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viktor orban
How a Professional Bully Is Winning Control of the Media
Major media outlets from CBS to The Washington Post have “bent the knee” to President Trump’s specious demands.
Apr 25, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump is following the authoritarian’s handbook that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán used to consolidate power in Hungary. He is attacking the independent institutions that comprise the infrastructure supporting democracy—universities, law firms, culture, and the media.
And he is winning.
Major media outlets have “bent the knee” his press secretary’s preferred phrase for capitulation to Trump’s specious demands. His latest conquest is CBS.
CBS
Days before the 2024 election, Trump filed a frivolous lawsuit accusing the network of bias in broadcasting a “60 Minutes” interview of then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Seeking $10 billion in damages, the complaint claimed that the edited interview and associated programming were “partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference” intended to “mislead the public and attempt to tip the scales” in Harris’ favor.
Prominent First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams said that “the First Amendment was drafted to protect the press from just such litigation.” Harvard Law School Professor Rebecca Tushnet called it “ridiculous junk and should be mocked.” Attorney Charles Tobin warned, “This is a frivolous and dangerous attempt by a politician to control the news media.”
A few days later, Trump won the election. And now CBS’ parent company, Paramount, wants to settle the case.
Whatever money CBS pays Trump to settle his frivolous lawsuit is extortion.
Through her family’s holding company, Shari Redstone who is “friendly with Trump” is Paramount’s controlling shareholder. If the Federal Communications Commission approves its pending merger with Skydance Media, Redstone will reap millions.
On February 6, Redstone told the Paramount board that she wanted to settle Trump’s lawsuit. The next day, Trump doubled his damages claim to $20 billion. As the media reported Redstone’s desire to resolve the case, Trump pounced. On April 13, he asserted on social media that the FCC should impose “the maximum fine and punishment” on CBS and the network “should lose its license.”
The parties have agreed on a mediator, but whatever money CBS pays Trump to settle his frivolous lawsuit is extortion. The more profound cost is the loss of CBS’ journalistic independence, which became apparent on April 22 when the producer of “60 Minutes” resigned.
In the program’s 57-year history, Bill Owens—who became the “60 Minutes” executive producer in 2019 after 30 years at CBS—was only the third person to run it. Owens’s memo to his staff should be a warning to all of us:
“[O]ver the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for ‘60 Minutes,’ right for the audience.”
CBS wasn’t Trump’s first media victim.
The Washington Post
In early November 2024, The Washington Post editorial board had signed off on an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president. But it never ran. Owner Jeff Bezos personally killed it and, for the first time in decades, the paper did not endorse a U.S. presidential candidate.
A few hours after Bezos’s “no endorsement” decision became public, officials from his Blue Origin aerospace company, which has a multi-billion dollar contract with NASA, met with Trump.
After Trump won the election, Bezos flew to Mar-a-Lago where he and his fiancée dined with the president-elect. Shortly thereafter, Amazon donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. And another Bezos company—Amazon—paid $40 million to license a documentary about Melania Trump, who personally will receive $28 million.
On February 26, Bezos announced a new rightward shift for the Post: It would now advocate for “personal liberties and free markets” and not publish opposing viewpoints on those topics.
The paper’s opinion section editor, David Shipley, resigned in response to the change. Prominent columnists followed him out the door, and more than 250,000 readers canceled their subscriptions.
The Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times had an established record of presidential endorsements too—until 2024. Its 2020 endorsement of Joe Biden blasted Trump. But in 2024, billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong quashed an editorial that would have endorsed Vice President Harris. As at the Post, columnists and editorial board members resigned in protest, and the paper lost thousands of subscribers.
After the election, Soon-Shiong killed another editorial set to run with this headline: “Donald Trump’s cabinet choices are not normal. The Senate’s confirmation process should be.”
Self-censorship is the most effective, enduring, and dangerous method of abridging free speech.
More than one-half of Americans “often” or “sometimes” get their news from social media. One-third of all adults in the U.S. get their news from Facebook (operated by Meta). Meta’s president Mark Zuckerberg was among the billionaires who traveled to Mar-a-Lago after the election, met with Trump, and donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund. (With the help of corporate and billionaire megadonors like Zuckerberg and Bezos, Trump raised a record $239 million for the fund.)
Then Zuckerberg gave Trump a bigger gift: Meta abandoned third-party fact-checking of Facebook posts. As his rationale, Zuckerberg repeated Trump’s false talking points that fact-checking was “censorship” and reflected an “anti-Trump bias.”
Asked if he thought Zuckerberg was “directly responding to the threats” that Trump had made to him in the past, Trump answered: “Probably.”
Meanwhile, Meta invited Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White, a longtime Trump supporter, to join its board of directors.
PBS and NPR
On April 26, Trump will send Congress his request to halt all funding for public media—including NPR and PBS.
Viktor Orbán’s Playbook—The Trump Sequel
Since his return to power, Hungary’s prime minister has used “muscular state policy to achieve conservative ends,” according to conservative activist Christopher Rufo. Orbán is “attempting to rebuild its culture and institutions, from schools to universities to media.”
Orbán began “working with friendly oligarchs to purchase and transform media companies into conservative stalwarts; directing government advertising budgets to politically-aligned outlets;… and pressuring the holdover state media… to provide more favorable coverage.”
Rufo insists that Hungary “has a media environment at least as competitive as that of many Western nations.” Experienced observers disagree:
Human Rights Watch found that the government is using its near media monopoly to strengthen its hold on democratic institutions… The government’s increased control over the media market is linked to its broader assault on rule of law in Hungary, including undermining judicial independence and state capture of public institutions…
Trump’s attacks on universities, law firms, culture, and the media are all of a piece. Viktor Orbán’s Hungary provides a roadmap of his battle plan and a preview of his end game.
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ICC Demands Hungary Explain Why Netanyahu Wasn't Arrested During Visit
The head of Amnesty International in Europe said the court has done "what the E.U. should have: taken legal measures against Hungary for its failure to arrest a fugitive wanted for war crimes."
Apr 17, 2025
The International Criminal Court on Wednesday initiated proceedings against Hungary for failing to enforce the tribunal's arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his recent visit to the Central European nation.
The ICC is asking Hungary's far-right government to explain why it did not comply with its warrant for Netanyahu for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Such compliance is required under the Rome Statute, the treaty governing the ICC to which Hungary is signatory.
The tribunal's request cites Article 87 of the Rome Statute, which authorizes legal action against state parties who don't cooperate with the court, and gives Hungary until May 23 to respond.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said shortly before Netanyahu's visit that Hungary would quit the ICC. Not only did Hungary reject the arrest warrant, Orbán literally rolled out the red carpet to welcome his far-right counterpart in Budapest earlier this month, prompting rebuke from the ICC and human rights groups.
In May 2021, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan applied for warrants to apprehend Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for "crimes of causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, [and] deliberately targeting civilians in conflict."
Khan also sought warrants to arrest three Hamas leaders who have since been killed by Israel for alleged crimes committed during and after the October 7, 2023 attack, including "extermination, murder, taking of hostages, rape, and sexual assault in detention."
The full 18-judge ICC approved the warrants in November, prompting Republicans and dozens of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives to pass legislation to sanction tribunal officials. Democrats subsequently blocked the measure in the Senate. Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order imposing sanctions on the ICC, prompting an ACLU-led lawsuit.
Israel and allies including the United States have either openly flouted the ICC warrant or offered dubious legal reasons for sidestepping the arrest order.
Italy and France, for example, have granted Netanyahu immunity on the grounds that he is the head of state of a country that is not an ICC member.
Trump welcomed Netanyahu to the White House a month before the Budapest trip, though the U.S. is not a party to the Rome Statute.
Although Israel is not signatory to the Rome Statute, officials from non-state parties are still subject to ICC prosecution if they commit crimes inside nations that have ratified the treaty. Palestine became an ICC member in 2015.
Just two years ago France backed the ICC arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on Ukraine war crimes charges—even though Moscow has not signed the Rome Statute—arguing that "no one responsible for crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine, regardless of their status, should escape justice."
Last year, an ICC panel referred Mongolia to the court's oversight body after it failed to arrest Putin, who was warmly welcomed by Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh and other officials in Ulaanbaatar.
Luis Moreno Ocampo, who served as the ICC's first prosecutor,
told the Emirati newspaper The National on Wednesday that Netanyahu remains free thanks to the political influence of countries including the U.S. However, Ocampo said that "this protection is temporary" and accused Netanyahu of prolonging the Gaza war to delay his own domestic criminal corruption trial.
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ICC Rebukes Hungary for Refusing to Carry Out Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu
"Hungary should comply with its legal obligations as a party to the ICC and arrest Netanyahu if he sets foot in the country," said one human rights expert.
Apr 02, 2025
International human rights organizations joined the world's top war crimes tribunal in condemning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Hungary, expected to begin Wednesday evening—with the leader freely traveling to the European country without fear of being arrested under a warrant issued last year for Netanyahu's actions in Gaza.
Hungarian President Viktor Orbán said last year that he rejected the warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which directed member countries to arrest Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes they have committed in Gaza starting October 8, 2023.
Hungary's far-right president—who took control of his country's court system several years ago and has used it to further his own political goals, and who banned LGBTQ+ pride events last month—invited Netanyahu to visit Budapest, while his foreign minister called the warrants "shameful and absurd."
Fadi El Abdallah, a spokesperson for the ICC, said Wednesday that it is not up to ICC signatories to "unilaterally determine the soundness of the court's legal decisions," which member countries are legally obligated to follow, including by making arrests when a suspect who is subject to a warrant sets foot within their borders.
"Any dispute concerning the judicial functions of the court shall be settled by the decision of the court," said El Abdallah.
Orbán said in February that he would "review" Hungary's membership in the ICC after U.S. President Donald Trump approved the use of sanctions against ICC officials.
Al Jazeera reported that Hungary may announce its withdrawal from the ICC this week during Netayahu's visit, which is scheduled from Wednesday until April 6.
Liz Evenson, international justice director for Human Rights Watch, called Orbán's welcoming of Netanyahu "an affront to victims of serious crimes."
"Hungary should comply with its legal obligations as a party to the ICC and arrest Netanyahu if he sets foot in the country," said Evenson.
Western European countries including France, Italy, and Germany have also refused to carry out Netanyahu's arrest under the ICC warrant, with the French foreign ministry claiming the prime minister and Gallant have "immunities" because Israel does not recognize the authority of the ICC.
German Christian Democrats Leader Friedrich Merz said last month that he would "find ways and means for [Netanyahu] to visit Germany and also to be able to leave again without being arrested in Germany," adding that it was "a completely absurd idea that an Israeli prime minister cannot visit the Federal Republic of Germany."
Earlier this week, Erika Guevara-Rosas, the head of global research, advocacy, and policy at Amnesty International, said that every trip Netanyahu takes "to an ICC member state that does not end in his arrest" will embolden Israel " to commit further crimes against Palestinians" in Gaza and the West Bank.
"Netanyahu's visit to Hungary must not become a bellwether for the future of human rights in Europe," said Guevara-Rosas. "European and global leaders must end their shameful silence and inaction, and call on Hungary to arrest Netanyahu during a visit which would make a mockery of the suffering of Palestinian victims of Israel's genocide in Gaza, its war crimes in other parts of the occupied Palestinian territory, and its entrenched system of apartheid against all Palestinians whose rights it controls."
In the U.S., which like Israel does not recognize the ICC and which has backed the Israeli assault on Gaza, Netanyahu received a standing ovation last year when he addressed Congress—while progressive lawmakers protested his visit.
The alleged war crimes Netanyahu and Gallant have been accused of include intentionally attacking civilians and starving Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinian residents since Israel began its military assault on the enclave in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.
Anita Zsurzsán, an independent scholar based in Budapest, wrote at Jacobin on Wednesday that "liberal critics" of the Hungarian president are doing little to challenge Orbán for inviting Netanyahu to the country.
"It seems that the principle of 'never again' is routinely ignored in Hungary. Netanyahu's visit presents a historic opportunity for Hungarians to challenge Orbán on hosting a war criminal," said Zsurzsán. "But, instead of upholding international law and doing what is right, forces across the Hungarian political spectrum have opted for compliance and silence. As has often happened in Hungarian history, this risks leaving an indelible stain of acquiescence to fascism and genocide on our collective conscience."
"The fact that an internationally charged war criminal can walk free in Hungary with no resistance shows that the fascization of Hungarian society is continuing apace," she added.
Evenson called Orbán's decision to ignore the ICC warrant his "latest assault on the rule of law, adding to the country's dismal record on rights," and called on other ICC members to pressure Hungary to comply with the court's statutes.
"All ICC member countries need to make clear they expect Hungary to abide by its obligations to the court," said Evenson, "and that they will do the same."
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