Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) bashed Fox News host Tucker Carlson\u2019s meeting with Hungary\u2019s power-grabbing Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n in a speech marking the 234th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution at Brigham Young University.<\/p>\n
The senator\u00a0 didn\u2019t called out Carlson by name in his speech Friday, but instead referred to him as a \u201cprominent TV pundit\u201d who\u00a0\u201ctraveled to Hungary to extol\u201d Hungary\u2019s hard-right prime minister \u201cas a model for us to emulate.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Carlson broadcast from Hungary last month while he was visiting the capital of Budapest, where he spoke at a right-wing conference.\u00a0 During an interview with Orb\u00e1n, Carlson praised his leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cOrb\u00e1n censors the media in his country, ignores the will of the people in elections, amasses wealth for himself and his cronies,\u201d Romney pointed out. \u201cHungary is ranked as one of the least free, least democratic, countries in the developed world. Hungary? A model for America?\u201d asked the incredulous senator.<\/p>\n
Romney brought up the Carlson-Orb\u00e1n connection as he warned his audience that democracy is at risk in America. He also slammed the Jan. 6 insurrection, which he said \u201cfollowed from\u201d then President Donald Trump\u2019s repeated lies that he won the 2020 election.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur resolve to follow the Constitution\u2019s path, avoiding the perils of authoritarianism … is wavering,\u201d he said. \u201cNo more stunning evidence of that was the attempt to prevent the lawful and constitutional transfer of power on January 6.\u201d<\/p>\n
It \u201cfollowed from\u201d Trump \u201cclaiming that the election had been stolen from him. His purported evidence spun from pillar to post, from counterfeit ballots imported from China, to stuffed ballot boxes, to dead voters, to voting machines manipulated from some far off place,\u201d Romney added.<\/p>\n
Romney was one of only seven GOP senators who voted to impeach Trump for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot because, he said in a statement, Trump \u201cincited the insurrection against Congress\u201d by urging his followers to march on the Capitol \u201cdespite the obvious and well known threats of violence that day.\u201d<\/p>\n