for almost 30 years. And
38:07
Speaker 7: I've wondered, out loud sometimes, why anyone talks to us.
38:11
Speaker 7: To reporters, I mean. What they could possibly get out
38:13
Speaker 7: of it. And this, finally, feels like such an energizing
38:17
Speaker 7: answer to that question. There are times when people don't
38:20
Speaker 7: have any other recourse, which is when they need a
38:22
Speaker 7: Direct 36, an outlet that's maintained its independence against formidable odds,
38:27
Speaker 7: to turn to. Two weeks before the election... With Magyar
38:33
Speaker 7: pulling further and further ahead, and so many eyes on
38:35
Speaker 7: this Direct36 story, Orbán went into damage control mode. Whatever
38:40
Speaker 7: the political overlap may be, one thing he and Trump
38:42
Speaker 7: have in common is that they both give interviews to
38:45
Speaker 7: blurrily rightist podcast hosts. In this case, a guy named
38:50
Speaker 7: András Hunt. This is also on YouTube.
38:53
Speaker 5: Orbán' s party line was that Gandalf and Buda were Ukrainian spies.
39:00
Speaker 7: Here in Hungary to interfere with our politics. That's really
39:04
Speaker 7: what the raids were about, he said, to try to
39:06
Speaker 7: ferret out espionage.
39:08
Speaker 3: So when Orbán gave that interview, then he called Bence Szabó, like,
39:16
Speaker 3: you know, that he's not a hero, but he's a...
39:19
Speaker 3: what's the... I need to find the word... just a
39:23
Speaker 3: helpless guy, you know, that he's stumbled upon this.
39:30
Speaker 3: Secret service operation and he ruined it basically he's like
39:34
Speaker 3: a meddler and then a loser a loser? something like
39:41
Speaker 3: that it's.
39:41
Speaker 7: Like what a bully calls a nerd in high school.
39:45
Speaker 3: Exactly the Hungarian translation is different but it's like I
39:51
Speaker 3: think loser is.
39:52
Speaker 5: A good word what's the word that he used?
39:54
Speaker 3: Yeah it means loser yeah.
39:58
Speaker 7: For what it's worth, the translation I have here is sucker.
40:01
Speaker 7: In any case, to the interviewer's credit, he followed up with, Fine,
40:07
Speaker 7: but how does a search for traces of child abuse
40:09
Speaker 7: on the target person's data devices arise in a counterintelligence case? Orban,
40:15
Speaker 7: in part, answers, That's just how secret services work. If
40:19
Speaker 7: they could operate transparently, it would be easy to see
40:21
Speaker 7: through them.
40:27
Speaker 3: What really had an impact on the campaign, the final
40:31
Speaker 3: stretch of the campaign, was that this story and especially
40:36
Speaker 3: the interview with Bente Szabo started a chain reaction. And
40:41
Speaker 3: almost every day until the election itself, there was someone
40:49
Speaker 3: from the government agencies, even from the military, that stepped
40:55
Speaker 3: forward and shared stories about the corruption, about the incompetence,
41:00
Speaker 3: about the abuses of power in different branches of government.
41:05
Speaker 7: Like an army captain who, again on camera, said that
41:08
Speaker 7: the military was falling apart, both physically, cruddy barracks, poor
41:12
Speaker 7: working conditions, and morale-wise. He was castigated as a teaser patsy. Also,
41:18
Speaker 7: Gundolf gave an interview on camera, using his real name,
41:21
Speaker 7: Daniel Hrabotsky. He looks hilariously younger than 19. or even 16,
41:27
Speaker 7: sinister spy that he is. My favorite quote from that
41:30
Speaker 7: interview is when he says, I think Henry's people assessed
41:36
Speaker 7: that they were dealing with a weak, easily ensnared, young,
41:39
Speaker 7: inexperienced IT person who happened to have certain access opportunities
41:43
Speaker 7: they could obtain more cheaply than through a spy program,
41:46
Speaker 7: and that I would not resist the pressure. Then he says,
41:49
Speaker 7: they miscalculated that.
41:51
Speaker 3: Then who else? I think that was also like a former...
41:56
Speaker 3: Secret Service official. To be honest, it was at some point,
42:00
Speaker 3: it was just felt so much that I stopped, you know,
42:03
Speaker 3: I couldn't stay up to date on all the interviews.
42:11
Speaker 3: That had a real, I mean, it was like basically
42:13
Speaker 3: seeing like a house of cards collapsing. So I think
42:17
Speaker 3: that was when I thought that, okay, so however way
42:21
Speaker 3: this election will be decided, but The system, Orban's system was,
42:27
Speaker 3: maybe it was not collapsing entirely, but shaking, and it
42:32
Speaker 3: was really fascinating to watch.
42:34
Speaker 7: I feel like it's like that prompt in Mortal Kombat
42:36
Speaker 7: where they go, finish him! Orban and his Fidesz party
42:40
Speaker 7: were already on the ropes. Things were not looking good
42:42
Speaker 7: for them. And then some sunlight found its way into
42:46
Speaker 7: the cracks in its facade and just pried them farther open.
42:50
Speaker 7: How crazy this whole saga got. How clearly Hungary was
42:53
Speaker 7: yearning for a change at this point can be summed
42:55
Speaker 7: up in what is my favorite part of the story.
42:58
Speaker 7: It has to do with Ben Sassabo and the country's
43:00
Speaker 7: reaction to his interview.
43:01
Speaker 5: Two days before the election, there was a concert organized
43:05
Speaker 5: in Budapest. It was a free concert. And there were,
43:10
Speaker 5: I don't know, like tens or hundreds of thousands of
43:14
Speaker 5: people attending. The concert was called like... system dismantling concert
43:20
Speaker 5: or something like that. And these two guys, Bence Szabo
43:24
Speaker 5: and the mentioned soldier, Sylvester Palinkas.
43:28
Speaker 7: The soldier that had gone on camera to say that
43:30
Speaker 7: the military is falling apart.
43:32
Speaker 5: They both appeared on stage. And it is hard to
43:37
Speaker 5: describe the ovation and the uproar that they got from
43:42
Speaker 5: the audience.
43:47
Speaker 7: It's actually not that hard. Picture a sea of concertgoers
43:50
Speaker 7: outside at night. Young, young people. They're there to see
43:54
Speaker 7: bands and support Tiza. Some have signs, their faces painted.
43:59
Speaker 7: And then an enormously beefy army captain in fatigues and
44:02
Speaker 7: a beret and a 30-something dad-looking guy in an anorak
44:06
Speaker 7: and jeans come walking on stage, looking possibly more humble,
44:10
Speaker 7: nay bashful, than two kids at their first talent show.
44:14
Speaker 7: And yet, people in the audience are freaking out. They're
44:18
Speaker 7: throwing devil horns. Imagine the crowd at Coachella cheering on
44:22
Speaker 7: Edward Snowden. The army captain speaks first, reading from his phone.
44:26
Speaker 7: Is he trembling? He looks at certain points like he's
44:29
Speaker 7: going to weep. And then Ben Sassabo, who does not
44:33
Speaker 7: need to read from anything, takes hold. Hello, everyone.
44:43
Speaker 4: In an old system, I wouldn't be here now.
44:47
Speaker 7: In an ideal system, I would not be standing here
44:49
Speaker 7: right now. In an ideal system, there would be no
44:52
Speaker 7: need for a system-breaking grand concert. And yet here I stand,
44:57
Speaker 7: and here you are too. So this is probably not
45:00
Speaker 7: an ideal system. Two days later, Hungary ended that system
45:06
Speaker 7: by voting Orban out in a landslide, opting instead for
45:10
Speaker 7: a system that maybe it won't be ideal, but hopefully
45:13
Speaker 7: at least a little more transparent.
45:21
Speaker 1: That was reporter Sean Cole. After Sean spoke with Andras
45:25
Speaker 1: and Zuzana of Direct36, another news source, Adlazo, reported that
45:30
Speaker 1: the person known as Buddha had been convicted in 2014
45:33
Speaker 1: for blackmail. The article said he had hacked into someone's
45:36
Speaker 1: computer and threatened to upload explicit images they had on
45:39
Speaker 1: there if they didn't pay him. He denied the charges,
45:43
Speaker 1: but he was given a one-year suspended sentence and a fine.
45:46
Speaker 1: Adlazo says he's now being considered for a post in
45:48
Speaker 1: the new prime minister, Peter Madjar's, cabinet. When they reached
45:51
Speaker 1: out to TISA for comment, the party, no one responded. Ironically,
45:56
Speaker 1: or maybe expectedly, Andras said at a conference a few
45:59
Speaker 1: weeks ago that Peter Magyar isn't too receptive of tough
46:02
Speaker 1: press coverage either.
46:03
Speaker 3: Peter Magyar is not a fan of journalism either. He
46:07
Speaker 3: can be quite critical, even sometimes aggressive with reporters. So
46:12
Speaker 3: we'll see. But, you know, to be honest, I don't
46:14
Speaker 3: want to be friends with any politicians. That's not our role. So,
46:18
Speaker 3: of course, hopefully he and others will recognize the role
46:22
Speaker 3: that we play in a democracy.
46:24
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening today. Don't forget to rate and review
46:26
Speaker 1: our show on whatever app you use. And if you
46:28
Speaker 1: learn something from this episode, share it with a friend.
46:31
Speaker 1: I'm on Instagram at brihreed, B-R-I-H-R-E-E-D, and also on Signal
46:36
Speaker 1: at brihreed. 45. Hit me up either place with tips. Today's
46:42
Speaker 1: show was produced by Sean Cole. It was edited by
46:44
Speaker 1: Neil Drumming. Robin Simeon and I are the executive producers
46:47
Speaker 1: of Question Everything. Our managing editor is Kevin Sullivan. Our
46:50
Speaker 1: team also includes producer Zach St. Louis, contributing producer Sam Egan,
46:54
Speaker 1: contributing editor Jen Kinney, along with associate producer Kevin Shepard.
46:58
Speaker 1: This episode was fact-checked by Annika Robbins, mixing and sound
47:01
Speaker 1: design by Matt Tierney. Our music is by Matt McGinley.
47:04
Speaker 1: Thanks to Anna DiCecchi-Qualis for helping us out with some Hungarian.
47:07
Speaker 1: And thanks also to our partners at KCRW, who include
47:10
Speaker 1: Arnie Seipel, Tejal Aljamera, Natalie Hill, and Jennifer Farrow. We'll
47:13
Speaker 1: see you next Thursday.