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Hunter Biden

Devon Archer Testimony Explodes GOP's Hype-Driven Biden Probe

On August 3, Hunter Biden associate Devon Archer’s testimony from earlier in the week was made public. Even though Republicans and right-wing media had relentlessly hyped the testimony — insisting it would be the nail in the coffin that revealed President Joe Biden’s corrupt involvement in his son’s business practices — the testimony did no such thing.

Archer’s testimony didn't link Joe Biden’s access to Hunter’s deals

  • While Archer did testify that Hunter Biden sought to sell an “illusion of access” to his father, his testimony repeatedly showed that the access was not actually there. When repeatedly questioned on whether Hunter influenced Joe Biden on U.S. or foreign policy, Archer testified that Hunter was merely selling an “illusion of access” and there was no actual influence from Joe. Asked if Hunter ever “discussed policy,” “discussed business,” “influenced American politics for the purpose of his business,” “or asked the Vice President to do anything improper,” Archer answered that he did not.
  • Joe Biden was in frequent contact with his son, but Archer testified that the nature of these calls were largely mundane and irrelevant to their business. The communications between Joe and Hunter Biden, according to Archer, can be better characterized as a father “checking in” on his son regularly. Archer described the calls as “casual conversations” about “weather” or “fishing” but not about “cap tables or financials or anything like that.”
  • While Joe Biden did attend several dinners with Hunter Biden and his associates, Archer testified that the nature of these dinners remained casual and not related to business. Archer described one of these dinners as “just a regular dinner” that did not include discussions of business. In another portion of his testimony, Archer confirmed, in response to a query, that the dinner “was not about Hunter Biden’s businesses with his various associates” and was, as Archer said, “dinner conversation.”
  • The testimony also undermined right-wing media claims that Hunter Biden used Joe Biden’s influence to raise Chinese capital. Archer confirmed that “we didn’t raise capital from the Chinese” and, in response to a question about whether they needed to solicit “Chinese investments,” he said they “didn't have a fundraising capacity.” Archer also denied that Hunter ever spoke to him about “how important that relationship to China was to his family.”
  • Archer denied that then-Vice President Joe Biden’s support for the firing of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin was done to halt a corruption investigation into Burisma and his son. Right-wing media have spent years insisting that Joe fired Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin because of his corruption investigation into Burisma — a critical point in Donald Trump’s first 2019 impeachment. Archer testified that he was not aware of any Shokin investigation into Burisma and that the “firing of Shokin was bad for Burisma because he was under control.” Archer was further pressed on whether he “has any basis to believe that Vice President Biden’s call for Shokin’s removal was driven by anything other than the U.S. Government’s anticorruption policy in Ukraine,” to which Archer testified that he had no reason to believe otherwise.
  • Archer denied any knowledge that the founder of Burisma bribed Hunter and Joe Biden to protect the company from Shokin’s investigation. As The Washington Post’s analysis shows, Archer “was never aware of any such bribe offered to Hunter Biden or anyone else.” In the testimony, Archer indicated that he was not aware of “evidence that Joe Biden was bribed by Mykola Zlochevsky,” Burisma’s founder. Instead, Archer agreed that Ukrainian businessmen like Zlochevsky — “similar to D.C. operators” — liked to “give off the impression of access that they don’t necessarily actually deliver on.”

Other journalists found Archer’s testimony did not reveal what conservatives insisted it would

Washington Post analyst Philip Bump published a piece titled “Devon Archer said the opposite of what Republicans claimed.” Bump summarized arguments made by Republicans like Reps. James Comer (R-KY) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) and noted that Archer’s testimony essentially revealed the opposite. As Bump wrote:

  • "All of this is tied together in the narrative that Comer and Jordan have been presenting: Burisma was being probed by prosecutor Viktor Shokin so they needed Hunter Biden to loop in his father, and his father obliged. The bribery claim asserts that Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of Burisma with whom Hunter Biden and Archer met, had paid millions to Biden and his father to help protect the company from Shokin.On Thursday, the Oversight Committee released a transcript of Archer’s testimony — testimony for which Comer wasn’t present. What Archer said not only doesn’t comport with the presentations made by Comer and Jordan on television (which were obviously wrong from the outset), his testimony undermines the idea that Burisma wanted Shokin fired, that Zlochevsky paid any bribe — and, crucially, that Joe Biden was involved in any of this." [The Washington Post, 8/3/23]

CNN published an article noting that Archer testified that Joe Biden discussed “‘nothing’ important with Hunter Biden business associates.” CNN further highlighted a lack of involvement from the elder Biden revealed in Archer’s testimony:

  • "Devon Archer also testified that he was not privy to any conversations between Hunter Biden and Joe Biden in which they discussed how Joe Biden would take official actions on behalf of his son, nor did he have any knowledge of an alleged bribery scheme involving the former vice president.…Archer said he was not aware of any $5 million payment to Hunter or his father from the Ukrainian official.Archer also told lawmakers that he was “not aware of any” wrongdoing by President Biden, the transcript shows." [CNN, 8/3/23]

NBC reported that Archer testified that he “has no knowledge of wrongdoing by Joe Biden.” NBC concluded that while communications with Joe took place, and that Hunter Biden sold an “illusion of access,” nothing Archer testified to pointed to any wrongdoing on Joe’s part:

  • "Archer also said that he did not disagree with the conclusion that Hunter Biden’s role on the board of Ukrainian energy firm Bursma had no effect on U.S. foreign policy. And Archer testified that he had no knowledge of any wrongdoing by Joe Biden as it related to his son’s business dealings.…The witness also said there were roughly 20 phone calls in which Hunter Biden would put his father on speakerphone in the presence of business associates, but he said that the brief conversations focused on pleasantries like the weather or fishing, not official business." [NBC, 8/3/23]

Right-wing media are still continuing to hammer their narrative that Devon Archer’s testimony links Joe Biden to Hunter’s business dealings

  • Despite what we’ve learned from the testimony, right-wing media are continuing their barrage of lies about the Archer testimony, relying on smoke, mirrors, and the convoluted nature of legal documents to distort the truth for their audience and insist that the testimony was the smoking gun that they promised it would be.
  • Legal analyst Jonathan Turley insisted that Joe Biden fired Shokin to help Burisma, despite Archer’s testimony claiming otherwise. Turley wrote, “They wanted the Bidens to take the heat off. Biden later insisted on the firing of the prosecutor.” [Twitter/X, 8/3/23]
  • In a piece for Townhall, Katie Pavlich insisted on a nefarious spin to Joe Biden’s communications with Hunter Biden. Pavlich wrote: “Despite Joe Biden's claims he never spoke with Hunter Biden's business partners, met with them or knew what kind of things they were doing, Archer reconfirmed the former vice president attended dinner with those exact people.” [Townhall, 8/3/23]
  • The Daily Caller also made a big deal about Joe Biden having dinner with his son and associates. The reporting omitted Archer’s repeated assertions that Joe never sold access to Hunter or his associates, and that the dinners were casual and not business-related. [The Daily Caller, 8/3/23]
  • The day before the transcript was released, The Federalist’s reporting scandalized Hunter Biden’s calls with Joe. The Federalist wrote: “In an attempt to build what Archer called ‘the Biden brand’ and sell access to the then-vice president, Hunter Biden put his dad on speakerphone two dozen times in the presence of his various financial partners.” [The Federalist, 8/2/23]
  • The Federalist’s reporting after the transcript’s release latched onto Hunter’s “illusion of access.” The article claimed that Joe “was instrumental in his son’s overseas business dealings to enrich the family” despite Archer’s testimony that Joe ultimately did not involve himself in Hunter’s business dealings. [The Federalist, 8/3/23]
  • On Twitter/X, Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk mischaracterized the conclusions from the testimony. Kirk claimed, “Devon Archer's testimony before House Oversight exposes why Burisma and various other foreign oligarchs were willing to shell out $ millions to the Bidens: ACCESS + PROTECTION.” [Twitter/X, 8/3/23]
  • The day before the transcript was released, Fox host Mark Levin claimed that Archer’s testimony shows “Joe Biden should be impeached.” Levin went on to claim, “For weeks I’ve said Joe Biden is a co-conspirator in Hunter’s FARA criminal violations. We didn’t need Archer’s testimony to demonstrate it. It underscores what’s already known.” [Twitter/X, 8/2/23]

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Right-Wing Defenses Of Trump Are Incinerated By Prosecution Disclosures

Right-Wing Defenses Of Trump Are Incinerated By Prosecution Disclosures

The 47-page federal criminal indictment against former President Donald Trump unsealed on Friday incinerates months of desperate attempts by his media allies to excuse his behavior in handling classified material and the resulting probe of his actions.

Trump’s sycophants have claimed that Trump did not do anything wrong -- but the indictment says:

  • Trump kept the documents in unsecured locations at Mar-a-Lago, including a ballroom and bathroom.
  • Trump allegedly bragged that he had classified documents, acknowledging that he didn’t and could no longer declassify them while showing them to visitors.
  • Classified documents related to U.S. nuclear programs were found at Mar-a-Lago.
  • Trump’s actions were unique from other instances of people maintaining classified documents in that he willfully and knowingly mishandled the documents.
  • Trump himself packed boxes.
  • Trump admitted in an audio recording that he couldn’t declassify a document after he left office.

DEFENSE: The docs were secured

Right-wing media have claimed that the documents were secure at Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago. Fox News host Mark Levin said the documents were “safer at Mar-a-Lago” than “at the National Archives.” Conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec tweeted similar sentiments, saying, “Mar-a-Lago is protected inside and out by Secret Service federal agents at all times.”

INDICTMENT: Trump kept the documents in unsecured locations at Mar-a-Lago

As the indictment explains, Mar-a-Lago “was not an authorized location for the storage, possession, review, display, or discussion of classified documents. Nevertheless, Trump stored his boxes containing classified documents in various locations,” including in a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom, and a storage room.” The indictment breaks down the locations, saying they include:

  • “The Mar-a-Lago Club’s White and Gold Ballroom, in which events and gatherings took place.”
  • “The business center at The Mar-a-Lago Club.”
  • “The shower where his other stuff is” in“The Mar-a-Lago Club’s Lake Room.”
  • The “Storage Room,” the hallway for which “could be reached from multiple outside entrances, including one accessible from The Mar-a-Lago Club pool patio through a doorway that was often kept open,” and which “was near the liquor supply closet, linen room, lock shop, and various other rooms.”
  • Trump’s “summer residence at The Bedminster Club,” which, like Mar-a-Lago, “was not an authorized location for the storage, possession, review, display, or discussion of classified documents.”
  • “Pine Hall,” which is “an entry room in Trump’s residence."
  • Trump’s office.

DEFENSE: The documents were declassified

After the FBI seized documents during its search of Mar-a-Lago, Trump and his allies in right-wing media repeatedly claimed that Trump had issued a “standing order” to declassify documents at “the moment he removed them” from the Oval Office, with some even saying he was “the classification authority” and could essentially “wave a magic wand” to declassify documents without a paper trail.

Simultaneously, Trump sycophant and serial misinformer John Solomon and former Trump Department of Defense official Kash Patel — both of whom were named Trump’s representatives to the National Archives — claimed to be “on a mission” to prove Trump had declassified the documents.

Right-wing media continued to push these claims in recent months.

INDICTMENT: Trump allegedly bragged that he had classified documents, acknowledging that he didn’t and could no longer declassify them while showing them to visitors

According to the indictment, “on two occasions in 2021, Trump showed classified documents to others,” including in one instance where Trump noted that the U.S. military “plan of attack” document he was sharing was “highly confidential” and “secret information,” adding, “See as president I could have declassified it. … Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”

DEFENSE: There were no serious classified materials

After news broke that the FBI was looking for material pertaining to nuclear weapons at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, Fox host Sean Hannity, along with others in conservative media, downplayed the reporting, repeating Trump’s statement that “nuclear weapons, that issue is a hoax.”

And after it was reported that the FBI’s search proved to be fruitful, right-wing media still tried to leap to Trump’s defense.

On Fox News, host Laura Ingraham claimed, “And the issue of the nuclear capabilities of other countries, the CIA, I believe, has its own website that gives a lot of this information about — right?” Geraldo Rivera compared Trump's alleged crimes to “a library book that was overdue.”

INDICTMENT: Classified documents about U.S. nuclear programs were found at Mar-a-Lago

According to the indictment, included in the boxes of classified documents was information “regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries” and about “United States nuclear programs.” According to the Department of Justice: “The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods.”

DEFENSE: Everyone does it

Right-wing media have echoed Trump’s repeated claims that other presidents had also taken classified documents and suggested that Trump is being indicted only as a part of a “witch hunt” against him.

INDICTMENT: Trump’s actions were unique in that he willfully mishandled the documents

Trump’s claims about these specific former presidents have been debunked and while former Vice President Mike Pence and President Joe Biden found classified documents at their properties, they immediately returned them and have not faced any charges. The indictment shows a clear disparity, alleging that Trump “did willfully retain the documents,” knew he had the documents, and knew they were classified.

In the indictment, Trump is quoted as saying to a staffer that a document he showed was “secret information” and that “as president he could have declassified it” but now he can’t. Further, when subpoenaed to turn over the documents, Trump “endeavored to obstruct the FBI and grand jury investigation, and conceal his continued retention of classified documents,” the indictment alleges.

DEFENSE: Trump didn’t pack the boxes

Some right-wing media figures have claimed that the former president lacks culpability because he supposedly didn’t pack the boxes himself.

Fox’s Sean Duffy asked, “Do you think that he went through the boxes at Mar-a-Lago? Do you think he knows what he had in those boxes? I don’t think he did."

Former White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer made the same claim on Fox, saying, “If President Trump himself did not pack up those boxes — if, as reported, GSA, the General Services Administration packed up the boxes, then it’s very hard to see culpability for the president. And I have it on reliable authority that Donald Trump himself never opened those boxes in Mar-a-Lago and has no idea what’s in them.”

INDICTMENT: Trump himself packed boxes

According to the indictment, “In January 2021, as he was preparing to leave the White House, Trump and his White House staff, including [Trump aide Walt] Nauta, packed items, including some of Trump’s boxes.” The indictment added, “Trump was personally involved in this process.”

DEFENSE: Nobody knows the proper declassification procedure anyway

On his radio show, Hannity downplayed potential obstruction of justice charges against Trump, and said: “I would argue, legally, he doesn't have any obligation to cooperate with, and nor can anyone give a real definition of whether or not, you know, exactly how one president is supposed to declassify the materials anyway.”

INDICTMENT: Trump says on tape that he couldn't declassify documents after leaving office

The indictment reveals that Trump had knowledge of the proper declassification procedure. In an audio recording during a meeting he had with a writer and several other people, “Trump showed and described a ‘plan of attack’ that Trump said was prepared for him by the Department of Defense.”

Trump told them that the plan he was showing was “highly confidential” and “secret,” and said, “As president I could have declassified it,” but “now I can’t.”

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Lachlan Murdoch

They Knew It Was A Lie: Fox News Purposely Pushed Deception On 2020 Voting

A recent filing in the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox News reveals how much the network knew it was pushing false claims to its viewers in the aftermath of the 2020 election by suggesting that Dominion’s voting machines were involved in voter fraud.

In March 2021, Dominion filed a defamation suit against Fox for the false claims the network pushed after the election. Those false claims were extensive: In the two-week period after Fox News declared Joe Biden the president-elect, the network questioned the results of the election or pushed conspiracy theories about it almost 800 times, including by using Dominion as a scapegoat. Fox became an outlet that aired Trump campaign lies about Dominion voting machines getting hacked without any evidence.

For Dominion to prove defamation, the company must show that Fox acted with “actual malice,” meaning that Fox knew the allegations made about Dominion were false or that Fox acted in reckless disregard for the truth. On February 16, Dominion’s brief calling for a summary judgment in its favor was released to the public. As Dominion detailed in the filing, “literally dozens of people with editorial responsibility—from the top of the organization to the producers of specific shows to the hosts themselves—acted with actual malice.” Indeed, the filing shows “lies in twenty accused statements across six different shows with the active involvement of numerous Fox Executives.”

Here are some of the damning quotes from the filing showing how much Fox’s executives and employees knew they were lying about Dominion or the election at the time:

  • Fox star Tucker Carlson to his producer Alex Pfeiffer about Sidney Powell, one of Trump's campaign lawyers: “Powell is lying.” [11/16/20]
  • Host Laura Ingraham to Carlson and fellow host Sean Hannity: “Sidney Powell is a bit nuts. Sorry but she is.” [11/15/20]
  • Carlson to Ingraham: “Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane.” Ingraham replied: “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.” Carlson replied: “It’s unbelievably offensive to me. Our viewers are good people and they believe it.” [11/19/20]
  • Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch: “Really crazy stuff.” [11/19/20]
  • Murdoch after watching Giuliani and Powell on November 19, 2020: “Terrible stuff damaging everybody, I fear.” Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott replied, “Yes Sean [Hannity] and even [Jeanine] Pirro agrees.” [11/19/20]
  • Fox reporter Lucas Tomlinson to anchor Bret Baier: “It’s dangerously insane these conspiracy theories.” [12/1/2020]
  • Fox Politics Editor Chris Stirewalt on whether the allegation that Dominion rigged the election was true: “No reasonable person would have thought that.”
  • Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott responded “Yes, I believe that,” to the question “You believe, since at least the time that Fox News called the election on November 7th, that Joe Biden was legitimately elected the President of the United States, correct?”
  • As the filing outlined, Carlson texted a redacted name “that it was ‘shockingly reckless’ to claim that Dominion rigged the election ‘[i]f there’s no one inside the company willing to talk, or internal Dominion documents or copies of the software showing that they did it’ and ‘as you know there isn’t.’” [11/21/20]
  • Fox’s internal “fact checks” about Dominion allegations reported they were “incorrect” and “not evidence of widespread fraud.” [11/13/20; 11/20/20]
  • After canceling Pirro’s November 7 show, Fox executive David Clark told Executive Vice President of Primetime Programming Meade Cooper: “Her guests are all going to say the election is being stolen and if she pushes back at all it will just be token.”
  • Ingraham’s producer Tommy Firth texted Fox executive Ron Mitchell: “This dominion shit is going to give me a fucking aneurysm—as many times as I’ve told Laura it’s bs, she sees shit posters and trump tweeting about it.” [11/8/20]
  • Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott to Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch: “Viewers going through the 5 stages of grief. It’s a question of trust—the AZ [call] was damaging but we will highlight our stars and plant flags letting the viewers know we hear them and respect them.” Murdoch replied: “Yes. But needs constant rebuilding without any missteps.” Scott responded: “Yes today is day one and it’s a process.” [11/9/20]
  • Fox News Washington, D.C., Managing Editor Bill Sammon to Fox Political Editor Chris Stirewalt on the network’s coverage of “supposed election fraud”: “It’s remarkable how weak ratings make[] good journalists do bad things.” [12/2/20]
  • Carlson to Ingraham: Powell’s “a nut, as you said at the outset. It totally wrecked my weekend. Wow... I had to try to make the WH disavow her, which they obviously should have done long before.” Ingraham responded to Carlson: “No serious lawyer could believe what they were saying.” [11/22/20]
  • Rupert Murdoch told Scott to read a Wall Street Journal piece about Newsmax, telling her: “These people should be watched, if skeptically. Trump will concede eventually and we should concentrate on Georgia, helping any way we can. We don’t want to antagonize Trump further, but Giuliani taken with a large grain of salt. Everything at stake here.” [11/16/20]
  • Scott: “Privately, I had a number of conversations with Sean where he wanted the President to accept the results.”
  • After White House correspondent Kristen Fisher fact-checked Giuliani and Powell’s press conference, she received a call from her boss, Bryan Boughton, in which he “emphasized that higher-ups at Fox News were also unhappy with it,” and said that Fisher “needed to do a better job of…—this is a quote—‘respecting our audience.’” [11/19/20]
  • Fox Corp. Senior Vice President Raj Shah wrote: “shit is so crazy right now. so many people openly denying the obvious that Powell is clearly full of it.” Carlson’s producer Alex Pfeiffer replied: “She is a fucking nutcase.” [11/22/20]
  • Rupert Murdoch told Suzanne Scott, “It’s been suggested our prime time three should independently or together say something like ‘the election is over and Joe Biden won,’” and that such a statement “would go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election [was] stolen.” [1/5/21]
  • Carlson complained to Hannity about Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich, who “was ‘fact checking’ a tweet by Trump that mentioned Dominion—and specifically mentioned Hannity’s and Dobbs’ broadcasts that evening discussing Dominion” Carlson reportedly wrote: “Please get her fired. Seriously....What the fuck? I’m actually shocked...It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.” [11/12/20]
  • According to the filing, “Ingraham herself testified that she has no basis to believe Dominion committed election fraud by rigging the 2020 Presidential Election or that it is owned by a company founded in Venezuela to rig elections for Hugo Chavez (and agreed its ownership is ‘readily ascertainable’).”
  • Anchor Dana Perino also called the voter fraud allegations “total bs,” “insane,” and “nonsense.”
  • Powell sent an email to Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo about voter fraud claims that “Powell had received from a ‘source’ which the author herself describes as ‘pretty wackadoodle.’” According to the filing, “Bartiromo agreed at her deposition that this email was ‘nonsense’ … and inherently unreliable.”
  • As the filing laid out:
Each circumstantial factor cuts strongly in Dominion’s favor. But here, the words of multiple Fox employees provide overwhelming direct evidence of actual malice. In addition to the evidence cited above, the excerpts below feature just some of the additional examples showing Fox employees knew at the time that these claims—and the guests promoting them—were:
  • “ludicrous” –Tucker Carlson [11/20/20]
  • “totally off the rails” –Tucker Carlson [12/24/20]
  • “F’ing lunatics” –Sean Hannity [12/22/20]
  • “nuts” –Dana Perino [11/16/20]
  • “complete bs” –Producer John Fawcett to Lou Dobbs [11/27/20]
  • “kooky” –Maria Bartiromo, regarding email received from Powell [11/07/20]
  • “MIND BLOWINGLY NUTS” –Raj Shah, Fox Corporation SVP [11/21/20]

Fox knew that it was pushing lies about Dominion and the election, and the network continued to smear the company and spread conspiracy theories anyway.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

CPAC Meeting In Hungary Promotes Assault On Liberal Democracy

CPAC Meeting In Hungary Promotes Assault On Liberal Democracy

During a speech at the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference in Hungary, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called Fox News prime-time host Tucker Carlson his “friend” and told his audience that Carlson’s show should be “broadcasted day and night.”

Orban is a self-identified supporter of what he calls “illiberal” democracy and has rapidly consolidated power for his far-right party, Fidesz.

According to Orban, the secret to his political success was controlling the media, and he endorsed Carlson as the model to follow. “Have your own media,” said Orban, also noting: “Only friend Tucker Carlson places himself on the line without wavering.”

The nonprofit organization Reporters Without Borders has labeled Orban a “predator” to press freedom for his censoring of critics and his successful consolidation of previously independent media outlets under the control of friendly oligarchs. Fidesz now controls 80 percent of the country’s media landscape, and any remaining independent outlets are denied access to official government information and labeled “fake news.”

Carlson returned the strongman’s praise in his prerecorded keynote address, celebrating Hungary as a “signpost to a better way” for America, a dog whistle to Hungary’s racist, anti-immigrant politics.

Since his election in 2010, Orban has worked to silence free speech, banned LGBTQ content in schools, and enforced harsh immigration rules. Because of these policies, the nonprofit Freedom House downgraded the country from “free” to “partly free,” making it one of the least free countries in Europe.

Orban’s far-right politics are thinly veiled applications of the same “great replacement” conspiracy theory that has become front-page news in the United States. “Hungarians are an endangered species,” he said as he stoked fears over immigrants to curtail and prevent further immigration. In 2015, the country built a wall along its border with Serbia to keep out mostly Muslim asylum-seekers, whom he characterized as “invaders” and a threat to national security, Christian identity, and Hungarian society. (Orban’s smears of migrants should sound very familiar to anyone accustomed to Fox News’ portrayals of the southern U.S. border.)

Human Rights Watch described people in Hungary’s detention centers as being “kept in pens like animals, out in the sun without food and water, without any medical assistance." According to Vox, “this is all by design: Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said his goal is to discourage refugees from crossing into Hungary, even at the cost of treating them inhumanely.”

Orban’s “great replacement” rhetoric is uncannily similar to segments from Carlson’s prime-time show. In fact, Carlson’s video appearance at the convention comes on the heels of intense media focus regarding his role mainstreaming the great replacement theory in America, which motivated a shooter to massacre 10 people in Buffalo, New York, on May 14. His praise for Hungary under Orban’s leadership is just another example of his support for the racist theory.

Orban wants to turn this ideology into a movement, and he sees Carlson’s show as a model for right-wing media outlets. During his speech at CPAC, Orban urged conservatives in America and Europe to “find allies in one another and coordinate the movements of our troops” and to “take back the institutions in Washington and Brussels.”

Carlson seems eager to help in these efforts. He praised the country’s anti-immigration policies in 2019, saying that "Hungary's leaders actually care about making sure their own people thrive” and praised Hungary for “using tax dollars to uplift their own people” instead of “every illegal immigrant from the third world.”

Despite broad international criticism for Orban’s draconian policies, Fox News greenlit a special episode of Carlson’s show last year that broadcast from Budapest, during which Carlson proclaimed, “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 here right now.”

Republicans chose to hold CPAC in Orban’s Hungary, one of the world’s most repressive right-wing countries. By Orban’s own admission, a loyal media was key to his party’s takeover and overhaul of Hungary’s democracy. With midterm elections approaching, audiences should take Orban’s endorsement of his “friend” Tucker Carlson as a warning.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.