
We've partly won this communication battle," Fidesz MEP András László said in a video interview in early March posted on the Fidesz faction's YouTube channel. András László, who is little known to the average news consumer, has previously been involved in the Megafon group which serves propaganda purposes and had been appointed as the government commissioner for investigating the funds previously provided for Hungarian NGOs by USAID (United States Agency for International Development) just a few days before. The exact title he was given by the government was: commissioner responsible for "investigating funds for political corruption paid to Hungarian legal entities by USAID," which made it clear that the government's communications department wanted to turn the story into a tale of corruption, and at that point, it still seemed that the Trump administration would be a willing partner in this. Less than two months later, however, the story came to a dead end.
It fit with the campaign against George Soros
The fact that András László spoke of a "communications battle" clearly indicates that in the spring, the fuss over USAID was primarily meant to serve as Fidesz’ campaign tool. Although a special government commissioner was assigned to “investigate” USAID funds, it was only another component of the ideological war that Viktor Orbán has been waging for a long time. The core of this ideology is that there is a “global power elite” that opposes national interests, but only very few political actors are willing to stand up to this force. Such are Viktor Orbán, Fidesz, and organizations their vocabulary describes as patriotic parties.
In Orbán's perception of the world, Trump is also a patriot who dares to stand up to the global elite. According to this theory, Trump's victory forced this secret power to move its headquarters from Washington to Brussels, and now this is the place from where it is trying to gain political influence, for example by disbursing USAID funds.
Fidesz had good reason to be confident that this communication strategy of the government would be successful, because it was coherent: on the one hand, it fits in with the campaign against George Soros which reached its peak in 2017-18, and on the other hand, it can be easily applied to the policy that Fidesz is trying to sell under the banner of "sovereignty protection," which gained traction after Trump's victory. The latter meant that the opponent/enemy designated by the government no longer existed as a mere bogeyman, but as an actor who had to be targeted and neutralized by legal means. This may be the reason why Viktor Orbán went so far in his annual State of the Nation address February as to talk about a "spring cleaning", and threatened to neutralize NGOs that the government considers to be its opponents. Orbán announced that he would be sending a government commissioner to the United States to collect all available data and evidence on “pseudo NGOs” which are “serving foreign interests and are organizing political operations right under our noses.”
In his February speech, Orbán still believed that Trump's victory would turn the world upside down and that the ideology represented by Fidesz would become part of the mainstream. Thus, from Orbán's February perspective, it did not seem to be such a far-fetched goal to actually ban Pride or to completely undermine NGOs which also receive funds from abroad.
The American friend
The March statements of András László, appointed to police the USAID funds, suggested that Orbán and his allies truly trusted their American friends. In the aforementioned video interview posted on the Fidesz faction's website, the government commissioner envisioned an American-Hungarian cooperation. He said that with the help of the new US administration, the Hungarian government would be able to get to the bottom of how the previous US administration had influenced Hungary's domestic politics. In this interview, László made no secret of the fact that this time the government wanted to take action against NGOs. He also noted that the government had already tried to do this around 2017, but at that time the EU had thwarted their efforts. However, with the new Trump administration, this obstacle has now been removed.
At that time, the government commissioner still had reason to be optimistic. When Donald Trump was inaugurated on January 20, he signed an executive order suspending all foreign aid for 90 days. This is how much time he had allocated for the administration to examine whether these aid programs were truly serving America's interests. The executive order stated: “United States foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and are in many cases antithetical to American values. They serve to destabilize world peace by promoting ideas in foreign countries that are directly inverse to harmonious and stable relations internal to and among countries.”
On February 2, Trump justified the suspension of USAID by saying that it was run by "radical lunatics." The next day, he praised Elon Musk's work and efforts to dismantle USAID, claiming that the agency had – among other things – spent $100 million on condoms for Hamas—which was fake news, by the way. At the time, the president said that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had found "tremendous waste" at USAID. The president's words seemed to imply that fraud and misuse were also involved. These were the statements that the Hungarian government was able to present at home as a huge corruption scandal extending all the way to Hungary.
“I want to get to the bottom of these interventions as soon as possible.”
On 27 February, the day of his appointment, András László posted a video in which he argued that America was experiencing the biggest corruption scandal in its history, and that it had been revealed that USAID was the oppressive machinery of the left-wing, globalist elite.
According to him, the new US administration has rebelled against the globalist machinery and is continuously exposing left-wing interference projects. It was at this point that László announced that he would be approaching the US leadership with a view to establishing cooperation in the interests of both sides in exposing the global system of corruption. He said he would find out who had received money and how much from USAID.
In this video, the government commissioner promised to regularly update the public on his work.
The next day, László appeared on Hír TV to talk about his new role and the USAID affair. In early March, he posted that it was of "vital interest" to find out how much money had been received by the organizations in question. On the same day, he posted a photo with Tamás Lánczi, head of the Sovereignty Protection Office, in which they are shown "reviewing" the history of “corrupt foreign political interference.”

A day later, László reported that he had visited the US State Department, where he had met with Peter Marocco, the director responsible for foreign aid, to discuss the USAID issue. According to László, Marocco promised complete transparency not only in relation to projects in Hungary, but also in relation to all USAID projects.
"I informed him that, according to our information, the value of the publicly disclosed interference in Hungary over the past four years amounted to at least USD 20.2 million (nearly HUF 8 billion), and that in preparation for next year's elections, I want to get to the bottom of this matter as soon as possible so that we can take the necessary steps in the interests of Hungary's sovereignty," the government commissioner wrote, adding that he had asked Morocco for cooperation. "I presented him with a number of questions regarding corruption cases in Hungary, which we will discuss again soon," László wrote about the meeting, and shortly afterwards he also appeared on the Bayer Show (a talk show of a government pundit -TN) to talk about the same topic.
On March 10, László was pleased to announce that the US administration was closing 83 percent of USAID programs, with the remaining programs being merged into the US State Department, after which the organization would cease to exist. However, as for his original task, or more precisely, its outcome, László only said at the time that he was continuing consultations with the Americans "All the tentacles must be chopped off!" he wrote, and then gave an interview to pro-government Mandiner. Here he repeated practically the same things he had said before, spicing up the interview with statements such as the claim that the Americans had "recruited thousands of journalists." When asked when and in what form the results of his work would be available, he said he would be preparing a report on the functioning of the system of corruption and the extent of foreign interference in Hungary as soon as possible. "Establishing a good relationship with the American side could be of great help in this," he said.
“The American representatives seemed open to cooperation.”
On 13 March, he proudly announced from the US that he had held talks with members of Congress on the subject of USAID. At the time, he said that the reason for his meeting with congressional representatives was that, although he had already been to the US State Department, Congress had set up a subcommittee to investigate the spending of the previous US administration. In his announcement, László also added that US representatives had appeared open to cooperation.
Orbán and his team were on a roll in March. So much so that on March 15, the Prime Minister added fuel to the fire when, in his speech delivered on the national holiday, he compared NGOs critical of the government, independent journalists, the judges protesting for the independence of the judiciary, and opposition politicians – all of whom Fidesz claims are funded from abroad – to "bugs that have made it through winter" and announced the elimination of the mysterious shadow army.
At the end of March, András László checked in from Brussels and announced that after the American funds, he would also be investigating the money Brussels' spent on NGOs, but even then it was not clear what he had actually found out about the USAID funds during his work.
April went by with László saying almost nothing about the USAID funds, and we didn't learn anything more about the US-Hungarian cooperation. Instead, he was busy posting about Péter Magyar, the Tisza Party, Brussels, and Pride. To be fair, at the end of the month, he praised the US president and, speaking from his personal experience in the US, said: “Across the ocean, they really appreciate the struggle we Hungarians are waging to ensure that politics based on common sense prevails in the Western world.”
A bad omen for the Hungarians
The reason behind the lack of action in April remains unclear, but it was during that month that Peter Marocco, who had welcomed András László to the United States in March, left the State Department. As Trump's representative, Marocco, who had a good relationship with Elon Musk, played a key role in the significant downsizing of USAID. However, it may have been a bad sign for Hungarians that Marocco did not leave the State Department of his own accord.

May also failed to bring any breakthroughs in András László's efforts. At the beginning of May, the government commissioner spoke about how the NGO funding scandal had reached the EU and that, in his opinion, the "hidden political lobbies" must be ended. Then on May 6, Viktor Orbán connected the matter of USAID to the transparency bill that was already in the works. At a public forum in Ráckeve, the Prime Minister said that a transparency law was being drafted, aiming to prevent the operation of "the manifestations of USAID" in Hungary. According to Orbán, the bill was submitted by Fidesz-KDNP representatives in order to “bring organizations that are financed from abroad and call themselves NGOs under control.”
On 10 May, András László "revealed" which American organisation had provided financial support to Telex – although this did not require particularly extensive research, as it was public information that our paper had already disclosed. Four days later, Fidesz MP János Halász submitted the transparency bill, and on May 16, András László argued in favor of the bill in a post. However, even then, there was still nothing revealed about the results of his investigation into the use of USAID funds as government commissioner.
Then came May 17, when it became clear that the Americans had ditched András László.
The Americans became uncertain and hesitant
This was the day Reuters reported that Trump administration officials had not provided him with the information he had requested because they feared that Viktor Orbán would use it to attack independent media and NGOs. Instead, their proposal to András László was that Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó should contact the US Secretary of State so they can hold official talks.
The US State Department confirmed that a meeting had indeed taken place between András László and US officials, including a senior USAID official, and that the meeting had been initiated by the Hungarian side. Speaking to Reuters, András László said that certain Hungarian organizations that had received USAID funding were "very political in nature and have a major influence on Hungarian political life." He claimed that his investigation was not directed against their opponents, but that they simply wanted to "cleanse Hungarian politics of foreign influence."
He also said that the talks were private, but admitted that the Americans were "uncertain and hesitant" when they heard the requests from the Hungarian side. So, the real picture was not at all as László had previously described it in his social media posts and videos about US cooperation.
Following the publication of the Reuters article, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to Telex's questions about András László's unsuccessful efforts by saying only that the investigation into USAID's operations was still ongoing and that they were awaiting the results.
Although there are no known results, at the end of May, András László said in a social media post that they are grateful to Trump, who had dealt a huge blow to the global left-wing network by suspending USAID funding. Then, in early June, in an unexpected turn of events, the government and Fidesz announced that they were postponing the vote on the bill officially known as the transparency bill until the fall.
As for András László, he posted his latest video about USAID in July. In it, he happily announced that the US administration had shut down the organization. Except that it had already been known since March that USAID was going to be shut down, and László had already reported on this on his social media page, so selling it as a victory is not a particularly impressive feat.
We sent questions to both András László and the Government Information Center (KTK) to find out what else can be expected in this regard, what can be known about the government commissioner's current activities, and when the report on USAID that he promised can be expected. Neither the KTK nor András László has responded to our inquiry so far.
For more quick, accurate and impartial news from and about Hungary, subscribe to the Telex English newsletter!