A Hungarian education foundation paid Dennis Prager $30,000 in public funds for two appearances during an August youth festival where he and Fox News host Tucker Carlson touted the country’s far-right stances on the media, immigration and LGBTQ issues, according to a contract obtained by Hatewatch. The Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) invited Prager, who hosts a popular talk radio show and co-founded the influential right-wing nonprofit PragerU, and Fox News host Tucker Carlson to give speeches praising Hungary’s far-right, Christian nationalist model as the savior of Western culture. PragerU is not a university. It hosts five-minute videos where hosts provide a right-wing explanation of controversial topics. Most hosts are establishment conservatives, but many videos feature extremist far right talking points, including anti-immigrant rants and anti-trans rhetoric.
Prager’s and Carlson’s appearances are part of a continuing effort by Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán “to take over, slightly soften and then mainstream extreme right messages to unite the right under his flag,” according to Bulcsú Hunyadi, head of the Radicalisation and Extremism Programme at Hungarian think tank Political Capital. Orbán and his ruling Fidesz party have led Hungary on a far-right populist platform since 2010. The government has gained near-total control over the media landscape. They banned LGBTQ teaching materials from Hungarian schools and mainstreamed conspiracy theories claiming that liberal Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros is funding deliberate efforts to change demographics of Western countries, a variation of the white nationalist narrative known as the “great replacement.” Hatewatch obtained the contract through a Hungarian public information request to MCC, which hosted the August event. MCC sent two $15,000 payments to Prager’s Kansas and Brooklyn Inc. One payment was for a roughly 30-minute speech, titled “Media and Free Speech” and another was for a 30-minute podcast appearance, “What kind of education is needed in the 21st Century,” according to the contract.
via splcenter: Hungary Paid Dennis Prager $30,000 for an Hour of Appearances at Far-Right ‘Education’ Conference