Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is endangering Hungary’s position as a trusted NATO ally, the US ambassador in Budapest warned on Thursday, with “its close and growing relationship with Russia” and with “dangerously unhinged anti-American messages” in state-controlled media .

The ambassador, David Persman, has criticized Mr. Orbán for months for effectively siding with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia over the war in Ukraine, but his latest comments have sharply raised tensions and signaled a collapse in confidence in Hungary among NATO allies.

Hungary is “an ally that behaves like no other” and stands “alone when it comes to the defining issue of European security of the past quarter century, the Russian war in Ukraine,” Mr Pressman said in a speech in Budapest at occasion of the 25th anniversary of Hungary’s accession to the Western Military Alliance.

“We will have to decide how best to protect our security interests, which as allies should be our collective security interests,” he added.

The speech followed a visit last week by Mr. Orban, a darling of MAGA Republicans in the United States, to Donald J. Trump at the former president’s home and members-only club in Florida. After their meeting, Mr. Orban claimed in an interview with Hungarian state television that Mr. Trump had outlined to him a “fairly detailed plan” for ending the war in Ukraine, which would include an abrupt halt to U.S. aid to the embattled neighbor of Russia would entail.

Such a plan is closely aligned with what Mr Orban has advocated for the European Union – a suspension of all financial and military aid to Ukraine, and a policy of forcing the government in Kiev into immediate peace negotiations with Moscow.

That, Mr. Pressman said, “is not a proposal for peace; it is capitulation.”

The ambassador provided a detailed catalog of complaints about the ways in which Hungary had failed to fulfill its obligations as an ally. These include what he says is a refusal by Mr Orbán’s government to let American soldiers stationed in Hungary get license plates for their family cars, in violation of a defense cooperation agreement between the two countries.

“This speech is obviously not about license plates, but this issue is indicative of the current state of Hungary’s relations with its allies,” he said. “It’s about an administration that labels and treats the United States as an adversary while making policy choices that increasingly isolate it from friends and allies.”

During a visit to Iran last month, Hungary’s increasingly anti-American Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto denounced Mr. Pressman as “the leader of the Hungarian opposition” in an interview with the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.

Bashing Mr. Pressman and the Biden administration in general has become a fixture of Hungary’s relations with Washington, which has repeatedly accused Mr. Orbán of backsliding on democracy and the concerns of his allies to ignore.

“We must take seriously the security concerns raised by allies, and not use them as leverage to secure unrelated and parochial political objectives,” Mr. Pressman said at the Central European University in Budapest, an institution that moved most of his education to Vienna in neighboring Austria in 2018 under pressure from the Hungarian authorities.

NATO’s 1949 founding treaty contains no mechanism for expelling a member, leaving the decision on whether to join up to each member state. Opinion polls show strong support among Hungarians for joining the alliance, and Mr Orbán has insisted he has no desire to withdraw.

Some officials in the Baltic states, among Ukraine’s most ardent supporters, have raised questions about whether Hungary should be forced out of NATO, but U.S. officials and diplomats have never publicly raised that possibility.

Mr Pressman said “the legitimate security concerns – shared by Hungary’s 31 allies – cannot be ignored,” but he did not call for Hungary’s departure.

Responding to repeated Hungarian denunciations of President Biden and Mr Orban’s EU leaders as “warmongers” over their support for Ukraine, Mr Pressman said: “Hungarian policy is based on the fantasy that disarming Ukraine will stop Putin . History shows that this would do the opposite.”

While Hungary’s ties with Washington and most European capitals have frayed, the country has maintained warm relations not only with Russia, on which it depends for supplies of natural gas and help building a new nuclear power plant, but also with a major number of other authoritarian countries. including Belarus, China and Iran.

Hungary’s ties with Iran and China could undermine the calculation underlying its combative relations with the Biden administration — that Mr. Trump will win in November and usher in a new era of hostility toward Ukraine and friendship with Mr. Orban usher in.

“There is no one better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orban. He’s fantastic,” Trump said last week.

Mr Orban has been equally effusive in his praise for Mr Trump. “It is time for a new ‘Make America Great Again’ presidency in the United States,” he said said in his annual State of the Nation address last month in Budapest.

Mr. Pressman emphasized that United States policy transcends partisan politics, noting that the Trump administration had also objected to Hungary’s support for Moscow, especially its decision to admit an obscure Russian financial institution to stand, the International Investment Bank, which opens in Budapest with far-reaching diplomatic immunity.

Western security officials say the move enabled Russian espionage and money laundering. Hungary withdrew its support for the bank after the Biden administration imposed sanctions on the bank.

“While the Orban government may want to wait for the United States government, the United States will certainly not wait for the Orban government,” Mr. Pressman said. “While Hungary waits, we will act.”

The Republican National Committee on Friday selected new leaders hand-picked by former President Donald J. Trump, a move expected to strengthen the expected nominee’s grip on the party apparatus ahead of the general election.

The committee chose Michael Whatley, the chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party and the general counsel of the RNC, as chairman and Lara Trump, Mr. Trump’s daughter-in-law, as co-chairman.

Both Mr. Whatley and Mrs. Trump were endorsed by Mr. Trump last month after Ronna McDaniel, the committee’s leader since 2017, privately told the former president she planned to leave the position. Ms. McDaniel was for months the focus of intense pressure from inside and outside the Trump campaign to resign over the committee’s lackluster fundraising and criticism of Republicans’ 2022 performance.

Many of Mr. Trump’s allies also criticized Ms. McDaniel, whom Mr. Trump originally selected for the job, for not sufficiently supporting the former president. They cited her neutrality during the Republican primaries and her opposition to his attempt to cancel a series of debates in which he refused to participate.

The co-chairs will take control of the national party at a crucial time for Trump’s campaign, and their elevation is part of his larger effort to effectively merge the RNC with his campaign.

After dominating the Super Tuesday primaries, Trump’s last remaining rival, Nikki Haley, dropped out of the Republican race, effectively handing him the party’s nomination. Mr Trump is now focusing on the general election, and his campaign is expected to start fundraising in partnership with the party, allowing him to raise much larger sums and tap into the existing party apparatus.

At Friday’s meeting, the RNC voted to officially recognize him as the party’s presidential candidate, even though he has not yet locked up the delegates needed to clinch the nomination.

As part of the leadership overhaul, Chris LaCivita, one of Mr. Trump’s top campaign advisers, will be brought in as the national committee’s chief operating officer. He is expected to manage operations, strategy and spending while continuing to work with the Trump campaign.

As November approaches, raising money is expected to be a major priority for the committee’s new leadership. The commission is historically low on cash, reporting $8.7 million at the end of January. His Democratic counterpart reported he had $24 million, almost three times as much.

One outstanding question is whether the RNC will contribute to Trump’s mounting legal bills as he faces four criminal charges and two high-profile civil lawsuits. The party paid more than $1 million in legal fees in 2021 after Mr. Trump left the presidency and was investigated by officials in New York.

Mr. LaCivita told reporters in South Carolina last month that he did not expect the committee to pay Mr. Trump’s legal bills. But Lara Trump signaled a willingness to do so at a campaign event elsewhere in the state, saying Mr. Trump’s legal costs were a major concern for Republican voters.

“I think this is of great importance to people,” she said. “Absolute.”

A veteran RNC member from Mississippi, Henry Barbour, drafted a resolution that would have blocked the committee from paying Mr. Trump’s legal fees. But the proposal would not have been binding, and it failed to attract enough co-sponsors to be put to a vote.

Mr. Trump — who continues to make false claims of voter fraud as he faces criminal charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election — also told allies that he believed the RNC should spend more money on “election integrity.”

Mr. Whatley, the committee’s general counsel, has supported Mr. Trump’s false election claims. He has made baseless claims that Republicans’ security efforts in North Carolina prevented Democrats from denying Mr. Trump victory there in 2020.

Mrs. Trump has made clear that raising money will be a major focus for her, telling reporters in South Carolina last month that the RNC needed to have adequate resources to support what she calls its “election integrity” efforts, which in have taken place in recent cycles. included an aggressive legal strategy and a major surveillance operation, and backing candidates who align with Mr. Trump.

Her family ties to the former president, she said, would likely increase confidence in the RNC among potential donors concerned about the committee’s spending.

As a member of the Trump family, she said, “I can assure you that I am loyal to my father-in-law, and I will ensure that every cent is used appropriately.”

President Biden turned to an unlikely ally on Friday in his quest to build support for Ukraine’s war effort as U.S. aid falters. During a visit to the White House by Italy’s far-right prime minister, he declared that the two leaders “have each other’s backs” and “Ukraine supports.”

The warm tone, a marked departure from Mr. Biden’s assessment of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni when she was elected, extended to a number of foreign policy fronts as leaders sought to portray themselves as united on issues such as confronting of global migration and trying to prevent a wider war in the Middle East.

“As you said when we first met here at the Oval, Giorgia, that we support each other,” Mr. Biden said. “We do that, and you have shown that from the moment you took office.”

But Mr. Biden emphasized their unity in Kiev’s efforts to fend off an invasion from President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia, drawing a contrast with conservatives in Congress. “We also have the support of Ukraine,” Biden said. “That’s why I urge the House of Representatives to pass legislation” that would send billions of dollars to fund the war effort.

The meeting reinforced an all-out push by Mr. Biden to advance stalled military aid to Ukraine through a reluctant Congress. He called a meeting this week in which he tried to push Speaker Mike Johnson to allow a vote on aid. He has warned that the division over aid is a gift to Russia. And he has used meetings with European officials this year not only to ensure a united front against the Russian invasion but also to put pressure on Congress.

In Ms. Meloni, Mr. Biden has found a surprisingly kindred spirit.

The Italian prime minister said on Friday that as president of the Group of Seven Nations, she was focused on “defending freedom and building peace for Ukraine.”

After her election in 2022, Ms. Meloni has turned away from the most Russia-friendly elements of her coalition, and Italy recently agreed to sign a security deal with Ukraine to help Kiev’s defense industry.

Ms. Meloni’s embrace of Ms. Biden came as a surprise after he expressed concerns about democracy when she came to power. Her party, the Brothers of Italy, has roots in the neo-fascist factions that emerged after World War II. She drew comparisons to former President Donald J. Trump after addressing the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference in the United States.

“She comes from Europe’s far right, and her coalition includes influential voices that are far more pro-Russian and sympathetic to Putin than the European mainstream, yet she has bucked that trend and placed Italy firmly in the transatlantic camp committed to support to Ukraine,” said Charles A. Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Europe adviser to the National Security Council in the Obama administration.

While she has advanced other far-right causes in Italy, such as anti-LGBTQ policies, Mr. Biden seemed content to push those steps aside to find an ally on crucial issues in the area of foreign policy.

Ms. Meloni could also benefit from the global spotlight that comes with a visit to the Oval Office, Mr. Kupchan said, especially as she tries to convince her own voters of the importance of defending Ukraine.

“The domestic debate in Italy is, I would say, more skeptical about aid to Ukraine than in most other countries,” Mr. Kupchan said.

Ms. Meloni also stressed the need to discuss strategies to combat human trafficking that drives global migration, especially from North Africa. Mr. Biden has also recently made combating illegal migration a central focus of his administration. Just the day before his meeting with Ms. Meloni, he traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border to push Congress to make sweeping changes there.

Since this is a lawsuit, let’s start with the facts. Asaf Sternheim, who, like Penn, teaches writing at a university, is asked by a former student, Baron Prince, to endorse a manifesto. The manifesto seeks justice for Baron’s cousin, Deronte, who was killed by police officers while being apprehended for a theft he had nothing to do with.

Also relevant: Asaf (Josh Radnor) is a Jew, albeit the kind who, as he says, subscribes to the “acoustic guitar-based variety” of Judaism. Baron (Elijah Jones) is black, just like Deronte.

And one more thing: the 20-page manifesto, which links violence against black Americans to violence against all subjugated populations, calls for “sanctions against the apartheid state of Israel,” adding that “failures By doing so, the United States will become complicit in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.”

You could feel the “uh-oh” in the audience the night I saw “The Ally,” an important, maddening play by Itamar Moses which opened Tuesday at the Public Theater.

Words like “apartheid” and “genocide,” when applied to Israel and the Palestinians, are sure to startle many people. But challenging the use of those words will anger others just as much. Right in the middle is Asaph, who in the piece is then put through a tribal-political wringer that leaves him – and me – a limp tea towel.

Whether you think this is a good thing for a play may depend on your tolerance for endless, furious, yet familiar debate. There is no doubt that Moses, whose biography as the Berkeley-raised son of Israeli immigrants closely mirrors that of Asaph, knows the area and all its skirmishes inside out. It often seems that the arguments, from all sides, are taken from personal experiences or from the news.

Baron’s argument is initially the least problematic; the murder of his cousin is a glaring injustice. And as Asaf’s wife, Gwen (Joy Osmanski), notes, endorsing the manifesto will help her too. A university administrator charged with smoothing the campus expansion into a black neighborhood – as Penn has a history of doing – she knows that her husband’s signature will be viewed favorably there, at least compared to his refusal. Asaph signs.

But the decision to put aside his concerns about “apartheid” and “genocide” opens the door to further complications. Walking through that door are representatives of two student organizations: one Jewish (Madeline Weinstein) and one Palestinian (Michael Khalid Karadsheh). Together they seek Asaf’s support for a plan to bring a controversial speaker to campus. The speaker, whose views resemble those of Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, has called for a reconsideration of Israel’s foundational wars and subsequent wars. These wars, usually conceived as defensive, were in fact fought aggressively, he argues, “because the likely outcome was more territorial.”

Another uh-oh.

And so the provocations and groans continue for two hours and forty minutes, which could have been half or twice as long. Soon, Asaph is eviscerated by Reuven Fisher (Ben Rosenfield), a religious Jewish student who tears all the previous arguments to shreds, and, more substantially, by Nakia Clark, the black community organizer who published the manifesto in the first place wrote. No matter how Asaph writhes and moves, everyone, including his wife, finds him guilty of something.

That, admittedly, is the way many progressive Jews feel: unsure how to reconcile their status as part of an endangered minority with their support for others who feel the same way. Why, Asaf asks, does the manifesto envelop all these groups – Palestinians, black Americans, victims of colonialist oppression worldwide – in its protective arms, except one? Aren’t Jews, apart from Israel, precisely the victims of the kind of persecution and violence condemned in the document?

“I don’t believe,” Nakia (Cherise Boothe) finally answers, “that these two struggles are in fact the same struggle. And I don’t let myself be distracted from work.”

If that’s a less than politically satisfying answer, it’s even more dramatic. Nakia, it turns out, is Asaf’s ex, though it’s hard to imagine what they saw in each other, as she’s as unwavering in her positions as Asaf is wobbly in his. And though their scenes burn with an intensity that feels richer than any other in the play — Boothe is especially fearless in the role — the sodden underlay of personal history creates a kind of credibility hole beneath them.

Moses’ earlier works, including the delightful “Bach at Leipzig” and the moving book for “The band’s visit”, successfully combines ideas with plot and character. Here the ideas are so dominant that the plot feels like a Rube Goldberg device and the characters like chess pieces, each with only one type of move. Gwen steers Asaf forward in the direction that will best serve her administrative needs. The student leaders, with only the thinnest veneer of personality, exist only to entrap him. And Asaph himself is little more than a pawn, refusing to step forward. Without Radnor’s hangdog charm, this man of ambivalence, who is only comfortable when he’s in a bind, would be an unbearable caricature.

The production, directed by Lila Neugebauer, makes modest attempts to draw emotion from this, but does not go beyond tension, as the characters circle Asaf in various configurations on the largely empty Anspacher stage. As such, all we are left with is the debate to respond to, which in its irritating back and forth quickly becomes the dramatic equivalent of the how so condemn the characters. Especially since the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians on October 7, and the Israeli invasion of Gaza shortly afterwards – Moses wrote ‘The Ally’ before those events – we would like a play to be more than a play. Magic 8 ballwhich produces different answers depending on how you shake it.

That’s not to say that ‘The Ally’ is unsophisticated. On the contrary, it is almost too artful, delivering its eloquent arguments in clever pairs of impossible contradiction. If frustration and hopelessness were just feelings worth intensifying, it would win an award for its form-follows-function design.

But I felt the need for more wisdom than craftsmanship. (A feint at this, in the final scene, disappears.) What seems like the fear of making the wrong statement has prevented Moses, just as it prevents Asaph, from making a coherent statement at all. Except perhaps one, and that is not so small in a world of multiple but often superficial loyalties: the difficulty of recognizing the suffering of another group deeply enough to equate it with our own is something we all have in common, after all. to have.

The ally
Through March 24 at the Public Theater, Manhattan; publictheatre.org. Running time: 2 hours and 40 minutes.

Ahead of Michigan’s presidential primaries on Tuesday, President Biden has stayed out of the state, where he faces a campaign from liberal activists frustrated by his continued support for Israel in the Gaza war.

But another Democrat waded into the contentious debate and tore apart the party’s coalition.

Representative Ro Khanna of California last week took on the unofficial role of mediating between Democrats dissatisfied with Mr. Biden’s Middle East policies and Biden allies like himself. He met with students, Arab-American leaders and progressive voters, many of whom said they are withholding their support for Mr. Biden, at least for now.

He was blunt about his takeaway.

“We cannot win Michigan with a status quo policy,” Mr. Khanna, who has pushed for a ceasefire, said in an interview, adding that change would come in “a matter of weeks, not months.” should come.

“Every day that passes where we see the bombings of women and children on social media or cable news is not a good day for our party,” he said.

Mr Khanna’s assessment is the latest warning sign for Mr Biden about a swing state he narrowly won in 2020. The state is home to a large and increasingly disaffected Arab-American community, whose leaders have been pressuring the White House for months to call for a ceasefire in a war that has killed about 29,000 people in Gaza since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. In recent weeks, activists have begun urging Democrats to express their anger by marking their primary ballots as “not captured” rather than voting for Mr. Biden.

Biden last campaigned in the state early this month, when he spoke to members of the United Auto Workers union in Warren, Michigan, and faced protests from some pro-Palestinian activists. Vice President Kamala Harris also faced protesters last week when she came to discuss abortion policy at a round table in Grand Rapids, Michigan, far from the Detroit metropolitan area where much of the war-related discontent is concentrated.

A handful of other Democrats, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, stood in Michigan on behalf of the president this weekend.

Mr. Khanna, a four-term congressman who has sought to raise his national profile in recent years and who backed Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont for president in 2020, often serves as a surrogate for the Biden campaign and has popped up in New Hampshire and South Carolina will defend him ahead of the recent Democratic primaries. But he said his attendance at last week’s rallies in Michigan was in a personal capacity and not as a Biden surrogate — although the visit was approved by the Biden campaign.

Mr. Khanna answered questions about the war from students at the University of Michigan. He attended a rally to get corporate money out of politics along with Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, the only member of Michigan’s congressional delegation to support the “uncommitted” effort. And he met with elected and community leaders who withheld their support for Mr. Biden.

In public remarks and private conversations, Mr. Khanna said Democrats needed to better recognize the party’s changing base and concerns about the conflict, noting Michigan’s sizable young, black and Arab-American voters.

But whether he can actually push the president to change his policy on the war is unclear. Mr Biden has not called for a permanent ceasefire, even as he has said Israel must do more to prevent civilian casualties.

On Friday, the Biden administration reversed Trump-era policies on settlements in the occupied West Bank, as Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken called new settlements “contrary to international law.” That may not be enough to satisfy his opponents in Michigan, who said at rallies last weekend that restoring ties with the government would require at least a permanent ceasefire.

“There has to be a change in policy, and once we have the change in policy, then there has to be some time for healing,” Mr. Khanna acknowledged in a conversation with Mika’il Stewart Saadiq, an imam in Detroit. who supported Mr. Biden ahead of the 2020 primaries but planned to vote “uncommitted” on Tuesday.

“You have to give us something to campaign for,” Mr. Saadiq told Mr. Khanna, pointing to a call for a ceasefire and the recognition of a Palestinian state. Otherwise, he added, “we’re in trouble.”

At meetings, Mr. Khanna peppered attendees with questions about what they wanted out of the White House and what it would take for Mr. Biden to win Michigan. He met with leaders including Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud denied a meeting with Mr. Biden’s campaign manager last month.

Former Rep. Andy Levin of Michigan, another proponent of the “uncommitted” effort, saw a similarly grim picture for Democrats: This is reported by the Associated Presstelling Mr Khanna that if the election were to take place tomorrow, “it would be a disaster for the Democrats.”

Mr Khanna does not support the move to vote “uncommitted” – he said if he were a Michigan resident he would vote for Mr Biden. And he is not among those who say the campaign is only propelling former President Donald J. Trump to victory in the state, as the state’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, has proposed in recent days.

Mr. Trump won Michigan in 2016 by more than 10,000 votes, the amount of support backers of the “uncommitted” effort expect to receive on Tuesday.

“I admire people who use their rights as American citizens to cast their vote in a way that they believe will bring about policy change,” Mr. Khanna said.

Supporters of the “uncommitted” campaign reject the idea that they are helping elect a former president who campaigned on anti-Muslim rhetoric.

“It’s incredibly disrespectful when people say that the communities that have felt the impact of Donald Trump more than anyone else don’t understand the danger of Donald Trump — it’s actually the opposite,” said Democratic Majority Leader Abraham Aiyash. Michigan House of Representatives. , said after a discussion with Mr Khanna and another state representative, Ranjeev Puri.

“We absolutely understand,” he continued, “and I think the question then becomes posed to the White House: When a community tells you, ‘We know how dangerous Donald Trump is, but what you’re doing right now is a despicable case. moral failure’, then that has to resonate somehow.’

For some, Mr. Khanna’s presence demonstrated how Democrats supporting Mr. Biden could handle a backlash to his administration’s policies. Adam Lacasse, co-chairman of the College Democrats at the University of Michigan, said he was impressed by the way Mr. Khanna “reconciles supporting a ceasefire with supporting President Biden, because that is something that many students generally support. one or the other, but not both.”

Asked how he strikes the balance between supporting the president and acknowledging the concerns of his critics, Mr. Khanna told The New York Times that “the biggest thing I can do is help bring about change abroad.” policy, which I believe is what we need to win back these voters.”

Yet perhaps the meetings also served as a way for Mr. Khanna to boost his own image in a state of struggle: In conversations, Mr. Khanna often made points about his economic platform or the achievements he had brought to his district brought.

Mr Khanna was noncommittal about whether he had presidential ambitions himself. “Who knows what the future will bring?” he said. “What I would say, however, is that I will be one of the advocates for our party moving in a direction that recognizes the modern Democratic coalition.”

A snowballing scandal in Hungary over the pardon of a man convicted of covering up pedophilia in a children's home forced the third resignation in a week on Friday of a key political ally of the country's authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The departure of Zoltan Balog, a former minister, from the leadership of the Hungarian Reformed Church followed the resignation last weekend of Hungary's president, Katalin Novak, and Judit Varga, a former justice minister and a leading figure in Fidesz, the conservative Orbán's government. ruling party.

All three have been at the forefront of Mr Orban's efforts to present Hungary as a bastion of family values, committed to fending off what Fidesz vilifies as “woke globalists” who want to undermine Christianity and Hungarian sovereignty through LGBTQ -'propaganda' imported from outside. .

However, Hungary's carefully cultivated image as a safe zone for traditional values ​​suffered a damaging blow this month with revelations that a man pardoned last year had been convicted by the director of a state children's home in Bicske of covering up sexual abuse. , near Mr Orban's home village. The crime for which the man was convicted was not made public at the time of his pardon.

Orbán's party, which has won four elections in a row, will not face new elections in Hungary until 2026 and is therefore safely in power. But the scandal has seriously embarrassed the government – and strengthened the prime minister's opponents – ahead of June's European Parliament elections, which Mr Orban had hoped would help him become the leader of a pan- European conservative movement. Ms Varga, the former justice minister, was appointed by Fidesz to lead the European election campaign before her resignation.

The pardon of a man convicted of pressuring victims to withdraw sexual abuse complaints sparked widespread outrage, including among Fidesz supporters.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in central Budapest, the Hungarian capital, on Friday to express their anger over the affair and the government's hypocrisy. It was the largest protest in the city in years.

The fight against pedophilia, which is linked to restrictions on expressions by gays and transgender people in the Hungarian Child Protection Act of 2021, has been central to Orbán's political message for years. In November, his culture minister fired the director of the Hungarian National Museum for organizing a photo exhibition featuring a handful of images of men dressed in women's clothing.

Pressure on Mr Balog to resign as chairman of the Synod of the Reformed Church has steadily increased since the elections This was reported by the independent Hungarian news portal Direkt36 that he had lobbied the president to pardon the convicted deputy director of the children's home. Mr. Balog acknowledged earlier this week that he had supported a clemency petition, but denied submitting it and vowed not to resign.

On Friday, he announced that he was resigning for the sake of the church. “Forgive me for not being alert and careful enough and for not seeing the dangers that lurk in this pardon case for our country, our nation, our church and our president,” he told the synod of the Reformed Church.

Mr. Balog, an influential Calvinist bishop who has been close to Mr. Orban for decades, was instrumental in Fidesz's evolution into a deeply conservative and increasingly authoritarian political force from an anti-communist movement committed to tolerance and dominated by liberals in the world. late eighties. The party now embraces positions that align more with those of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia than with mainstream European opinion.

The furor is unlikely to loosen Orbán's tight grip on power, but it has seriously damaged his ability to control public opinion through a sprawling media machine controlled by and staunchly loyal to Fidesz.

Magyar Nemzet, a particularly zealous Fidesz-controlled media company, has largely ignored the pedophilia pardon scandal. It focused Friday on the attack on the U.S. ambassador to Hungary, David Pressman, who is gay and a favorite punching bag for government loyalists.

Orbán's chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, emphasized on Friday that the prime minister was not aware of the pardoned man's complicity in the pedophilia case and that he had only learned about it through the press.

Hungary's self-proclaimed role as a wall against liberal values ​​– and also against foreign migrants – has made the small Eastern European country an unlikely beacon for evangelical Christians and far-right Republicans, many of whom move from the United States to Budapest for a while every year to travel. meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference. Last year's meeting, held in a conference hall in Budapest, featured a sign declaring the venue a 'No Woke Zone'.

Barnabas Heincz contributed reporting from Budapest.