Hungary's foreign affairs and trade minister spoke frankly about Pressman's finger-wagging at Hungarians and subversive politicking.
"...when the current ambassador arrived here, it was readily apparent that he sees himself more as a viceroy than an ambassador. He thought that his mission here was to lecture both the government and the Hungarian people, and to lead the Hungarian opposition," Peter Szijjarto said in response to a question from the show host.
"It is no accident that there has never really been any genuine personal communication between us officially, because quite simply neither I nor the government had any institutional need for a supposed ambassador here to lecture us on how we should do our job. So if a Hungarian ambassador anywhere in the world were to behave even a tenth as badly as the US ambassador to Budapest, I would have fired him so fast without leaving him time to blink," the minister pointed out.
"Over the past four years, the ambassador has clearly construed his assignment here to be that of an opposition liberal political mission. And as the Hungarian saying goes: the warmth of the reception reflects the warmth of the caller. And this is precisely how our relationship has developed, unlike during the previous term of President Trump, when the ambassador at the time focused on how to improve bilateral relations. It is always a matter of intentions, so, as is the customary practice in America with a change of president, generally, there also comes a change of ambassadors, and this has always been the case in Hungary, too: a new US ambassador to Budapest.
Cover photo: Hungarian Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Peter Szijjarto (Photo: MTI/Zoltan Kocsis)
