In a live introduction and speech at the Media Council Conference in Budapest, Tucker Carlson opens with light remarks about Hungarian food and his nostalgic comparison of contemporary Hungary to America circa 1985, emphasizing a perceived normalcy of public discourse. He then pivots to a forceful condemnation of U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, labeling Pressman's actions as "disgusting" and "inexcusable" and arguing that they betray diplomatic norms. Carlson outlines his own understanding of diplomacy—its purpose to persuade other nations, respect cultural differences, and avoid coercive cultural lecturing. He asserts that Pressman, a political activist and Biden donor, is using the ambassadorial platform to advance a narrow interest‑group agenda (the Human Rights Campaign) rather than U.S. national interests, thereby harming America’s reputation. Carlson frames this conduct as unprecedented, contrary to traditional State Department practice, and calls for Pressman's recall.
Chapters
Yes! Again, I ask you, are you ready? Yes! The person who is going to come to the stage doesn't need a lot of introduction. A person coming from San Francisco, a person asking a lot of questions from various controversial people, asking controversial questions. He's been to Hungary before and now he's here again. And just to give you a quick overview how this panel is going to look like, first you're going to hear the thoughts of a man and afterwards you will hear a moderated discussion. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Tucker Carlson on the stage. Thank you.
Does this work? Oh, it works. Thank you for having me. I'm gonna be sweating like an animal in just a minute, so catch me at the beginning, uh, when I'm dry. It is so nice to be in this retrograde right-wing hellscape. This is my second time in Hungary, and both times I've had exactly the same reaction. First, Well, the first reaction, if I'm being honest, is the food is amazing.
Yeah.
The second reaction is I have no hope in this lifetime of speaking Hungarian, but I admire it. And the third reaction is this does not seem like a right-wing hellscape to me at all. It actually seems very much like the country that I grew up in. It seems like America circa 1985. Yeah. You know, where there's a big bulk of normal people who aren't that interested in politics, and you have people on both sides who are each making their case and There's a vigorous public discussion about that, and people disagree, but they're not on the verge of shooting each other. Yeah. It's all kind of normal. That's the way it seems to me. So if this qualifies as a dangerous rogue right-wing country, I'm thinking maybe the terms have changed a little bit since my childhood. And that leads me to the apology that I want to begin my remarks by giving you as an American. I'm 54, so I've I've watched my country for a long time, and I'm loyal to it. I will never leave. I don't have another passport. I love the United States for all its flaws, as you do when you're from somewhere. It's like your own family. It's imperfect, but it's yours, and so you love it. And that's how I feel about the U.S. And so I'm not in the habit of apologizing for the United States. In fact, I don't think I ever have. But the behavior of the American ambassador to Hungary makes me. Yeah! It's disgusting and inexcusable. It's also so far from the norms of diplomacy in my country that it's hard for me to believe that David Pressman is actually doing what he's doing. And I say that as someone who spent his life, 35 years, in Washington. I'm the son of a diplomat, so I have a maybe better than average sense of what diplomacy is. Diplomacy is a pretty simple concept. It's the business of, often the art of, convincing other countries to take your side on matters that help you. And the entire premise behind diplomacy is countries are different. They're not all the same. They have different languages and histories and religions and cultures, and they're hard to understand. And that's why you hire people who can understand them, who speak the language who are on some level sympathetic, maybe. And then you send those people to the other country to try to convince that country, whether it's an ally or a potential ally or even an enemy, to take your side on an issue that helps you. That's the whole point of diplomacy, is to convince other nations to take your side. The point of diplomacy is not to hector other nations for its own sake. Absolutely. to show up in somebody else's country and scream at them because they're different from you, because they have a different history or language or religion or culture. That is the opposite of diplomacy. It does not serve the interests of the country that sent you. It harms them. And so for a creep like David Pressman, who is not a diplomat, who's a political activist and Biden donor, to show up in your country and lecture you about your culture and threaten you because you do things differently from the way they do things where he lives, Hurts the United States and is a grave embarrassment to me as an American and an outrage to me as someone who pays his salary. It's disgusting. Yeah. And I would say that— I would say that even if I agreed with what he was saying, it's not simply that I agree with you and don't agree with David Pressley. It's that as an American, he's not serving my interests. He's hurting them. If he showed up or a so-called diplomat from the Biden administration showed up and say Bahrain or Qatar or UAE or some important Gulf state and started lecturing them about how it's wrong to venerate a seventh century goat herder, I'm not a Muslim, but I would be gravely offended by that because it's not the business of the U.S. government what you believe. It's not our job to tear down and assault your culture. It's the job of our diplomats to win you to our side, not to enrage you for no reason. And David Pressman is doing this not on behalf of the American people, who do not share his views, and it's measurable in our public opinion polling. He's doing it on behalf of a tiny percentage of the American population, on behalf of an interest group, the Human Rights Campaign, carrying their water. under the U.S. flag, paid by U.S. taxpayers to this country to attack you because you have views he doesn't like. That never happened before. I don't think that's happened in my lifetime. Nobody from the State Department could get away with that. He'd be recalled immediately and scolded and fired, as David Pressman should be.
Absolutely.
Absolutely. So I just want to say I'm embarrassed. that I share a country of birth with a man, with a villain like this. It's horrifying. And my advice, to the extent I would presume to give you advice on how to handle this, is just wait it out. Wait it out. The United States is in a place right now where this is not sustainable. You can't run a global empire based on the imposition of boutique sexual politics on countries that don't want them. The United States, I think, did a lot to liberate Hungary.
